Picture-Play Magazine (Sep 1928 - Feb 1929)

87 Faced Oblivion Joseph W. Kaye Photo by Eichee Richard Arlen capitalized on an accident— successfully. paper work, and the oil fields. The idea of becoming" an actor had formed a sort of background to all these activities, becoming more pronounced as he changed from one to the other. In Hollywood his problem was how to make the twentytwo dollars last until something turned up, and with fine executive ability he made it last at the rate of fourteen cents a day. He made ceaseless rounds of the studios, without success, until he got a job — but it was not acting. He was hired as handy man around the Paramount film laboratory. One of his jobs was making deliveries on a motor cycle. It happened that a smash-up occurred, and Arlen was taken into the studio hospital with a broken le°" Here the young man desperately determined to capitalize the accident and play on the sympathy of any one of importance who dropped into the hospital. One day there came in the casting director, and Arlen told his story, the story of how an ambitious youth had come to carve his way in pictures and had his leg broken in menial work instead. The director sympathized and promised him work as an extra when he was out of the hospital.' This promise was kept. Arlen thought the gates of paradise were now opened for him, but for a long time all he did was to play one extra part after another until alriiost all the glamour and enthusiasm had vanished from his vision. He was elevated to small roles and knocked about here and there, with so little progress that eventually he became so disappointed, so disillusioned, so discouraged that he decided to go into some other profession. But each time he was on the point of giving up, he told himself he would stick it out a little longer, and at last he was rewarded. Still playing without any distinction, and still hoping to be allowed to play the parts he felt himself fitted for, he applied for one of the minor roles in "Old Ironsides." James Cruze selected him from other applicants, and he Photo by SpunEvelyn Brent suffered under the stigma of being a small-time player. Photo by Freulich Public opinion was against Mary Nolan, but she swung it around to her favor. shone in the less-than-magnificent part of a sublieutenant. His work finished, he wandered back to the studio, and was given a test for the role of David Armstrong, in "Wings." Nearly every other juvenile in Hollywood had been tested for this role, but Arlen got it, partly because he had happened to be an air pilot in the war, and could therefore play the part with technical expertness. It was his work in this picture that finally brought him the recognition he had almost despaired of ever obtaining. Evelyn Brent has been in pictures for some time. But it is only within the last year or so that she has attracted widespread notice. She plugged along from one insignificant part to another, and could not shake off the stamp of the small-time player that seemed to stick to her. Once her sky brightened. Douglas Fairbanks engaged her to play opposite him in "Monsieur Beaucaire." Now, she thought, her troubles were over. But for seven months she waited with yearning patience for that role to materialize, and finally it petered out to nothingness. There was mix-up over the rights to the Booth Tarkington story, and it was Valentino who got them in the end, not Fairbanks. Once more she was set adrift. She next went through the grind of starring in a series of fourteen crookmelodramas, which consumed an enormous amount of vitality and left her, as far as reputation went, practically where she had started. The crook series being over, she was engaged by Paramount to play in the screen version of the stage play, "Love 'Em and Leave 'Em," the oddest contrast Continued on page 110 riwmmrin