Picture Play Magazine (Oct-Nov 1915)

As Tyrone Power Sees Pictures By Tyrone Power William Winter, dramatic critic, in his book on the life of Tyrone Power, says that Power will go down in stage history as great an artist as Booth, Barrett, or John McCullough. Every one knows of the distinguished stage career of Power, who played Brutus to Faversham's Marc Antony; supported Sir Henry Irving and Helen Terry; scored as the Marquis of Steyne, in Mrs. Fiske's production of "Becky Sharp," and was a leading member of Augustin Daly's great company of artists of the spoken drama. f AM proud to appear in the silent ' drama, and I am delighted to become i member of the great Selig Polyscope ! Zompany. for Air. William X. Selig's artistic conceptions appeal to me. and I Teel perfectly at home in the Selig environment. I feel there are opportuni;ies in motion-picture work that are somehow lacking in stage art. Yes. feven such an old stager as myself is obliged to admit this fact. "I concluded, upon taking up this work, to permit the director to direct and the actor to act. Maybe the faili aires registered by some actors and actresses who turn to the motion pictures, are caused by the fact that they assume a know-it-all attitude. They refuse instruction, claiming that years of experience on the stage should cause them to be well qualified to act for the screen. For my part. I have found many new details to comprehend — much new 'business' that is peculiarly identified with the animated screen. "The art of make-up, for example, , must be altered to a certain extent. Make-up appropriate for the footlights will never do in the motion-picture studio. Then, again, there is new technique to comprehend, a more limited space for the action, and there is no audience to spur one along. "I confess that for a time I held the attitude of many other well-known ac, tors toward the silent drama. I thought the industry but a flash in the pan. But, with the advancement, the wonderful strides onward and upward, I experienced a change of heart. I was informed that people who never before could afford to see my acting would now be given an opportunity because the prices for the silent drama are not so high. I was informed that picture-play audiences were exacting, and as appreciative and as pliant as those who fre quent the legitimate theaters. 1 believe this to be true. T have been visitingmany picture-play theaters, and I have been studying the audiences. I believe that my art will not suffer, and that I am, in a humble way, contributing to the enjoyment of the masses, when I try to do my best in picture-playland. "I believe that if Sir Henry Irving, that great actor, were alive, that he would perpetrate his art for future generations through the medium of motion pictures. I was playing Bocaccio in Sir Henry's London production, I well remember, and one night his dresser came to me and said Sir Henry wanted to see me. Attired in a resplendent robe, I mounted the stairs to Sir Henry's dressing room. He was seated before his dressing table making up for his wonderful character role. I can see him vividly in my mind's eye. 'Power,' said he, 'who was the greatest of all Englishspeaking actors?' One of the greatest of actors sat there, but, without reflection, I said : 'Edmund Kean, perhaps.' " 'Ah-h-h, right you are!' exclaimed Sir Henry. 'Edmund Kean was the greatest of English-speaking actors — the little man in the cape.' "Mrs. Power and I have a little son, and, naturally, all our hopes are centered in him. And when he grows in years the art of the motion pictures will do much for his education. He will have educational advantages that I never had. His mind will be broadened without the vexations of extended travel ; he will have learned at an early age the wonderful story of the bee and other secrets of nature, his imagination will have been cultivated by visits to motion-picture dramas of higher class ; without imagination, a human being is nothing. When a boy, I read fairy tales illustrated with colored plates. My son can see the living, moving, fairy stories on the motion-picture screen, and fairy stories are educating, for they cultivate the imagination — bring about higher thoughts and fancies ; tend to refinement and gentleness. "The art of the motion picture is wonderful. The McCauley of future historical events will not be obliged to depend upon the opinions and the ideas and the prejudices of others. Instead, he will enter a large record room, ask for motion-picture films of this or that period, and he will see at first hand the modes of dress, the architecture, the armaments, the customs of living of the people of that particular historical period. "Before the advent of the motion picture, some Europeans believed that Buffalo, New York, was so named because buffaloes roamed there ; they thought Chicago was on the border of the Western wilderness. After the motion pictures had flashed true-to-life scenes