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92 Picture Show Annual NO MORE " WHOOPEE " FILM-ACTING was not Joan Crawford s first ambition. Dancing was her craze, and it was as a dancer that she longed to become famous. Her father owned a theatre in San Antonio, the little Texas town where she was born, and she was always round behind the stage. When she was sixteen she went to Chicago to spend her holidays with a friend. She was then going to a convent school, but this, she decided, was her great opportunity. She applied for a job in a revue chorus, and got it. School did not see her again. When the job ended she went to New York, and was playing in a show there when she was given a screen test. Joan was very thrilled, but it was not all that she had expected. A second one proved better, but she was too plump ; so after one or two pictures she dieted rigorously. Besides being successful on the screen, she quickly became very popular socially as well, always ready for a party or a dance, and was the gayest of the film crowd until along came Douglas Fairbanks. Jnr. No one would have imagined these two being attracted to each other, yet unconventional, madcap Joan and introspective, retiring Doug., Jnr., fell in love. And it was Joan who changed. She became subdued and do- mesticated, and gave up the parties and dances. She is in temperament somewhat like John Gilbert, however, and whether the new. subdued Mrs. Douglas Fairbanks. Jr.. has permanently superseded the lively Joan Crawford remains to be seen. THE ENTHUSIAST IN 1921 Jihn Gilbert, through his work in Shame, had just been elevated to stardom, and was looking forward with tremendous enthusiasm to making " Monte Cristo Nine years later, as full of enthusiasm as ever, he was looking forward to the picture on which his future as a talkie star depended, with all the keenness that he had had over " Monte Cristo." John Gilbert s vivid screen self hides an even more vivid man. Intensely moody, he is either infectiously, recklessly gay. or deeply despondent. He is Irank with a bluntness that is at times dis- concerting, yet never discourteous. Mentally and physically he is restless, and when he is not working on the set. is usually to be found pacing up and down with long strides from the hips, his body very upright, a habit that lingers from the days when he thought himself too small ever to become famous in films. (He was playing as an extra then at the old Ince studios, where he was given his first real part, in a W. S. Hart film.) He is reckless, impulsive and witty, with a fund of humour that is unfortunately entirely lost in his " great lover " roles. We were given a glimpse of it in " The Big Parade." and his role in this picture is still his favourite. It was a human, sincere part, without any of the frills and furbelows that have embellished too many of his characters, and if John Gilbert is given similar roles in talkies, it is safe to predict that there will be no need to worry about his future.