Silent Film Quarterly Issue 6

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The Silent Film Quarterly ——————————————————————————

Volume II, Issue 2 Winter 2016-17

Table of Contents Editor’s Message

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Lewis Walker

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Claire Inayat Williams

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Lea Stans

Departments: Coming Attractions

A Roundup of New Releases

Silents In Review

SFSFF “Day of Silents” 2016

Silent-ology

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Annette Bochenek

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19

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Louise Fazenda: The Forgotten Queen of Slapstick

Hometowns to Hollywood

Oliver Hardy: From Harlem, Georgia to Hollywood

Original Features: Henry “Pathe” Lehrman: The Volatile Jocelyn Leigh

Can’t Silence Love:

Thomas Reeder

Meredith Riggs

The Silent Films of Charles Farrell and Janet Gaynor

Classic Features: Runaway Romany:

Marion Davies

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Marion Davies

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Charlie Chaplin

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An Original Scenario

My Experiences:

While Filming “Runaway Romany”

Fooling for the Film:

A Weekly Magazine Column

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Editor’s Message Issue 6 ended up significantly longer than I expected (eight pages longer than Issue 5), and even then I had to cut out some content I had hoped to include. For example, you’ll notice that the second installment of the Baby Peggy interview has been postponed to Issue 7, along with some other great features which I assure you will be worth the wait.

The last several issues have relied very heavily on original content, but in this issue there is a wealth of original material reprinted from the silent era. The first of these ties into the cover star, Marion Davies, who made her film debut a century ago this year. Her first film, Runaway Romany, was a success upon its release but is unfortunately lost. Davies not only acted in the film, but wrote the scenario herself. To celebrate the anniversary of this film, I have reproduced Davies’s original short story in its entirety, as well as a brief article by Davies on the making of the film. These two rare documents will certainly be of interest to any of the actress’s fans.

The last reprinted feature is longer than Silent Film Quarterly’s usual fare, but I felt it was too important not to print. Charlie Chaplin wrote a little-know weekly magazine column in Great Britain while he was with the Essanay Company. 102 years after they first appeared in print, they are once again made available to silent film fans around the globe, and will hopefully prove interesting to fans of the Tramp.

I am also thrilled to announce two new columns by two of my favorite film historians.

Lea Stans’s excellent Silent-ology website has been known to me for sometime, and I’ve always been impressed by Stan’s incredible research and scholarship. I was fortunate enough to meet Lea in person last year (for a quintessential Los Angeles dinner at Roscoe’s Chicken and Waffles), and our conversation gave me countless new ideas for the magazine —foremost of which was adapting her website to the printed page. Her articles will provide an invaluable addition to the magazine.

The second new column likewise adapts another exceptional website, Annette Bochenek’s Hometowns to Hollywood. Annette and I met last November in Chicago; I could tell we would become fast friends when she managed to talk our way into the original Essanay Studios building. She provides an invaluable service in examining the humble beginnings of Hollywood’s elite, and I’m excited to have her profile a silent star in each issue.

As always, I appreciate any and all feedback on the magazine, and look forward to another successful year in 2017. Stay tuned, and thank you sincerely for reading!

Your editor, Charles Epting

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Write for Silent Film Quarterly!

Want to write for Silent Film Quarterly? The magazine is always looking for interesting original content about the silent era, including feature articles and reviews of silent films.

Please contact the editor at charleseptingauthor@gmail.com if interested or for more information.

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Coming Attractions: A Roundup of New Releases

by Lewis Walker Hello again silent cinephiles! 2016 was a bumper year for silent films being restored, released (whether it be theatrically or on home video), and warmly received by the great public, we had such films as Children of Divorce (1927) restored and rereleased to celebrate Flicker Alley’s 50th home video release. The film stars Clara Bow and Gary Cooper in the follow-up to Bow’s It. It not only presents us with Gary Cooper on his way to stardom, but also Bow in the midst of a career defining string of motion pictures that she will be forever remembered for. Not only has the film been painstakingly restored straight from the negative but also includes a new score by the Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra and includes an hour long documentary about Clara Bow. It is a great addition to any silent film library, and Flicker Alley need to be congratulated on the fine work they are doing. The BFI in England both ended 2016 and started 2017 in an incredibly strong way. In January they are releasing Charlie Chaplin: The Essay Comedies in Blu-ray for the first time in the UK. Unlike Flicker Alley’s earlier release it will not be released in a duel format edition but rather separately, this isn’t necessarily a NEW release, but any restored Chaplin is

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good to know about. However, one huge release from the end of 2016 was Abel Gance’s Napoleon (1927) available for the first time on Blu-ray and marking a 50 year restoration and discovery project by Kevin Brownlow who wrote such biblical silent film books as The Parade’s Gone By… The set is just a joy to behold and includes a bumper crop of special features amongst other goodies that makes this an essential part of any silent film library.

In other exciting news Grapevine Video have made the move to Blu-Ray releases alongside the regular DVD editions, most notably the 1916 rags to riches story East is East starring Florence Turner, who appeared in Buster Keaton’s 1927 film College. Speaking of Buster Keaton Kino Classics in association with Lobster Film will release The General (1926) and Three Ages (1923) in a double-bill Bluray release. Keaton getting the upgrade to Blu-ray is always worthy of a purchase and both, not that any Keaton film isn’t, are brilliantly made and hilariously funny, with Three Ages being Keaton’s first feature length film, and The General being maybe one of the greatest comedies ever made, well worth the $20. Also available from Olive Films is Wagon Tracks a 1919 western starring the king of the silent western William S. Hart. The film was hailed at the time of release and will definitely be an interesting watch, one that is full of revenge and adventure. The Masters of

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My Top Five Releases of 2016 1. Napoleon (1927); BFI 2. Pioneers of African American Cinema; Kino Lorber 3. Children of Divorce (1927); Flicker Alley 4. Early Murnau—Five Films; Eureka Entertainment Ltd. 5. 3 Bad Men (1926); Kino Lorber Cinema collection from Eureka video in England released news towards the end of last year of a few exciting upcoming releases in the silent film domain. First was the 1925 German film Varieté starring Emil Jannings and directed by E. A. Dupont presented with a new restoration that I'm sure will be astounding. The story evolves around a couple of trapeze artists that builds to a exciting and dizzying finale.

Then came the news of two releases that are otherwise available in the US, the first is Fritz Lang’s Destiny (aka Der M u d e To d ) f r o m 1 9 2 1 , containing the 2K digital restoration premiered at Berlinale 2016, in a duelformat edition. The hero’s over at Eureka also promised a ‘beautiful’ Buster Keaton Blu-Ray boxset of The General, Sherlock, Jr. and Steamboat Bill, Jr. If this comes anywhere close to the Early Murnau and Buster Keaton: The Complete Shorts Collection then we are in for a real treat. The last two editions have no release date as of yet, but expect them sometime within the next 12 months.

On a personal note, as the world talks about the death of DVD due to streaming

services and VOD I for one feel optimistic about the future because in 2016 we saw some truly remarkable editions that not only presented restored masterpieces but forgotten treasures. Not only did this editions give us a film that we needed to add to our collection but also spectacular special features and improved soundtracks and color tinting.

While the more popular films of recent years will see declines in sales I hope that the more bumper and time consuming editions will show the demand for collectable and well presented forms of more obscure and interesting films that wont be included on Netflix or Hulu. As we head into a new year, already promising to be as exciting as the last, I ask that as a collective we keep the need for these films prominent by talking about the releases, sharing photos and reviews on social media and most importantly buying them. As I'm sure most of you are aware restoring a film is very expensive process and one that is made possible by us the viewer. I whole heartedly hope that 2017 will be equal to, if not better than, 2016.

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Silents in Review: San Francisco Silent Film Festival “Day of Silents” 2016

by Claire Inayat Williams

・・・ Regular Silent Film Quarterly contributor Claire Inayat Williams has once again attended the San Francisco Silent Film Festival’s annual “Day of Silents,” held on December 5, 2016. As always, the festival provided an exceptional range of films, both beloved and rarely-seen. Williams was on-hand to report on all of the festival’s highlights exclusively for the magazine.

