Screenland (Sept 1922–Feb 1923)

HJiywooA SCREENLAND C»u£*»h 17 and Seventy-one the OTARS! PATRICK TARSNEY the leading comedian at Sam T. Jack's burlesque theatre in Chicago, whcse proprietor believed that loveliness when unadorned is adorned the mcst. Jack Mower should know. He was born in Honolulu. ELLIOTT DEXTER, whom so many people think is an Englishman, was born in Texas. Nigel Barrie, who used to be Joan Sawyer's dancing partner, would not mind the heat in either Honolulu or Texas. He comes from Calcutta, India. Snub Pollard and Billy Bevan are from Australia, where with Daphne Pollard they began their careers in a juvenile opera company. William T. Carleton had an opera company of his own. For forty years he was an operatic baritone and now plays the parts of men who in real life are young enough to be his sons. JOE KING, a leading man in many society films, was once a chauffeur in Venice, Calif., where there arc more jobs for a chauffeur than there are in Venice, Italy. Norman Kerry, whose real name is Kaiser, but who, for some reason, changed it, used to be a traveling salesman. When he got his first job in a studio he knew nothing about acting. When Lou Tellegen and Gaston Glass and Jose Ruben got theirs they knew a lot. They had been with Sarah Bernhardt. Jack and Lionel Barrymore and their sister Ethel inherited plenty of ability from Maurice Barrymore and Georgia Drew Barrymore. Any time that Jack wants to quit acting he can get a job in the art department of a newspaper. He had one once in New York. He works in all mediums except water colors. JACKIE COOGAN'S father was a dancer in vaudeville. He does not want to spoil the boy so he lets him think that his salary is two dollars a week with fifty cents extra for "putting in gags." This is the technical term for bits of business which are intended to bring laughs. There are plenty of gags in Harold Lloyd's pictures but that studiouslooking young man gets more than fifty cents a week for putting them in. Lloyd, who was born in Omaha, wasn't much older than Jackie when a phrenologist told him that he would make a good actor. In an earnest effort to vindicate the professor's judgment he played childs* parts in a stock company and then, waxing bolder, he varied his school work with appearances in Shakespearean recitals. Encouraged by the fact that he still lived, he began to teach stage acting, and then began to learn screen acting as an extra with the old Edison company. THE sauve Herbert Rawlinson has a circus tent in his past. He was born at Brighton, England, went to school in Paris, moved to Canada and left Canada with a circus when he was in his teens. J. Warren Kerrigan, another exponent of virile masculinity, was once a choir boy in an Episcopal church. At sixteen he was supporting his family by singing on the stage. The illness of his brother brought him to California and pictures. His brother got into the business end of pictures and has been kept so busy that he has not had time to remember that he ever was ill. GARETH' HUGHES is Welsh and David Powell is Scotch. William 'Faversham and Vernon Steel are English and so is Conway Tearle. Arnold Daly, whose English accent does not show in the pictures but makes his conversation evocative of Pall Mall and Bond Street, was born in Brooklyn and began his professional career as office boy for the late Charles Frohman. William Conklin also is. from Brooklyn. Theodore Roberts is from San Francisco and now -combines avocado farming with character acting. When Marc Robbins, another character actor, plays rough and western gents, with " hearts of gold, and neckerchiefs tied behind and not in front as the tenderfeet tie them, he knows what he is doing. He was a rancher before he went on the stage. Tom. Santschi must evolve his westerners out of his inner consciousness. There was not much of the real thing around Kokomo, Ind., where he was born. WILLIAM DUNCAN, one of Vitagraph's stars, is a pretty good man to leave alone. He used to be a working partner of Sandow, the strong man, and he is no weakling himself. Had he been, he could not have been an instructor in Bernard McFadden's Physical Culture School nor could he have conducted a physical school of his own. No wonder he plays in pictures like Smashing Barriers and The Man of Might. When little Willie Russell was in Ethel Barrymore's company even Harold Lloyd's far-sighted phrenologist would hardly have detected in Willie indications that some day he would star in rip-roaring blue shirt stuff Wke Where the West Begins. He was such a well-mannered little boy and had been since his first appearance on the stage at the age of eight. But the movies wanted the rough stuff and William Russell, the