The world film encyclopedia (1933)

2l8 Ways To Film Success It is the constant dream of many hundreds of people to achieve fame and fortune as stars in motion pictures ; as constantly the question " Hoiv ? " is being asked. The Editors of THE WORLD FILM ENCYCLOPEDIA invited six successful players to recount the means by lahich they attained their positions. The narratives are diverse enough to prove thai there is no royal road ; that hard work, determination, and a proportion of good luck have played parts in their achievements. "I WAS BROKE "—by RONALD COLMAN (United Artists' Player) ■jVyf Y father ga^•c me my first glimpse of the fihns. I was eleven when ■^'-■ we went together to the old Earl's Court Exhibition, It was a catchpenny show — ^bands, whirligigs, fortune-tellers, coconut shies ; all the antique dreamland of plaster and paint, noise and laughter. There was one new attraction with a sign over its cavernous entrance. It read : " Animated Pictures." We went in. Dark and stuff}^ as the interior was, I remember that it seemed doubly black and awful when I caught sight of the screen. They were showing an express train which came rushing out of the tunnel straight at us. A pianist plaj^ed some bass chords, a drummer wildly rubbed together two pieces of sandpaper. I was as good as tied to the railway track. That was the first film I ever saw. It was years later, after I had worked variously in a shipping office, in the Army during the war, and on the stage, that I first found myself before a film camera. After having been invalided out of the Army in 1916, I had to do something and the stage, in which I had always been interested as an amateur, seemed obvious. I was playing in Damaged Goods when George Dewhurst, one of the pioneers of the British cinema, came into my dressing-room on a miCmorable evening. " I am going to make a two-reel comedy," he told me, " and I want you for the star juvenile part. It wiU give you a fortnight's work." " Who wrote it ? " I asked. " I did," replied George, " and I am going to direct it, too. And I'm going to be the cameraman as well ! It will be good." Up till then I had never had the slightest notion of such a thing as acting in a film. But I said : " How much do I get ? " " Well," said George, " it's the leading part. I want to do the right thing by you. I'll pay 3-ou a pound a day, not counting Sundays." The offer became a serious proposition at once. I well remember how I tried to be calm before this capitalist and to accept carelessly. Miss Phyllis Titmuss, who was so successful on the London stage, was engaged to play