Chaplin at Essanay (1915) Release date: 1915 Director: Charlie Chaplin Cast: Charlie Chaplin as The Tramp, Edna Purviance, Ben Turpin, and various other players ・・・ It’s hard to convey the magic of Charlie Chaplin to those who have yet to be introduced to him, his films need to be seen to be believed. To many the influence of this man and his work is profound, his screen quality full of bravura but also genuine, sweet, and char ming. So charming in fact that it’s easy to forget the diligence and ingenuity that went into what we, the audience, are seeing. We know that behind the scenes much of his life was peppered with great losses and strife; he was plagued by critics who sought to destroy him and powers that didn’t appreciate his fight for the “little man”. But while at the Essanay Film Manufacturing Company much of this was still before him and the beauty of these shorts lies in what came after: the developing brilliance and the perfecting of his craft with each succeeding film. He was only in his early

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20s while signed with Essanay and was still very much figuring out who he was as an artist and who he wanted to be as a celebrity. What is especially remarkable about this period in Chaplin’s body of work is the evidence of the genius he was becoming. He had begun to round out and breathe life into the Tramp character, he was finding his slapstick footing and nailing his comedic timing. The female characters began to get higher and higher up the pedestal, and stayed there for the rest of his career. The year he spent at Essanay was the crowning point of their legacy and when he left they didn’t stay open much longer. Chaplin looked back on this time with some bitterness due to artistic and business differences, which led to several lawsuits. Despite his personal feelings towards it the work he did there is so special, it allows us to glimpse inside the mind of a maestro as the gears are still turning.

So This is Paris (1926) Release date: July 31, 1926 Director: Ernst Lubitsch Cast: Monte Blue as Doctor Paul Giraud, Patsy Ruth Miller as Suzanna Giraud, Lilyan Tashman as Georgette Lalle, and Andre Beranger as Maurice Lalle ・・・ Based on an 1872 French vaudeville play by Henry Meilhac and Ludovic Halevy called Le Réveillon (which also inspired Johann Strauss’ operetta Die Fledermaus), Ernst Lubitsch’s So This is Paris is a boisterous ball of fun that could easily be attributed to Oscar Wilde or comedic Shakespeare. It portrays two neighboring couples: Doctor Paul Giraud (Monte Blue) who lives happily on one side of the street with his quixotic romance novel-reading wife Suzanna (Patsy Ruth Miller), and on the other side dancing partners in wedded discord Georgette Lalle

The Silent Film Quarterly・!6 (Lilyan Tashman) and her husband Maurice (Andre Beranger). Suzanna catches a glimpse of Maurice practicing in costume and mistakes him for a real Sheikh prompting the two couples to meet and setting the stage for a raucous comedy of errors. As it turns out, Georgette and Paul happen to be old flames and immediately pick up where they left off, leading them into a flamboyant party scene that practically explodes off the screen. It opens on a sea of Charleston dancers overcome with the thrill of it all; bare limbs and beaded skirts flapping wildly.

As the revelers become more and more tipsy the camera starts to tilt, until finally culminating in a kaleidoscopic effect to mirror everyone’s “three sheets to the wind.” Lubitsch then cuts to a shot of Suzanna at home, tapping her feet along to the live radio transmission of the party. The scene is one of the most iconic of Lubitsch’s career, and is a beautiful expression of both his journey as a filmmaker and also of life in the 1920s. So This is Paris is a farce of magnificently modern design, offering a cheeky mockery of the Hays Code and encouraging us to get in on the joke as much as possible. Keep your eyes peeled for an early screen appearance by the great Myrna Loy!

Strike (Стачка) (1925) Release date: April 28, 1925 Director: Sergei Eisenstein Cast: Maksim Shtraukh as Police spy, Grigori Aleksandrov as Factory foreman, and Mikhail Gomorov as Worker ・・・

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Sergei Eisenstein’s first feature-length film Stachka is comprised of six different parts, originally intended to be part one of a seven-part series called Towards Dictatorship that unfortunately never quite got off the ground.

He would go on to make his pièce de résistance, The Battleship Potemkin, later that year leaving Stachka somewhat overshadowed. It is a violent and passionate chronicle of the working-class men in a foundry in Czarist ruled Russia as they try to navigate a strike, their blood boiling, waiting for something to tip the bucket.

The disappearance of a micrometer is blamed on a worker and leads to his suicide; that is the straw that breaks the camels’ back. A fight immediately breaks out. The men begin destroying as much of the factory as they can get their hands on and eventually end up kidnapping the manager. This initial rebellion releases some tension and offers a small sense of control for the community, and for a while life is better. But as the strike drags on the men become restless again, the adrenaline wears off and reality sets in. Management belittles and rejects their demands and as the families begin to starve, domestic and communal violence become rampant.

Eisenstein uses animal brutality as a metaphor for the treatment and oppression of people in several of his films, and it is a major theme in Stachka as well. In one of the most famous scenes, the footage cuts between Soviet police pursuing and shooting at fleeing civilians to a slaughterhouse where a butcher holds a

The Silent Film Quarterly・!7 knife to a cow’s throat, about to kill it. As the animal’s throat is viciously slashed and it lies dying in a pool of blood, the film cuts back to the human massacre, reminding us of just how dispensable these people are.

Almost surrealist or experimental in parts, Stachka easily holds its own in the legacy of a master filmmaker. It’s a bit more accessible than Potemkin and would make an excellent introduction to Eisenstein’s work.

Different From the Others (Anders als die Andern) (1919) Release date: June 30, 1919 Director: Richard Oswald Cast: Conrad Veidt as Paul Körner, Leo Connard as Körner’s Father, Ilse von Tasso-Lind as Körner’s Sister, and Alexandra Willegh as Körner’s Mother ・・・ That any of this film still exists, or that this film exists at all, is something of a small miracle. Most prints of Richard Oswald’s Anders als die Ander n were destroyed when the Nazi’s came into power and the ones that remained were used only for the education of doctors and medical research on sexual perversions. The film was co- written by Oswald himself and Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld, a sexologist and advocate for homosexual and transgender rights, who also partially funded the project and had a small role in it. It opens on Paul Körner (Conrad Veidt), a successful and celebrated violinist, as he flips through a newspaper reading vaguely worded suicide obituaries. In flashbacks we lear n something of Paul’s youth as he becomes aware of his sexual orientation, is forced to try and cure it, and then gradually learns to understand and even accept it. When he falls in love with a young student, Kurt Sivers (Fritz Schulz) an unscrupulous extortionist, Franz Bollek (Reinhold Schünzel), finds out about the affair and begins blackmailing Paul, threatening to expose them both as homosexuals. In

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another flashback we learn Bollek is also homosexual and that this is not the first time he has demanded hush money. This is an especially distinctive and interesting character as filmmakers are often hesitant to portray any minority character, in this case a homosexual character, in a negative light where the agenda or message of the film has contrary beliefs. Anders als die Andern came out the year before Veidt was shot into stardom for his role in The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, but his performance in Andern stands out as one of the most masterful of his career. He plays Paul with an ethereal quality that is exceptional; seeming to be afraid of the world in a delicate but tenacious way that is all at once both despairing and hopeful.

The Last Command (1928) Release date: January 22, 1928 Director: Josef von Sternberg Cast: Emil Jannings as Grand Duke Sergius Alexander, Evelyn Brent as Natalie Dabrova, William Powell as Leo Andreyev, and Jack Raymond as the Assistant ・・・ For any connoisseur of any art form, especially those that are historical or dated in content, it is important and often necessary to learn to separate the art from the artist. Such is the difficult case when it comes to the work of Emil Jannings, who stars in Josef von Sternberg’s 1928

The Silent Film Quarterly・!8 masterpiece The Last Command. Jannings was a Nazi and spent much of the end of his career making propaganda films in support of that agenda. Hitler was an avid admirer of film and often used such celebrity influences to further his campaigning, the most infamous example being his collaborations with filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl. However, the work he did before Hitler’s uprising should not be discounted. In The Last Command his performance is poignant and stoic, winning him the Academy Award for Best Actor (he remains the only German actor to have won it). Jannings plays the Grand Duke Sergius Alexander, cousin to the Czar and commander of his armies, a man whose linchpin is his love for his country. We first meet him in Hollywood when a big-shot director (William Powell) picks him out of a pile of actor headshots to play the role of a Russian commander in his new film. This man is hardly a Grand Duke anymore; he is broken, ill, destitute. The story works b a c k w a rd s f ro m t h e re a s S e rg i u s remembers the path that led him to Tinsel Town; it begins ten years earlier at the height of the Russian Revolution. The people of Russia despise Sergius and it is only through finding the love of beautiful Natalie Dabrova (Evelyn Brent) that we realize just how misunderstood he really is.

The Last Command somehow transcends culture and time, creating a piece that is significant and germane to all audiences. It is truly a rich and worthwhile film, and to quote it, “That guy was a great actor.”

Sadie Thompson (1928) Release date: January 7, 1928 Director: Raoul Walsh Cast: Gloria Swanson as Sadie Thompson, Lionel Barrymore as Mr. Alfred Davidson, Blanche Friderici as Mrs. Alfred Davidson, and Charles Willis Lane as Dr. Angus McPhail ・・・

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W. Somerset Maugham loved to create naughty women. His work is full of female characters that are flawed and outrageous; they make bad choices and break hearts, occasionally even their own. Sadie Thompson is easily Maugham’s most adapted work. It was originally a short story entitled Miss Thompson, from there renamed Rain and adapted for the stage by John Colton and Clemence Randolph before Gloria Swanson bought the rights and took it to the silver screen with Raoul Walsh in 1928.

