Picture Play Magazine (Mar-Jul 1929)

87 Extra Girl here the heroine of certain encounters typical in their way as she is in hers. Rittenhouse to catch a thief. Well, everybody, so long. Have to interview Blister, the art photographer. There's a man who can talk big money to the producers, and get away with it. Maybe I'll see you soon from the cover of his magazine. Worse figures than mine have appeared there." Jennie had had no idea of posing for Blister, the temperamental art "genius" of the movie colony. Not until it came to her suddenly, as she sat listening to Al's chatter. She had been wondering how she could get along until her next call from Central Casting Bureau. She hated to think of drawing out the two hundred and fifty dollars she had saved during the past few flush months. Blister's studio was an elaborately fittedout house in the center of Hollywood. She had passed it many times, but never before had she had. enough courage to approach the man, who had a reputation for being, rather eccentric and temperamental. It was this combination of traits rather than his actual ability, which had sold him to Xarvier, producer of super-special comedies, who, like most of Hollywood, believed strictly in appearances. Because Blister went around when working on the lot, or in his private studio, rigged out fantastically in varicolored smocks and caps, such as are worn by chefs, and exclaimed every few moments, that his artistic nature would be outraged if Xarvier didn't come across immediatelywith a few thousand dollars more for the "art sequences'' of the picture, the producer was firmly convinced Miss Miss LeClair shows what happened to Jennie in her encounter with an "art" photographer. oldish sort of fellow of fifty-five or sixty, who had climbed to his present position because he was a relative, or close friend, of the boss. Usually there was a wife and four or five children in the background— very much in the background. If you fell for his line, you would probably have a studio job for a week, or possibly a month, but after that, it would be back to the switchboard for you, or to the extras' bench. Jennie had seen them come and seen them go, and had come to believe that it was a wise extra who waved aside the long-term contract or big job offered with a proviso, and stuck to small jobs and imitation pearls. "Don't fool yourself," she told one of her girl friends. that Blister was a genius. "Sure, he must be," declared Xarvier, who two minutes before had bartered with an excellent, but unfortunately modest comedienne, until he had finally bulldozed her into signing a contract for just half of what she was worth. "Nobody but a genius could act as crazy as he does. Believe me, I know a genius when I see one !" Jennie had met every variety of funny bozo in pictures, so she thought. First, there was the * ' I '11sponsor your -career" specimen. He was not as bad as he appeared, and not nearly as Don Juanish as he thought he was. Often as not, he was a portly, That's all you'll get out of it in the long run, anyway Those bozos who prom LeClair, still impersonating Jennie, listens to the endless reminiscences of an old trouper whose counterpart is present in every casting office. ise the earth, usually turn out to be dirt cheap. They've got too many women on the string to dig up real pearls for them all." She had met the usual assortment of fresh assistant directors, who had more nerve with the screenstruck damsel than influence with the director. She had met the sheik who frequented beauty shops, and arrived at the studios with marceled hair, plucked eyebrows, and a rainbow-hued scarf. She had met the exiled Russian nobleman, who was really a former iceman from Hoboken, New Jersey. She had met notorious crooks who worked regularly in pictures, because they had something on the Continued on page 108