Picture-Play Magazine (Sep 1928 - Feb 1929)

104 Far Away and Long Ago Continued from page 87 calf. She expected to "shoo" away easily what she thought were longnecked chickens in her path. But the geese refused to be "shooed," and started for her with wings aflap and hisses from their open beaks. Howling at the top of her voice, Joby sought refuge on a fence. Her mother took advantage of this fear to inculcate in her young mind that a goose feather meant as much as a real gander. Leading from the rear porch to an upper story was a long flight of stairs, and her mother was fearful that Joby would tumble down them. So she stuck two feathers at the top, and two feathers at the bottom, and Joby vows she was ten years old before she ever ascended those steps. To be chosen as a fairy in a kindergarten entertainment — what more could a child ask? Mary Brian was elated. She would dance with wand in hand and glittering star on her head. She had rehearsed and knew her steps. Alas, when she suddenly looked down and saw all those faces she got stage fright, and stood still and wailed in a very loud voice until some one picked her up and carried her out. A Swiss music-box was the first thing which greatly concerned Billie Dove. A monkey being invariably associated in her mind with the organ-grinder's music, she did her best to wreck the box and find the "monkey" inside. This isn't a first memory, but it is a poignant one. Marian Nixon's childhood urge for a stage career was not approved by her parents. At twelve she had saved enough out of her allowance to pay for dancing lessons. Without her parents' knowledge she studied, and danced at afternoon home affairs, earning the money for her ballet costume and slippers. Her teacher offered an opportunity to dance in a theater prologue. The first night of the engagement she reached home at eleven o'clock, carrying her costume and slippers, intending to sneak in. Her parents were awaiting her, however, and tossed the dancing finery into the fire. Richard Arlen's first prank was dropping a bullfrog down the neck of an old negro, who had imbued him with a fear of frogs until the boys, after gibing Dick, taught him they were not dangerous. Uncle Ben disappeared in a cloud of dust, and Richard had a session with dad in the woodshed. The most vivid memory of Dolores Costello's childhood was a visit to the Royal Zoological Gardens in Bombay, India, as the guest of a rajah. She and Helene drank tea for the first time that afternoon and met a bear cub. "My first memory is of a great monster swooping down upon me, snorting like a dragon, with smoke curling from it," Betty Bronson laughed. "I could not stop crying, even when my mother told me this was the train that I had heard about and had longed to ride on." Among the toys about a Christmas tree was a wonderful doll. It was Alice White's first, and Alice held it tightly. Her mother demanding that Alice give up the doll as punishment for some infraction of family rules, she ran panic-stricken into the back yard and, unable to find a hiding place, buried the doll in some newly spaded ground. Only after two days of threats and persuasion would she tell where she had put the doll. "My first memory isn't dramatic, because it was a scene often repeated, much to my annoyance," Vera Reynolds smiled. "Father would come in and always greet me with the same remark, 'Pick those things up.' " Elinor Fair recalls old "Uncle" Johnnie Frymeyer and his little store up a hill near their home in Richmond, Virginia, and how she used to run away up there, and Uncle Johnnie would give her stick candy. And as soon as she got the candy, father would happen along and take it away from her. "My grandfather did not trust automobiles, so he had mother drive me around in an old-fashioned phaeton," Dorothy Dwan reminisced. "On my third birthday, grandfather set me on the horse's back to watch it eat out of the square feed-box." The absences of Blanche Mehaffey's graceful, lovely mother on concert engagements were dull times. But there was the fun of her returns, and the gift of a pet if Blanche had been a good girl. It was a source of wonder to her how her mother knew so much about her behavior. Once, when she had been exceptionally proper, the reward was a long, slim box, out of which wriggled a mysterious thing — a baby alligator. It frightened her, but they soon became friends. Dorothy Mackaill's first impression was the spectacle and glamour of a circus — followed by three days' illness from too much pink lemonade. Running a nail in his foot while at play is Jack Mulhall's first, and most poignant, recollection. The threeyear-old set up quite a clamor and it required many solicitous relatives to soothe him. At four, Arthur Stone was occupied with pounding on a new drum, when he discovered that a red-hot poker from the fireplace would burn large holes in the calfskin head of the drum. On summer evenings during her childhood Florence Vidor was taken for a walk on the main road of the small Texas town, and always passed a negro church whence emanated weird chants and yells. She believed that dragons must inhabit the building> v . I have often noticed the preference of Bess Meredyth, the scenarist, for blue. Perhaps this explains it : When she was three, having learned to recognize blue by a frock she particularly liked, she suddenly discovered that away up overhead was something all blue. Her mother explained that it was the sky, and that the sky had different dresses to wear, just as she had, but that blue was its favorite, too. Thus the stars reminisce. And Now the Deluge! Continued from page 26 "Noah's Ark" will be distinctive, by reason of the fact that its "atmosphere" players will be drawn from every corner of the globe. These will be the birds, beasts, and reptiles. While it would be impossible, of course, to obtain and photograph every creature which existed, arrangements were made to picture more than five hundred pairs — a male and female of each species, as de scribed in the modern Bible. These will include specimens of nearly every species now in captivity, and all domestic animals, together with birds, some of which seldom have been seen. This was the picture conceived in a room, high above Broadway, in New York, on a rainy afternoon two years ago. It will carry its biblical lesson, and, while not entirely religious in vein, will likely assume a niche by the side of "The Ten Commandments," and "The King of Kings," as a biblical production. Its cost will run well over a million dollars and, in its production, every camera trick and improvement will be employed. "Noah's Ark" is expected by its producers to be a sensation.