It would come to the screen two more times after Swanson took the role: in a Lewis Milestone adaptation starring Joan Crawford in 1932 (again called Rain) and then again in 1953 as a musical starring Rita Hayworth. One of the most iconic characters of Maugham’s long and illustrious career, Sadie Thompson is a force to be reckoned with and it’s no wonder so many actresses have itched to get their hands on her. We meet Sadie fresh of the boat from San Francisco on the South Pacific island of Pago Pago, looking to put her sordid past behind her and make an honest living. Also docking in Pago Pago are religious missionaries Mr. and Mrs. Davidson (Lionel Barrymore at his formidable best, and Blanche Friderici), and to their great chagrin end up at the same hotel as Sadie who is wasting no time entertaining the troops. Despite herself and the reformatory efforts of Mr. Davidson, Sadie finds herself in love with Marine Timothy O’Hara (Raoul Walsh in his last acting role). Gloria Swanson plays Sadie with great relish and fervor and was largely responsible for getting the film made (with all the tenacity of the title character). She co-wrote the script with Walsh, hand picked most of the cast herself, finished editing the film when Walsh was called away, and even sold one of her homes to help acquire the rights and keep the project going. If you go down the Sadie Thompson rabbit hole, definitely start with Gloria.

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Louise Fazenda: The Forgotten Queen of Slapstick

by Lea Stans Lea Stans is known to many in the silent film community for her website Silent-ology—which, in the opinion of the editor, is one of the best sources for insight to the more obscure aspects of the silent era. Stans has previously written for Silent Film Quarterly with her review of the obscure German film, From Morn to Midnight. Now, SFQ is thrilled to announce that Lea Stans will be a regular columnist for the magazine, bringing the same highquality content she provides on her website to the printed page. ・・・ Long before Lucille Ball and Carol Burnett would earn their places in pop culture history, there were a number of comediennes who paved the way for them.

The most famous of these was Mabel Normand, the irrepressible Keystone star.

But not too far behind her was another irrepressible performer: Louise Fazenda.

While many people today are at least familiar with the name of Mabel Normand, how many are aware of Louise Fazenda? Once one of the most popular and familiar comediennes of the silent screen, she often gets no more than a passing mention even in the most thorough film histories. But not only was she a

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wonderful talent, as a bonus she was also one of Hollywoodland’s most beloved and charitable individuals.

Louise Marie Fazenda was born in Lafayette, Indiana on June 17, 1895–as most sources will say. However, according to her birth certificate the actual year was 1896–perhaps the only time in history when a year was constantly added to an actress’s age. She was an only child, and since her mother Nelda was nearly 40 at the time of her birth we can probably assume that she was a surprise. The little family moved to Los Angeles where Louise’s father, Joseph, opened a grocery

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store. A hard worker by nature, she began helping out with the family finances at a young a g e by r u n n i n g errands, babysitting, and delivering g roceries via a horse-drawn wagon.

After graduating from the Los Angeles High School in 1912 (where she had her first taste of acting in school plays), she planned on going to college, but when her Two publicity stills of Louise Fazenda. father’s business knockabout—an excellent comedy training suddenly folded this became impossible. g round. By 1914 Louise had the Louise continued to help support her experience to join the mighty Keystone parents, partly through thespian means. In Film Company, then the top comedy studio later years she would refer to her time “on in the nation. Her first big role was as the stage,” although it’s hard to discover Mack Swain’s battleaxe wife in Willful exactly what meant. She may have been in Ambrose, released March 1, 1915. dramatic stock companies, supporting However, her first appearance on Keystone leading women Virginia Brissac and celluloid was in Ambrose’s Sour Grapes popular Los Angeles native Miss Lucretia (1915), filmed first and released around the Del Valle. At any rate, on the advice of a same time. She had the lofty role of “Girl neighbor Louise decided to seek work in a in Park Who is Shot in Rear”–a very young industry that was practically on her Keystone-esque initiation. doorstep–the “picture business.” “Acting Although attractive, Louise—never was the only thing I wanted to do, so I one to be vain—quickly realized that she applied at Universal—and got it,” she later felt most at home in gawky “country rube” recalled. roles. In time she developed a distinct While she started as an extra she soon costume of a plaid or calico dress, old highgraduated to bit parts. Thanks to her top shoes, two tight pigtails wound into natural flair for comedy she was chosen for knots high on her head, and the crowning Universal’s new Joker Comedy unit, which glory: a forehead spit curl. She said the would include Max Asher, Bobby Vernon, memorable hairstyle was based on one Gale Henry, Billy Franey, Heinie Conklin, from her childhood, when her mother wellLee Morris and Sam Kaufman. She would meaningly styled her hair so tightly that she keep her Old World maiden name, went around with a “moon-faced” “Fazenda,” for her entire career. “My expression. name is like me,” she once said to Photoplay, Frequently paired with Charlie “sort of a misfit.”

Murray, Louise often portrayed a slavey Joker comedies were lively and full of bungling her way through various chores broad humor, thick makeup, and loads of

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Treating ’Em Rough (1919)

Maggie’s First False Step (1917)

Tillie’s Punctured Romance (1928)

Fatty’s Tintype Tangle (1915)

or jobs. Equally often she was a naive country girl falling heir to a fortune that Rascally Villains schemed to take away from her. Like many of the great comedians such as Roscoe Arbuckle or

especially Buster Keaton, she had a clean, precise way of performing gags, sometimes accompanied by a straight face that emphasized her well-meaning if oblivious absorption in a task. In Her Fame and Shame (1917) she’s a kitchen slavey in an unkempt restaurant. When a customer orders eggs, she finds a plate of “eggs with a past” on a shelf, casually blows off a copious amount of dust, and fastidiously wipes them with her apron before reheating them in a pan.

Louise was not only a capable actress, but she adored the excitement of making comedies, tackling the rough Keystone slapstick with gusto. Often this included stunt work. In a Motion Picture Magazine interview she talked about making The Feathered Nest (1916): “It seemed to be a jinx for everybody in it. We were all hurt. The hansom cab ran over Mr. Murray’s foot; Wayland Trask fell from the bicycle and wrenched his shoulder; the rowboat tipped over and knocked me unconscious...and, to

The Silent Film Quarterly・!12 cap the climax, we were all so badly burned that we could hardly move. But, just the same...it was lots of fun!”

Audiences and critics loved Louise.

Photoplay called her the “Comic Venus.”

She was praised not only for her comedy skills but even for a shade of “pathos” in her work. One writer in a 1925 issue of Motion Picture Classic went so far as to claim: “Her comedy is as great in its way Charlie Chaplin’s. Like Chaplin’s, it has the undercurrent of wistful sorrow. Behind every one of her laughs is the suggestion of tears.”

We might see her today as a bridge between the many light comediennes such as Constance Talmadge and the likes of slapstick regulars like the roughhousing, tomboyish Polly Moran—a young actress who could be sympathetic while pulling off a wacky costume and doing pratfalls without a trace of self-consciousness. While Mabel Normand was doubtless the most important pioneering comedienne, Louise was more of a true “clown” than Mabel, having a her own distinctive costume of clothing and hairstyle (much like Gale Henry or Alice Howell).

Although offscreen she could be selfdeprecating about her success, in interviews Louise gave thoughtful insights on making comedies: “I think that comedy

should be, to some extent at least, spontaneous...something inside of you that just bubbles out. And, too, it should have a little strain of the serious in it.” She was also honest about why there were fewer women in slapstick. “I’ve taken eleven ‘falls’ today,” she once told Picture-Play Magazine. “On set we call ‘em ‘bumps.’

How many girls are there who are willing, much less eager, to take a dozen bumps a day to get a laugh?”

In 1920 Louise’s Sennett contract expired and she did stints at Special Pictures Corp. and Punch Comedies. After a brief return to Sennett she also worked in Mermaid comedies. But from 1922 onward she appeared mainly in features—dozens of them—sometimes as a lead and sometimes as comedy relief. While she

Back to the Kitchen (1919)

Are Waitresses Safe? (1917)

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Five and Ten Cent Annie (1928)

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tended to specialize in daffy maids and eccentric aunts, now and then she was given a chance to play against type, such as her glamorous flapper in The Gold Diggers (1923). Other notable films include The Bat (1926), The Red Mill (1927), Alice in Wonderland (1933) and The Terror (1928), considered the first “all-talking” horror film.

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In 1926 she married Hal B. Wallis, a publicist who had yet to “make it big.”

This caused some surprise among fans when it was revealed to be her second marriage, her first being to prolific comedy director Noel Mason Smith from 1919 until their divorce in 1926. Whether because of her career, some unhappiness in the marriage, or some other unknown

The Silent Film Quarterly・!14 reason, Louise had kept that part of her life a secret and was not living with Smith when she first met Wallis.