aluminus of Miss Barrymore's mannerly company, gave them what they wanted. BRYANT WASHBURN, a member of a family distinguished in the history of Chicago, succeeded in pictures without the rough stuff. That fine actor, Ralph Lewis, also is from Chicago, where for many years his father was prominent in state politics and the affairs of the G. A. R. James L. Crane is a son of Dr. Frank Crane, a clergyman who left the pulpit because he found that the magazines and the newspapers provided him with a larger audience for his ethical discourses. The father of Warner Oland was a teacher in Sweden ; and Warner, who, on the screen, impersonates villains whose principles would be most repugnant to Dr. Crane, is himself the translator into English of the astringent plays of Strindberg. Patrick H. O'Malley, who, on the screen, is called "Pat," and Bill Desmond, who, nowhere except on the screen, is called "William," are products of Dublin, Ireland. Wedgwood Nowell and John Steppling were educated at the University of Pennsylvania while Germantown, a suburb of Philadelphia, was the birthplace of J. Barney Sherry. RICHARD TRAVERS, who is one of the many moving picture actors who enlisted in the late war without waiting for the draft, was a practicing physician before he went into the studios, and T. Lloyd Whitlock was a civil engineer. Victor Potel was a merchant in Chicago when he decided that as he was six feet one inch tall and weighed only 130 pounds, his future in pictures was assured it he could keep down to weight. That was in 1914 and since that year he has been in pictures and out of luck as far as his diet is concerned. Jack Ridgway, who started with Forepaugh's circus, does not care what he eats. He plays society roles. JACK SHERRILL did not have to start with a circus. His father was the head of the Frohman Amusement Corporation and as soon as Jack came out of the Berkeley school in New York there was a job in pictures waiting for him. Jay Belasco's father, David James, the famous English comedian, is one of the few actors whose biography is to be found in the Encyclopedia Britannica. His family name was Belasco and his father and the father of David Belasco were brothers. Owen Moore and his brothers, Tom and Matt, were born in Ireland; and Herbert Standing and his sons, Wyndham and Herbert, Jr., were born in England. There also was born Sir Guy Standing who has the distinction ot being the onlv leading man who was ever knighted after he had played in Los" Angeles. Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree was knighted before he went into pictures. HENRY WOODWARD went into pictures after he had made in the Philippines as first lieutenant in the regular army a war record equal to that for which knighthood has been bestowed. One of his exploits was rewarded with the Congressional Medal. Hardee Kirkland is a West Pointer. He deserves some sort of a medal tor he worked for McKee Rankin a long time. Tom Wilson of Charlie Chaplin's company is an expert in another kind of warfare. It was he who trained Bob Fitzsimmons for his fight with James J. Corbett. He trained him so well that he took the championship away from "Gentleman Jim," but "Gentleman Jim still holds among moving picture stars the championship in handshaking class. He has the warmest handshake and the most ingratiating smile in picture circles. But a clergyman's son who used to tight as "Kid" McCoy, but who now plays in pictures under his real name, Norman Selby, runs him a close second. rHIS amazing potpourri of secret episodes is only the first of a series. Next month the pasts of seven score screen queens will be turned wrong side out by this studio encyclopedist, Pat Tarsney. Then will come directors, c.uthors. SAM KIM, who was a general in the Chinese army, may have had to run once in a while but Nobel Johnson ran for a living. He was a professional footracer; Harry Gribbon and Lewis Durham were professional baseball players; Charley French was a professional banjo player, and Bobby Dunn was a professional diver whose first artistic associates were a troupe of diving horses. John Lowell ot Ten Nights in a Barroom fame was a civil engineer; William Bainbridge was a mining engineer, and Len Clapham was a locomotive engineer. Charles Ogle was a lawyer, Charles Rich a dramatic critic and 1. P. Loekney a playwright. Dwight Crittenden was a grand opera singer, Joe Rock a teacher of dancing, William Anker a teacher of languages and Edwin Stevens a bank clerk. BEFORE he went into pictures but after he had studied law, Al Jennings robbed trains for a living; but after he had studied theology at the University of the Pacific Milton Ross went into pictures. There does not seem to be any answer.