Screenland (May–Oct 1927)

SCREENLAND 79 If you don't agree with me on the Yale idea, I have other suggestions for you. Naturally, different dispositions respond to varied kinds of tutoring. Just recently John Murray Anderson, the noted New York Producer, together with Robert Milton, a well known director, started a School of the Theatre and Dance where a special and unique department is devoted to the study of Motion Pictures. This department is headed by Mr. George Currie, formerly of Sargent's, who has di' rected and tutored Marion Davies in much of her work and who was in charge of the Paramount Motion Picture School which has been discontinued. Now there is a great deal of graft in the average school which claims to teach motion picture acting. Usually they take your money, give you a few dusty lectures, a course in so-called make-up and turn you loose. John Murray Anderson's School gives a one hundred percent legitimate training for the screen. The curriculum includes everything you need to know to become a successful moving picture player. You do your work before a camera and then you are judged on your fitness by the way you screen, the way you show up on a finished screen product. Again, in this school you stand a twofold chance for procuring professional employment. While it does not guarantee either to provide or to find work in the motion picture studios for any of the students, it has the endorsement and good-will of the Paramount Corporation, the MetroGoldwyn-Mayer Pictures Corporation and the Robert Kane Productions. And in addition, each week John Murray Anderson stages presentations for the great Paramount Theatre in New York. So you have the opportunity — if you have real talent — of procuring work at one of the studios or of appearing in one of the many acts which Mr. Anderson provides for the Paramount Theatre. Of course, in order to enter this Moving Picture school at all, you must pass a screen test. If it is not possible for you to have such a test made in your own town, then you must have four photographs taken, full face, right profile, left profile, and a full length picture in a bathing suit — so that any defects of face or figure may be seen. I am unable to state certainly if any scholarships are procurable in this institution. However that may be, this school is the worthiest place that I know of for people actually desiring real experience before the camera. It is worth making an effort to procure the necessary $500 for tuition and the additional sum for living expenses because of Mr. John Murray Anderson's close connection with theatre and film activities of every kind. Mr. Hugh A. Anderson, Murray's brother, and one of the sincerest and most genial of men, is the Executive Director of this unusual institution. If you write to him, I feel sure that he will do everything to help you work out your problems. His address is 128-130 East 58th Street, New York. And now perhaps it would interest you to know of some of the distinguished artists whom John Murray Anderson has directed. It is a sort of inspiration to know that the same hands that will shape your career have helped to develop many famous men and women. These include among others: Lily Langry, Blanche Bates, Irene Castle, Fannie Brice, Lew Fields, Bert Beri, Lina Basquette, Clarke and McCullough, the Dolly Sisters, Gallagher and Shean, Brooke Johns, Vincent Lopez,, Ted Lewis, Moran and Mack, Ann Pennington, and Fritzi Scheff. And now I come to the school which holds the reputation for being the oldest and most renowned dramatic institution in the United States — the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, Carnegie Hall, New York. Years ago this school was founded by a most unusual man — Franklin H. Sargent. It is not permitted for us to look into his personal life, nevertheless some overwhelming disappointment came to him that caused him to turn from everything else and put his whole life and soul into his school for the theatre. The spirit of Franklin Sargent lives to-day in that school as you will realize when you speak with the Secretary, Emil Diestel. If you write or call to see Mr. Diestel, he can make you feel in five minutes more than I could if I wrote endlessly. For he was Franklin Sargent's friend and disciple. And he, better than almost anybody, understands what Franklin Sargent had in mind when he started his academy. Photograph by Clarence S. Bull ([Marceline Day has the best opportunity of her career in Joseph Conrad's "Romance"— her next picture. The course at the American Academy includes: Pantomime Training, Vocal Training, Stage Training, Department of Conception, Pantomimic Expression, Vocal Expression, Stage Expression. The most instructive feature of this school is the stage direction which the students receive from those two inimitable directors and former actor.s, Charles Jehlinger and Joseph Adelman. Long after you have graduated from this Academy, long after you've played in stock, on the road and on Broadway, you will think back with regret on the direction of these two men. And many times you will wish that your present professional director could bring out in you the deep emotion that Mr. Jehlinger and Mr. Adelman were able to call forth in student days. Sargent's course costs approximately $400 but Mr. Diestel, Room 141 Carnegie Hall, New York, will give you exact information. This school has a remarkable record for turning out successful artists. Both William and Cecil De Mille are graduates of this academy. Other pupils include: Douglas MacLean, Doris Kean, Grace George, Jane Cowl, Clare Eames, Joseph Schildkraut, Hope Hampton, Margalo Gilmore, Wilfred Buckland, Paul Bern, Pedro de Cordoba, Mary Nash, Violet Blackton and Owen Davis, Jr. If your heart is set on a dramatic career, a school would seem to be the only solution unless you happen to be Douglas Fairbanks' sister or Mary Pickford's niece. Take the case of Sarah Siddons who is universally acknowledged to be the first and greatest English tragedienne. She was practically born on the stage and commenced her career as a very young child. After ten years or so she achieved some little success in the English provinces and so procured an engagement at the famous Drury Lane Theatre in London — where she was an appalling failure. Despite all those years of technical training on the professional stage she was an out-and-out dismal failure. But Sarah Siddons has a stamina that isn't often equalled in this lackadaisical world. She returned to the provinces, became the mother of several children, and after five years' slavish labor touring in provinicial English towns, returned to Drury Lane where her success was instantaneous. Such a woman is an inspiration. When you compare her decade of struggle and heartbreak with the difficulties you will experience in achieving the opportunity and means to attend a dramatic school for a year or two, your troubles will seem infinitesimal. The most practical school of the theater to-day in America would seem to me to be the Theatre Guild. You already know about the work that the famous Guild has been doing so I won't go into that. Because of the enormous difficulty in finding young, talented people to train for the stage, the Theatre Guild has organized a school which it runs in actual connection with their Theatres. The course consumes a year and costs eleven hundred dollars. But so eager are they to find real genius that if you show promise, it is possible to procure a scholarship. Last year the class started in with one hundred and thirty-seven pupils. All were dropped with the exception of fortyseven. These forty-seven carried on and only one failed to procure professional engagements immediately. One of the pupils, Ellen Dorr went immediately from this school to the lead in "Loose Ankles". Another, Linda Watkins, was very shortly assigned a role in "The Devil in the Cheese". And still another procured a profitable engagement in "Wild Man from Borneo". If you have real talent I believe you will market your wares sooner by attending the School of the Theatre Guild than by any other in America. For all information address the Theatre Guild School, 342 West 52nd Street, New York City. When you've made up your mind that you will get out of your screen career just what you put in it, when you've decided that what you need is the best form of intensive dramatic training that you can procure, you will be confused perhaps by the number of schools from which you must choose. One of the best ways to judge an institution is to find out what sort of pupils they have turned out. While I have not personally inspected the Alviene University School of Arts, the list of celebrities who have studied under Mr. Claude Alviene is certainly prepossessing: A few of them include: Mary Pickford, Eleanor Painter, Joseph Santley, Nora Bayes, Annette Kellermann, Hazel Dawn, Gertrude Hoffman, Gilbert Miller, Claiborn Foster, William