Her parents and friends weren’t wild about her second marriage at first, feeling that she was too famous and well-off to settle for a lowly publicist. However, they would remain married until her death and Hal B. Wallis would become one of the most powerful producers in Hollywood, responsible for the likes of Casablanca and The Maltese Falcon.

In her free time Louise was an avid collector of antiques and enjoyed cooking and beadwork. She had a knack for business matters, making wise investments and working with Hal to start a profitable ranch that grew apricots, walnuts, and oranges (they made a deal with Sunkist to harvest some of their crops). She was also a devout Christian who was committed 100% to helping those in need, no matter what their backgrounds or circumstances.

She said that her parents had set an example for her, teaching her: “...That you must always give away part of what you earned, no matter how little. Because it was pleasing to God.” Louise and Hal had hoped to have children, but after years of trying it seemed unlikely. In the early ’30s Louise visited Lourdes, France and the Basilica of SainteAnne-de-Beaupré in Quebec, both places credited with granting miracles to the sick and disabled. Amazingly, she would have her first and only child, Hal Brent Wallis Jr, not long after. Photoplay dramatically covered the story under the title “The Miracle of Louise Fazenda’s Baby” in 1933.

With a young son and a career that was starting to slow down, Louise was content to devote herself more and more to charity work. In 1939 she appeared in one last film, The Old Maid starring Bette Davis.

Then, with her investments in place and Hal’s career going strong, she was free to devote herself to her passion. As she had once said: “Someday when I’m through

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with pictures I want to make a regular business of being friendly to people.”

And she certainly did. She would send money to strangers after reading about their misfortunes in the paper, spend much time volunteering at hospitals, and visit lonely elderly people. She was the main benefactor for the McKinley Home For Boys, and writer and former juvenile delinquent Eddie Bunker credited Louise with giving him his first typewriter. She kept a quotation framed by her bed: “May I never leave a lame dog by a stile, but lift it to the other side and make its life worthwhile.”

In 1962, after a full and busy life, Louise passed away at home from a brain hemorrhage caused by arteriosclerosis. The little church that hosted her funeral was filled with family, friends, and former coworkers from all over Hollywood. Louise was interred in the Inglewood Cemetery in Los Angeles, alongside her parents. The UCLA Medical Auxiliary established a memorial fund in her honor in memory of her impressive volunteer work.

In an era when so many temperamental stars are being remembered with great detail in countless books and articles, let us hope that this warm-hearted woman who gave so much of herself to so many will get some recognition. Among the pool of actresses said to be role models, she is one of the few who seem truly worthy of such a title. If ever a name deserves to be remembered, it’s the name of Louise Fazenda–one of our earliest female clowns and one of Hollywood’s great humanitarians.

Lea Stans is a film historian who runs the blog Silent-ology, and she is currently gathering research in hopes of writing a book on Louise’s life and career. A version of this article has appeared on her site. If you have any information on this forgotten comedienne, please contact her at LMStans5@gmail.com.

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legends and examining how their legacies are evident to this day in their respective From Harlem, Georgia to hometowns and beyond. It is safe to say Hollywood that not every classic film star had a life of glitz and glamour from the very beginning,

by Annette Bochenek so it is intriguing to gain a sense of the Welcome to Silent Film Quarterly’s context that helped produce these fine newest column, “Hometowns to talents. Indeed, many of the larger-thanHollywood!” My name is Annette life icons of the screen came from modest Bochenek and I hope that you will join me means and humble beginnings. Despite in my adventures throughout America in what sort of life into which one of these search of the genesis of some of classic actors was born, each hometown Hollywood’s brightest stars. While many has something unique to offer in regards to film fans are interested in studying the lives the legacy of its notable residents. For me, of Hollywood legends after they had studying the early lives of these celebrities become famous, I enjoy exploring the has afforded me the opportunity to better environment, surroundings, and locations understand their background, as told by that helped foster the talents we know and their own footsteps. Walking the same love today. streets and exploring the legacies they have One of my favorite pastimes includes left behind ultimately makes these key traveling to the hometowns of Hollywood players in the film industry them more accessible, relatable, and overall human.

For my first column, I will be spotlighting Oliver Hardy’s hometown of Harlem, Georgia. While Laurel and Hardy are known as a pivotal comedic duo today, their professional partnership was prefaced by their two very different lives that started far from Hollywood. Stanley Laurel or Arthur Stanley Jefferson was born in 1890 in Ulverston, England, while Norvell Hardy was born in 1892 in the small town of The author with Ollie and Stan in Harlem, Georgia.

Oliver Hardy:

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Harlem, Georgia.

Norvell was born to Oliver Hardy and E m i l y N o r ve l l . H i s f at h e r w a s a Confederate soldier and later became a tax collector upon being injured at the Battle of Antietam. Though the Hardys moved to Madison, Georgia, just before Norvell’s birth, Emily continued to own a house in Harlem that she rented to tenant farmers.

Oliver died just one year after Norvell’s birth, leaving baby Norvell to be raised by Emily.

Growing up, Norvell’s life was full of ups and downs. Norvell was the youngest of five Hardy children. Unfortunately, tragedy struck when his brother, Sam, drowned in the Oconsee River. Norvell pulled Sam out of the water, but was unable to revive him. Despite this family trauma, Norvell’s mother continued to occupy herself with keeping up the Harlem home and raising her family. Although she housed a varied of tenants, the people that she housed most often possessed a passion for music and theater.

Though Norvell attended schools such as Georgia Military College and Young Harris College, his interest in education was minimal. Instead, the vigor and glee of his mother’s tenants no doubt amused young Norvell, and soon enough, he

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headed for the stage. Norvell ran away from his boarding school in order to sing with an Atlanta-based theatrical group.

When Norvell’s mother learned of his affinity for performance, she supported his talents and paid for his lessons in music and voice.

In memory of his father, Norvell adopted the name “Oliver Norvell Hardy”—a name which he would occasionally mention in full throughout various Laurel and Hardy performances.

Additionally, Oliver also received the nickname of “Babe,” as his Italian barber would apply talcum powder to his face, saying, “nice-a baby.” The nickname would briefly follow him into his early film career, with him occasionally also being credited as “Babe Hardy.”

Oliver entered show business as a singer, often performing at his local cinema. When yet another cinema opened near his hometown, he became interested in theater operations and worked as a janitor, manager, projectionist, and in the ticket booth. Soon enough, he was entranced by the actors he saw on screen and decided that he could be just as adept in his own performances. One of his friends encouraged him to go to Jacksonville, Florida, where he began working at the Lubin Manufacturing Company.

At the Lubin studio, Oliver was typically cast in villainous and “heavy” roles. Oliver was 6’1” and roughly 300 pounds, so the parts he received were limited by his stature. However, his physique worked well in comedies, providing a foil to his co-stars. After making roughly 50 films for Lubin, Oliver moved to New York and also filmed at Pathé, Casino, and Edison Studios,

The Silent Film Quarterly・!17 followed by a move back to Jacksonville to work at Vim Comedy Company.

Later, Oliver moved across the country to Los Angeles and found freelance work in the film industry, making over 40 films for Vitagraph. It was at this point that Oliver first collaborated with British actor, Stan Laurel. The two appeared in The Lucky Dog (1921), with Oliver’s character trying to rob Stan. They would not work together again on screen for another six years. In the meantime, Oliver worked for Hal Roach Studios, and can be noticed in Our Gang s h o r t s a n d C h a r l e y C h a s e fi l m s .

Additionally, he played the Tin Man in The Wizard of Oz (1925), followed with being directed by Stan in Yes, Yes, Yes, Nanette!

(1925).

In 1927, Oliver and Stan teamed up once more, leading to the production of several short films starring the duo. Two years later, they would appear in their first feature film, Hollywood Revue of 1929.

Additionally, the duo starred in their first feature film, Pardon Us, while still working on various short films. In fact, their short The Music Box (1932) won them an Academy Award for best short film. Upon the completion of Saps at Sea (1940), Oliver and Stan left Hal Roach studios in order to perform for the USO during World War II. When they returned, they found work at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayor studios as well as 20th Century Fox. Laurel and Hardy would make their last film, Atoll K (1951), while also making time for occasional television appearances.

Stan and Oliver’s collaborations spanned from the silent era and well into the transition to sound. Altogether, the comedic duo made roughly 107 film appearances throughout their 25-year partnership.

Unfortunately, Oliver suffered a heart attack in 1954 after making his way through rapid weight loss. Another stroke in 1956 affected his voice and mobility.

Oliver died at age 65 on August 7, 1957.

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Although Oliver is one half of a legendary comedy team, many residents of Harlem are extremely proud of their native son. Picturesque Harlem is a short drive away from Augusta, Georgia, and the Laurel and Hardy Museum is marketed well throughout the surrounding area.

