Picture Play Magazine (Sep 1927 - Feb 1928)

56 Manhattan Medley Photo by Melbourne Spuir Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. , has the exuberant spirits of his father. vard, but Fort Lee in the days when the trip across the prehistoric ferry was as much a problem to the impecunious extra in search, of a job, as it was a hardship to at least half of the stars who are on the Coast to-day. The book is a dramatic and humorous picture of that less opulent period, and for this reason is perhaps more intimate and revealing than the movie stories that have preceded it. Best of all, it neither satii"izes nor patronizes the screen, but acknowledges its dignity and ideals. Virginia Tracy, who is known to readers of Picture Play, is the author. Margaret Livingston came to New York for a holiday, and thus we met the little Mormon actress with the hazel eyes and mop of brilliant red hair. She has that abundant enthusiasm, energy, and freshness which we associate with the Western girl, and possesses as well a keen, well-balanced brain and plenty of pluck. Just after the war she ran away from home and started a career on the screen lots of hard times, she will tell you, but the difficulties were not so much in getting started, as getting what she really wanted after she got started. "Somehow or other — good luck mostly — I always managed to get a contract. It seems wonderful, but it doesn't mean much if you fail to get the roles best suited to you. 'Tt isn't only the money in pictures, you know. It is a matter of pride, too. You see girls who started with you forging ahead, and you want to do the same thing whether you are collecting a regular salary or not. "It has been my idea to play the sophisticated vamp, not the obvious variety we are familiar with in pictures, but the peppy, lively girl who lives by her wits and relies on them to get her out of tight places. Girls of this kind do not hurl things in wives' faces or leer at gentlemen. They try to avoid scenes instead of causing them. Their methods of attracting masculine attention are far more subtle than the crude devices which many films illustrate. "I have been drawing my pay check regularly, but I want more than that. I want to get my chance, my real chance. I suppose, after all the time I have been in pictures, I should be discouraged, but I am not. I can never rid myself of the conviction that the real break is just around the corner. That is the true trouper's spirit. It is the spirit of pictures, too. Every one has faith that his turn will come to play a congenial role in a really good picture. "Something Thomas Ince told me has stuck in my mind. I was fooling on the lot. I always do. 'When you are yourself,' said Mr. Ince, you are great. But why on earth don't you put that individuality and personality into your work?' "I explained that directors wouldn't let me, that they had their own ideas and always insisted on utilizing them. " 'Don't wait for the director,' said Mr. Ince. 'Think up your own business. Put it in, and. you'll find that the director will be gi^atly relieved to discover that he has an individuality and riot an automaton to work with.' "Man}^ directors, of course, will not permit this. This is one reason that I have so much enjoyed playing in quickies. They conform to no rules or regulations. One works about eighteen hours a day, but the funny part of it is you like it. The director is so rushed that he doesn't care what you do. You are not even given time to arrange your hair, or powder your make-up. The picture is made like a flash. The director is delighted if you have ideas, and far from curbing you, he encourages you to do your stuff. That means he can give his mind to something else, and attend to the hundred and one details that he has to cover in a few days, in order to finish on schedule and not exceed his budget. That is the one object — to keep within the budget. "I enjoyed tremendously playing the little part I have in 'Sunrise,' because Mr. Murnau is such a wonderful director. He gets the maximum from even a tiny role such as mine. I don't mind small roles, if they have character. I have taken everything that came Continued on page 114 photo by Florence Vandamm Flobelle Fairbanks sailed away to make a picture in England. There were