Since its opening on July 15, 2000, visitors from all over the world have come to the Laurel and Hardy Museum in Harlem. In fact, on the first Saturday in October, the town holds the Oliver Hardy Festival, which draws a crowd well over the size of Harlem’s population. However, when it is time for business as usual, this museum is all but forgotten; travelers come and go, and locals drop in for a visit. After school, children stop by for homemade cookies and watch a short or two.

The overwhelming sense of community breathes life into this museum and continually honors the memory and legacy of Stan and Ollie. The museum i t s e l f ex i s t s d u e t o a h e a r t e n i n g responsibility of sharing and preserving the works of Laurel and Hardy. Moreover, its inception was highly influenced by Laurel and Hardy fans. In its infancy, the museum was no museum at all. Rather, people from all over the world would send Laurel and Hardy memorabilia to Harlem. Artifacts of all shapes and sizes were placed on display in City Hall, until there was simply no room left. As a result, through the collaboration of Laurel and Hardy fans, the community of Harlem, and a Mayor of Harlem who was incidentally related to Oliver, Harlem’s Laurel and Hardy Museum was born.

In addition to being a hub for the community, the museum houses an impressive collection of Laurel and Hardy’s works. The museum’s staff will gladly play any film or short for visitors in their theatre area. Also, visitors can enjoy viewing the wide array of Laurel and Hardy memorabilia and artifacts, including photos, decorative collectibles, posters, lobby cards, and props, such as a fez from

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Sons of the Desert (1933). Moreover, the Laurel and Hardy Museum in Harlem is just one wonderful half of preserving the legacy of Laurel and Hardy; the sister museum operates in Ulverston, England, hometown of Stan Laurel.

Outside of the Museum, one can take a short walk and find a plaque marking the spot where Oliver Hardy was born. It is just across the street from Ollie’s Laundry, of all things! Additionally, the town’s water tower features a towering caricature of Oliver’s face.

I strongly encourage you to visit the Laurel and Hardy Museum, especially if

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you can make it in time for the festival.

The Museum possesses knowledgeable and hospitable staff members, a hefty collection of memorabilia, and a charming gift shop.

Don’t forget to pose with “the boys” before you leave.

The Laurel and Hardy Museum is located at 250 N. Louisville St,. Harlem, Georgia, 30814, and is free of charge.

Visit Annette Bochenek’s Hometowns to Hollywood at home2hollywood.wordpress.com.

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and pacing of the wildly popular Keystone comedies, and for awhile thereafter Mack Sennett’s major competitor.

Born in the town of Sambor in the Galacia district of the Austro-Hungarian The Volatile Jocelyn Leigh Empire in 1881, Lehrman emigrated to the U.S. in 1906 when he was twenty-five. By

by Thomas Reeder 1908 he had hooked up with the Biograph For all of his talent and contributions studios where he served as a bit player, to the fledgling film industry, silent comedy occasional consultant, and idea man for his pioneer Henry Lehrman doesn’t receive friend Mack Sennett’s later comedies for much respect. He wasn’t blameless, of that company. Short-lived stints with both course, but his rather dismal reputation is Carl Laemmle’s IMP and the Kinemacolor the direct result of a handful of self-serving Company took place before Lehrman autobiog raphies written by his joined Sennett out west in 1912 for contemporaries years after the fact; S e n n e t t ’s n e w l y - f o r m e d Key s t o n e Lehrman was long dead and Company, directing one unit while understandably unable to defend Sennett directed a second. himself. That, and his tangential Lehrman’s importance to connection with the most Keystone cannot be notorious scandal of the 1920s, underemphasized, directing and the resultant fallout from a considerable number of his venomous reaction to those one- and two-reelers that events, didn’t help his were instrumental in reputation. Additionally, the cementing the Keystone poor survival rate of the s t y l e i n a re c e p t i ve hundreds of films Lehrman public’s minds. Lehrman was involved with, and the served as Chaplin’s first comparative lack of accessibility director when that of the few that remain hasn’t comedian moved from helped matters, denying a fair stage to screen, assessment of his output by and directed comparison to the more readily many of the viewable films of producers films of Ford Mack Sennett and Hal Sterling and Roach, and comedians R o s c o e such as Charles Chaplin, “ F a t t y ” Buster Keaton and Arbuckle, two Harold Lloyd. of the studio’s Which is a other popular shame, since comedians.

Lehrman was one Lehrman and of the key Sterling left to architects of form Sterling early slapstick Comedies for c o m e d y, a r e l e a s e m a j o r Henry Lehrman in 1914. This same portrait would be used time and t h ro u g h contributor to again up until the early 1930s. Courtesy of Museum of Modern Universal in the look, feel, Art/Film Stills Archive.

1914, and

Henry “Pathe” Lehrman and the Birth of Silent Comedy:

The Silent Film Quarterly・!20 within half a year Lehrman departed and set up his own company for Universal, the L-Ko (Lehrman Knock-Out) Komedy Kompany. Hundreds of films followed, many starring Lehrman’s lead comedian Billie Ritchie, before Lehrman departed in 1917 for a far more lucrative deal with William Fox and the newly-formed Fox Sunshine comedies. And then, in 1919, Lehrman fulfilled his dream by forming his ver y own inde pendent production company, Henry Lehrman Comedies, releasing through First National Exhibitors Exchange.

It didn’t take long before Lehrman’s dream turned into a nightmare, however, when mismanagement and financial difficulties forced the closure of his studio; a mere five two-reelers were released, and a sixth never saw the light of the screen. The three of these films that survive display the high standard of cinematic creativity that Lehrman had achieved, and one can only

Virginia Rappe. Fame was finally hers, but the hard way.

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Virginia Rappe and Roscoe Arbuckle. Sensational photo spreads and equally sensational captions were the norm.

imagine what the future would have yielded had misfortune not visited.

Lehrman attempted to resurrect his career by switching over to feature film direction, helming the spectacular and wildly successful Owen Moore vehicle Reported Missing in 1921. It was not to be; the Roscoe Arbuckle-Virginia Rappe scandal erupted into the headlines, and the subsequent manslaughter trial and retrials dominated the news. Lehrman’s scathing denouncement of his former friend and lack of discipline during that single, headline-grabbing interview, and some admittedly poor choices on his part that followed made him a pariah in the industry.

Lehrman was at the lowest point in what had otherwise been a meteoric thirteen year career, his reputation in somewhat of a freefall, both within the industry and the public at large. Seemingly having hit rock bottom, Lehrman probably thought things couldn’t get any worse.

And then he met Jocelyn Leigh.

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The title says it all.

Initially a sympathetic presence in the earliest days of the scandal, people were beginning to question Lehrman’s sincerity and motives. Perhaps the single biggest blow came courtesy of William Randolph Hearst’s International Feature Service, Inc., which published a scathing full-page article that appeared in papers nationwide.

Titled “$1,000 for Lilies But Not One Cent for a Lovely Wrap,” the lilies were a reference to the beautiful (but to some, pretentious) blanket of 1,000 Tiger lilies sent by Lehrman to be draped over Rappe’s coffin, adorned by a white satin ribbon emblazoned with gold letters: “To my brave sweetheart, from Henry.” The Hearst article was accompanied by a photo of Lehrman and an even larger photo of the aggrieved woman at the center of the piece, one Jocelyn Leigh. Dripping with sarcasm toward Lehrman, the story went on to claim that within a month of Rappe’s death, Lehrman had promised a mink coat and a job in the movies to Miss Leigh. She acquired the coat but was shocked—shocked —when Lehrman’s seventy-five dollar check for down payment bounced and her dreams for a mink coat shattered. Photos of the front and back of the bad check were included, lest anyone doubt the veracity of the story being told.1 The article made Lehrman out to be a twofaced cad of the worst sort, never

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questioning the motives of the woman at the center of the story. The rest of the story came out two months later in a far smaller piece, wherein Miss Leigh admitted that the previous story was “not exactly correct.” In this telling she claimed that Lehrman had given her the seventy-five dollar check as a first payment of a $700 debt he owed her for work already done, and that she had used it as down payment for the coat. When the store owner refused to alter the coat and refused to accept a return, she said, Leigh complained to Lehrman, who immediately stopped payment on the check.2 As if those stories weren’t sufficient in presenting the producer-director in a less than favorable light, another piece appeared once again dredging up those 1,000 Tiger lilies. Albert O. Stein, the San Francisco-based florist who had filled the order for that floral arrangement, insisted that numerous attempts to collect the $150 owed him by Lehrman had all met with failure. And so he filed suit.3 Lehrman surprised everyone with his April 26, 1922 marriage in Santa Ana to Jocelyn Leigh, now described as “Chicago’s leading representative in Ziegfeld’s Follies.”

Leigh, whose real name was Mary Alice Simpson, described Lehrman as a “friend of her father.” According to the Los Angeles Times, news of their marriage “caused a sensation among Lehrman’s friends and acquaintances…especially those who knew him when he was devoted to Virginia Rappe.”4 Given the earlier publicity surrounding Lehrman, Leigh, and the mink coat, one can just imagine what form that “sensation” took.

If Lehrman had anticipated a life of marital bliss as a result of his union with Jocelyn Leigh, the reality was anything but.

Lehrman, who gave his middle name as Mauritz and a Jack Benny-like age of thirty-seven on his April 26, 1922 marriage certificate, didn’t know what he was getting into when he said “I do,” but perhaps he should have had an inkling sometime over

The Silent Film Quarterly・!22

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the previous four months that he had big blowup, however; they didn’t last long known her. News of their marriage sparked at the Irolo Street address, another a new wave of sarcastic reportage, with a disturbance caused by Jocelyn forcing them posed photo of the two lovebirds appearing to vacate in August 1922 and relocate to an in newspapers nationwide, relaxing in an apartment house on Western Avenue easy chair, Jocelyn gazing at Lehrman with between Sunset and Hollywood rapt adoration. Lest anyone forget his Boulevards. Numerous violent disturbances back-story, this photo was usually brought an end to their stay here after a accompanied by text such as “Bought mere three months, their landlord forcing Tiger Lily Blanket for Miss Rapp [sic]; them out in October. Lehrman’s lack of Loses Heart Again” and “Virginia Rappe’s any meaningful employment during this Fiance is Married.”5 Elsewhere, solo photos time and the constant hounding by of the attractive bride appeared—both creditors didn’t help matters, and Jocelyn head shots and one long shot of the was probably miffed that her marriage to a shapely red-head decked out in a one“successful” Hollywood director wasn’t piece, body-hugging affair and spiked heels panning out as she had hoped.

—with similar scandal re-invoking blurbs, From then on it was a nomadic always reminding the public of Lehrman’s existence, each new dwelling giving way to former fiancé.6 When asked, Jocelyn would say that she had no intention of getting into the picture business, in spite of conflicting reports as to why she relocated to Los Angeles from her hometown of Chicago in the first place.

The couple moved into an apartment on Irolo Street (reported as Irol Street), but it wasn’t long before her fiery temperament erupted.

“Lehrman stated that the first quarrel they had,” reported Variety, “was when he came home and told his wife about a girl he had met on the street who had smiled at him.”7 The first public airing of any sort of discord in the Lehrman household appeared in late December 1922 when it was reported that the police had been called in to intervene in a “dispute” that had risen over the purchase of a new automobile, although the actual purchaser was not “$1,000 for Lilies But Not One Cent for a Lovely Fur Wrap.” Lehrman named.8 This wasn’t the first as cad.

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the next when one landlord after another gave them their walking papers. A home on North Bronson Avenue followed and actually lasted for six months until March 1923 when they moved once again, this time to Detroit Street. Six weeks later, with Lehrman suffering “great mental anguish, humiliation and embarrassment”—or at least according to his Complaint on Divorce —they were forced to seek yet another residence. Several more dwellings followed between March and November 1923 before they “settled” into a residence at 1800 North Normandie Street. While Lehrman had managed to score a few paying jobs with the Double Dealing feature and the Fighting Blood series, it wasn’t enough, and it is anyone’s guess how the necessity to declare bankruptcy in September affected Jocelyn. The tipping point came in November when, in the presence of Lehrman’s friends, Newlyweds Jocelyn Leigh and Henry Lehrman. The calm before Jocelyn called Lehrman “vile and the storm. vulgar names, and created such It got worse. Jocelyn ratcheted it up a disturbances of such a violent nature” that notch by threatening to “create a scandal he told her to pack up and get out. The of such character as would force the couple entered into a separation agreement plaintiff out of the moving picture business and Jocelyn moved in with her mother. But and thereby to permanently incapacitate Jocelyn had a rather warped view of just him in the industry….”11 To that end she what a separation involved, returning to his repeatedly broke into his house while he home during his absence and, upon his was in the midst of business conferences, return, greeting him with a barrage of and made such a scene that his associates thrown items that included knives and in one instance and a director in another drinking glasses, and threatened to kill him fled the place while the police were called —again according to his Complaint.9 in. In another incident Jocelyn threatened Lehrman relocated to 6600 Sunset to kill Lehrman, and in the presence of his Boulevard, but Jocelyn followed late one landlady. All this while Lehrman was night in July, smashing a pane of glass to attempting to resurrect his standing in the gain entrance, requiring Lehrman to drive industry with his return to the Fox comedy her to the hospital to have her injuries dealt unit. It must have weighed heavily on him. with. Variety euphemistically reported that A temporary restraining order was she had “caused a stir,” while Lehrman was issued in late October 1924 prohibiting a bit more succinct, stating that she had Jocelyn from entering into any and all “her hysterical moments.” But, he added, verbal communication and physical they were “good friends.”10

The Silent Film Quarterly・!24

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Luther Reed, participant in round 2.

weary Lehrman responded “We have been ordered out of so many places, that I’m tired. I didn’t want to fight forever.”14 One might be somewhat skeptical of Lehrman’s allegations, believing them to be Jocelyn Leigh, circa 1926. She had changed the spelling of her last name to “Lee” exaggerations embellished to make for interaction with Lehrman. She filed a a stronger complaint, but aside from the demurrer a few weeks later, but it was initial demurrer filed by Jocelyn she never overruled on November 17, 1924.12 issued any sort of vigorous rebuttal. A Lehrman filed for divorce in midfurther bolstering of the validity of December, and was granted same the day Lehrman’s allegations surfaced six years after Christmas 1924; the continuance of later. Jocelyn, by now foregoing the stage the restraining order was part of the surname Leigh for Lee, had remarried, this judgment. Jocelyn didn’t walk away empty time to RKO director Luther Reed. That handed, however, Lehrman earlier having union didn’t last as long as Lehrman’s had, agreed to pay her $8,500 in monthly the harried director filing for divorce only a installments of $200—a bribe of sorts to few months after tying the knot. “Director get her to agree to move out—and threw in Reed couldn’t believe the stories Lehrman a Chrysler valued at $2,000 as part of the and his lawyers had related in court,” deal.13 It was a clean break, at least on reported the San Antonio Light, “and with no paper. When asked about the divorce, a more qualms concerning his own domestic

The Silent Film Quarterly・!25 happiness he led the pretty little redhead to the alter…. His plea is almost identical with the one that won another director, Henry Lehrman, his freedom from Jocelyn in 1926 [sic]—he just can’t be healthy and happy…in the midst of the wild tantrums that, he asserts, Jocelyn stages when something annoys her.”15 One could argue that Reed and his lawyers were embracing a previously used strategy that had met with success, but only after a few months of marriage? Doubtful.

Lehrman’s divorce from Jocelyn wasn’t the last of his unfortunate interactions with the woman, the final reported incident occurring a year later in January 1926 and saddling the hapless director with charges of intoxication, possession of liquor, and transportation of same. The account of the incident is worth repeating here due to its rather bizarre nature: Lehrman was arrested by Police Officer Donlan at Hollywood Boulevard and Cahuenga Avenue early Tuesday morning. Donlan said he saw a man chasing a screaming woman down the street, and arrested him just as he caught her. He searched the man’s car, he said, and found six bottles of beer. Lehrman was a motion picture director. He gave his occupation on the police blotter as “retired.” His divorced wife, who is said to have been in the Follies under the name of Jocelyn Lee, had been chasing him down the street in her car, he is said to have told Donlan.

“I was told by Lehrman that he had been driving on the boulevard with his former wife following him,” Donlan said. “He told me this had irritated him, and he had swerved his car into the curb to head her off. Her car then scraped his machine.

The woman, the officer said, accompanied Lehrman to the police station, where she gave the name of Helen Bryant, but later admitted she was Mrs. Alice Lehrman.

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It is probably safe to assume that Lehrman’s patience had grown thin with his erratic former wife’s antics. He was released on $400 bail, but when sought for his side of the story at his Fernwood Avenue address, he had already moved out.16 Lehrman would never remarry.

Jocelyn Lee, for what it is worth, became a moderately successful actress in a two-dozen film career that began shortly after her divorce from Lehrman until it sputtered out in the early 1930s. These were supporting roles with the sole exception her lead in the Leo McCareydirected Hal Roach comedy short Madame Q (1929) opposite Edgar Kennedy. She married for a final time in 1935, this time to screenwriter James Seymour. By all accounts this was a happy, peaceful marriage, which would suggest that she had either matured out of her tempertantrum phase, or her choice of a third partner was a far more compatible one.

Or, perhaps, that both Lehrman and Reed were somewhat less than blameless.

Lehrman’s career never achieved the success of the earlier years, although he did manage to eke out a living during the twenties moving from one studio to the next, alternating direction of a handful of lesser features with the occasional helming of some shorts. Direction came to an end soon after the introduction of sound, and Lehrman would live out the rest of his fifteen years working behind the scenes first at Twentieth Century and 20th CenturyFox. He died in 1946, largely forgotten by the public at large and within the industry that had acknowledged him as a comedy genius a mere twenty-five years earlier.

For a detailed history of Henry Lehrman’s career and exhaustive filmography of his considerable output, see Mr. Suicide: Henry “Pathe” Lehrman and the Birth of Silent Comedy

by Thomas Reeder, soon to be published by BearManor Media.

The Silent Film Quarterly・!26

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1 “$1,000 for Lilies, But Not One Cent for a Lovely Fur Wrap,” Ogden-Standard Examiner, January 8, 1922, p.6 2 “Henry Lehrman Present to Model Told Rappe Girl’s Fiance in Costly Gift,” San Francisco Call & Post, March 24, 1922, page unknown 3 “Lehrman Sued for Rappe Burial Flower Piece,” San Francisco Call & Post, April 11, 1922, page unknown 4 “Henry Lehrman Engaged,”Los Angeles Times, April 17, 1922, p.II7; “Follies Girl Bride of Henry Lehrman,” Wisconsin State Journal, April 29, 1922, p.4 5 “Bought Tiger Lily Blanket for Miss Rapp; Loses Heart Again,” The Eau Claire Leader, May 26, 1922, p.1; “Virginia Rappe’s Fiance is Married,” Daily Argus, May 19, 1922, page unknown 6 “Jocelyn Leigh Weds,” San Francisco Chronicle, May 21, 1922, p.2 7 “Lehrman Wins Divorce From Jocelyn L. Lehrman,” Variety, December 24, 1924, p.27 8 “Lehrman Disputes Wife,” Variety, December 29, 1922, p.7 9Complaint on Divorce, Superior Court of the State of California In and For the County of Los Angeles, October 25, 1924, pp.2-4 10 “Wife Called at 1 A.M. And Became Hysterical,” Variety, July 16, 1924, p.19 11Complaint on Divorce, pp.4-5 12 “Peace for Director,” Los Angeles Times, November 18, 1924, p.A8 13Interlocutory Judgment of Divorce, Superior Court of the State of California In and For the County of Los Angeles, December 16, 1924; Final Judgment of Divorce, Superior Court of the State of California In and For the County of Los Angeles, December 26, 1924.

14 “What They Say Happens When Red-Headed Jocelyn Loses Her Temper,” San Antonio Light, November 16, 1930, page unknown 15 Dan Thomas, “Hollywood’s Record Year for Wrecked Romances,” Hamilton Daily News, December 20, 1930, page unknown 16 “Lehrman in Police Toils,” Los Angeles Times, January 21, 1926, p.A10

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The Silent Film Quarterly・!27

Can’t Silence Love: The Silent Films of Charles Farrell and Janet Gaynor

by Meredith Riggs Charles Farrell and Janet Gaynor, two names seldom spoken or heard of in this modern day, were one of the most successful and romantic screen couples in the silent film era. They were paired together for three silent films, all directed by the masterful Frank Borzage.

Farrell and Gaynor exceeded the standard of what audiences looked for in an onscreen romantic couple. Morality always played a key role and true love

Farrell and Gaynor, ca. 1928

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triumphed every time. Their love was electrifying. It was a kind of love that was emotional, passionate, and vulnerable.

Farrell and Gaynor had ways of looking at each other and making simple gestures that won their worldwide audience over. From the moment they fell in love with each other on screen for the first time, the audience fell in love with the two of them.

With his charming and classic good lucks, Charles Farrell was an onscreen dream. His smile alone could steal anyone’s heart. Janet Gaynor exuded an angelic purity and sincerity that has rarely been seen in cinema since. Even when she portrayed characters with rough edges, she never lost heart; the audience always roots for her. The black and white cinematography in each film amplified their qualities, bringing out Farrell’s handsomeness and Gaynor’s cherubic presence to an even greater degree.

Farrell and Gaynor’s screen team debut was in 7th Heaven, released in 1927. The story revolves around a poor but aspirational Parisian sewer worker named Chico (Farrell) who saves the life of an abused prostitute named Diane (Gaynor).

Then, to later save her from being arrested, Chico tells the police that Diane is his wife and allows her to live with him in his seventh-floor apartment which he calls “Heaven”—a place to dream in.

Just before Chico goes off to war, they realize that they’re in love with each other. A tearjerker twist leaves Diane—and the audience— yearning to know how their story will end.

As a side note, for 7th Heaven, along with her performances in Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (1927) and Street Angel (1928), Janet Gaynor won the first ever Academy Award for Best Actress in 1929. This was a feat that set the bar high for future Oscar

The Silent Film Quarterly・!28 contenders.

Their second film was Street Angel, released in 1928. It is a melodrama which tells the story of Angela (Gaynor), a girl who – despite being good at heart – has run into trouble with the law after illegally collecting money to aid her sick mother. Fleeing from the police, Angela runs away with a circus and meets Gino (Farrell), a nomadic painter. They fall in love, but Angela is too afraid to confide in Gino about her past transgressions.

When the past finally catches up with her, Angela is forced to make a tough decision that may change everything.

Bring an extra tissue for this movie.

In 1929, Charles Farrell and Janet Gaynor’s final silent film partnership was completed with the release of Lucky Star.

In my opinion, this was Gaynor and Farrell at their most romantic. The story is simple and so effective. Set during the outbreak of World War I, Tim (Farrell) is an electrician who signs up for the war.

Mary (Gaynor) is a poor farm girl who forms a rocky on-and-off friendship with him due to her mischievous ways. When he returns from war, Tim is crippled and confined to a wheelchair. His outlook on life becomes gloomy after he realizes that most of his day-to-day activities are now difficult or impossible to do. Despite his setback, Tim and Mary resume their friendship and cheer each other up every single day. Mary turns into a mature and lovely young lady, which catches the eye of Tim. However, more difficulty ensues, but the two steadfastly cling to each other as time goes on. The end of the film is a work of magic.

It’s been nearly ninety years since Farrell and Gaynor last starred in a silent film together, but each film holds up well nearly a century later. With the passing of time, the only people who are familiar with their names are typically die-hard classic film fans. Having said that, modern audiences can still enjoy their silent films.

They are, in my opinion, more well-

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Sunrise (1927)

written, well-acted, romantic, and emotional than most modern romantic films. The magic is in the simplicity.

Sometimes, we—the audience—just need to unwind and watch a simple love story. In a world filled with neon lights, remakes, and tons of gratuitous high-speed action scenes, a little black and white love story can make for a nice alternative. Charles Farrell and Janet Gaynor were, in my opinion, one of the most romantic film couples of all time—up there with Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall and William Powell and Myrna Loy. Nothing can ever take the place of a great story and that’s exactly what Farrell and Gaynor’s silent films offer us. I invite you to indulge in 7th Heaven, Street Angel, and Lucky Star. You will fall totally in love with them.

Meredith Riggs is a recent college graduate and an aspiring film historian from Missouri.

The Silent Film Quarterly・!29

Runaway Romany

by Marion Davies 2017 marks the centennial of Marion Davies’s screen debut. Impressively, however, Davies not only starred in the five-reel Runaway Romany, but wrote the story herself. While the film was very quickly eclipsed by much finer offerings from the young actress, it nevertheless occupies a very important spot in Hollywood’s early history.

Runaway Romany was published in numerous periodicals as a short story several months before the film was released. Here, for what may be the first time in 100 years, is Runaway Romany as Davies originally wrote it; while the film is lost, the actress’s words provide modern audiences with a look at what the film was like. ・・・ PROMPTLY at eight in t h e m o r n i n g T h e o d o re True’s gray limousine swung around the white-pebbled drive from the garage and stopped noiselessly at the entrance of his great mansion at Truesdale-on-theHudson. John, the old butler, gasped as he saw it and hurried down the steps to the liveried chauffeur.

“The master will not go to the city today,” he said sternly. “Don’t you know this is the second of June?”

The chauffeur emitted a low whistle of surprise and drove back to the garage as silently as possible. He had forgotten the date. Had he seen the morning papers he would have remembered and known better than to have expected the great “Copper

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King” and possessor of many millions to have left his home on this day. This was the fourteenth June second that True had lived a day of agony alone on his estate mourning his great sorrow in solitude.

City editors never forget dates. Each year they printed the story. This year the headlines in the newspapers read: THEODORE TRUE’S DAUGHTER DISAPPEARED FIFTEEN YEARS AGO TODAY. ONE OF LIFE’S GREAT MYSTERIES T HAT W AS N EVER S OLVED . L ITTLE RUTH, THE TWO-YEAR-OLD DAUGHTER OF THE COPPER KING, LOST NEAR HIS TOP-NOTCH MINE IN IDAHO, JUNE 2, 1902.

The Silent Film Quarterly・!30 Ordinarily the great financier rode to the little station each morning at eight, boarded his private railroad coach, was taken to New York and thence to his Wall Street office, but this day he rode his saddle horse alone through the shady paths of his private park. Tears dimmed his steel-blue eyes and the hard lines of his firm chin were softened by grief. Fifteen years before a nurse had allowed his motherless baby girl to stroll away while they were visiting one of his mines. A brush fire added to the nurse’s hysteria and she could give no explanation of how it happened. A searching party was kept out for weeks, reward after reward was offered, but no word of his golden-haired Ruth ever reached him.

This year the story in the newspaper was destined to play an important part in the lives of many people. It all started with “Inky” Ames. His real name was William, but as a live press agent who got more “inky” press notices—meaning big headlines—than any six other press agents in town; the nickname stuck.

In his little office at the Frivolity Theater, just off Broadway, Inky was having a hard time of it with Harrison, the manager.

“Unless something is done, the show closes,” Harrison was saying to Inky, “and if it does—well, where do you expect to work next?”

“Just like that, eh?” queried Inky.

“Well, let me tell you that all the press agents in the world can’t make a hit of a bum show. Anitra is clever, but she can’t swing it alone and even Bill Shakespeare couldn’t save it if he wrote the press notices himself and did a black-face monologue in the last act. Your show is punk, P-U-N-K, get me?”

“Then we’ll have to close Saturday, ———I say, Inky, we’ll have to close Saturday,” repeated Harrison, but Inky didn’t hear him. He was staring at the story in the newspaper.

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“Wow!” howled Inky, leaping to his feet. For the next ten minutes he talked faster to Harrison than a ballyhoo man at a circus, and then dashed for a taxi while the o f fi c e b o y t e l e p h o n e d t o A n i t r a Desmonde’s maid to awaken her and have her ready to talk with Inky.

“Say, Anitra,” shouted Inky, a few minutes later, breezing into her tiny reception room where she awaited him, yawning, and clutching her scarlet kimono about her, “what’s your real name? Folks living? Anyone in town know who you are?”

“Are you crazy?” snapped the little ingenue, leading woman in “The Blue Parasol,” playing at the Frivolity.

“Listen, ’Nitra,” pleaded Inky, and for an hour and a half she listened. When they were through talking, Anitra Desmonde, once Susan Higgins, of Vermont, had learned her lesson well.

“But, Inky, this kid had a strawberry mark her left shoulder. Can you beat it?

They all do. I ain’t got one—” “You will have one in an hour. Three dollars to a tattoo man and he’ll give you the finest strawberry mark that ever blushed. I’ll send him up on the way down.”

The next day Inky Ames had so coached Anitra and so fortified his story that, to use his words, “the city editors ate it up.” On the third day of June Theodore True, back to the grind again to forget, in the amassing of more millions, the keenest edge of his great sorrow, bought the evening papers as he stepped into his car to be taken to Grand Central station. One look at the headlines and he paled and trembled. “My God!” he whispered, hoarsely, then he startled his chauffeur by shouting: “To the stage door of the Frivolity Theater, all speed!” and sank back gripping the sides of the car. A little later, having been held up twice by traffic cops, only long enough to hand them his card,

The Silent Film Quarterly・!31 Theodore True stood before Susan Higgins, known as Anitra Desmonde.

She told her story as coached by Inky.

She described an imaginary mountain cabin and an equally imaginary grizzled old miner who, she said, told her, before he died, that he had found her in the forest.

She had gone with the little money he left to one of his relatives who, upon discovering that she could sing and dance, was glad to let her go on the stage. Her story was so convincing and her manner so charming that Mr. True readily believed it, especially after seeing the birth mark on her shoulder. A moment of suspense then with outstretched arms and trembling voice, he said: “Come, my daughter.”

NEITHER Inky nor Anitra realized the gravity of the deception at that time. They had planned to expose the “mistake” after a few days, let the whole affair be a “seven days wonder,” and then be forgotten. To Inky it meant great headlines, packing the house, saving the show and saving his job.

To Anitra it meant her name in electric lights season after season. Naturally Harrison, Inky and Anitra were staggered when True declared that his daughter could not remain on the stage. Anitra, frightened, murmured something about “contracts.”

“Will ten thousand dollars recompense you?” True snapped to Harrison, who would have let Anitra go for a thousand and got another ingenue. Harrison got the check and Anitra went home with her “father.”

In all her stage mimicry of wealth and in her many roles of “heiresses,” Anitra had never dreamed of the luxury she found in Theodore True’s home. She at first planned to find an opportune time, tell the truth and get back to the stage, but the thought of giving it all up was too great a test. Week after week passed but nothing was said.

Poor Inky Ames, however, dreamed bad dreams and was troubled with a

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conscience. Finally he went up to the True place and talked with Anitra about it.

“I’m no crook. I can’t stand this rotten game. I’m going to tell him,” declared Inky.

“It must not be! It must not be!” gasped Anitra.

“Aw, cut th’ stage stuff, Susan Higgins,” said Inky.

Anitra glared, then tried another role.

“He is happy. I’m happy. The truth will break his heart. Don’t be foolish. Do you want money?”

“Not a sou,” snarled Inky, “but maybe you’re right. Stick it out,” he added, and went back to the city, believing his conscience clear.

That same night when True came home for dinner he tossed a telegram over to Anitra, which read:

Top Notch, Idaho.

Theodore True: Mother vein struck in upper mine. Biggest on record. Will you come out and investigate?

Bud. “And who is ‘Bud,’ father?” she asked.

“Budwell Haskel, a Western college boy, mighty clever. In seven years he has worked up from tally-keeper to boss of my Top Notch mines, I shall go out at once.

You see I’ve been a miner and I trust no one’s judgment but my own in deciding whether to develop new property. you make the trip with me?”

“It would be splendid, out there in the mountains at this time of year!” exclaimed Anitra, and two days later, in True’s private car, they, were speeding westward for the little mining hamlet of Top Notch.

Midway between the Top Notch Inn, a hotel for summer tourists, and the offices of the lower Top Notch mine, “Bud” Haskell lived in a tiny bungalow, presided over by Sing Lee. On a bright June morning as Bud—no one called him anything else, even the miners—stepped in to the improvised shower bath built at the back of

The Silent Film Quarterly・!32

his bungalow, Sing Lee spoke through a crack in the wall: “What you want me ketchum for breakfus?”

“Broil that smallest trout I caught last night, Sing,” ordered Bud, between splashes.

“All li’. Gypsy has all come back las’ night,” added Sing.

“What!” shouted Bud. “Are you sure?

Is it old Alaya and all his gypsies?”

“Him, same, whole dam’ bunch.” Sing did not approve of the Gypsy tribe that

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every season camped on the river bank half a mile up the road.

Half an hour later Bud was riding up the road to the Gypsy camp. At the edge he turned his horse in among the trees and stopped beneath a great low-branched sycamore.

“Come down here, lazy girl!” he s h o u t e d . T h e re was a stir in the crotch of the tree.

Sharp eyes could see a small platfor m built there, covered with a gray blanket.

Slowly a great shock of golden curls appeared over the edge of the little platform, then two glorious blue eyes stared down at him though still half-asleep. “Good morning Bud,” greeted the girl.

“Hello, Romany,” and Bud stood in the stirrups and held up his hands for her to jump down. Bashfully she climbed on his shoulders, jumped to the ground and dashed for the brook.

When Bud overtook her she was washing her face, standing knee deep in the clear ripples.

“How have you been in all your winter wanderings, little girl?” demanded Bud, taking her slender brown hand.

“Romany has been well—and lonely,” she answered, and her eyelids lowered and her hand trembled ever so slightly.

The Silent Film Quarterly・!33 “WELL, here’s another happy summer for us. I’ve been lonesome without you, Romany.” Bud dismounted and for half an hour they sat and talked over old times— how, for many hours each day during the several summers the gypsies had been coming to this place, they had been together—how he had taught her to read and write. He told her of the coming that day of True, the owner of the mines, whom he must meet. Glancing at his watch, he jumped up suddenly, saying as he leaped on his horse, “I must go. We’ll probably ride past here this afternoon, and see you.” Romany sat motionless for many minutes. She was thinking of the time, five years before, when a girl of twelve, Bud had first seen her as he rescued her from being thrown from her horse which had run away with her. Now, not a dozen yards away, crouched Zinga, son of Carlos, chief of the tribe. Zinga’s heart was blacker with jealousy than his hair or his eyes, and they were as ink. Of all the Gypsy tribe little Romany was the only fair one. The other women were dark, and scowled more than they smiled. Zinga intended to take Romany for his wife. At first the members of the tribe were pleased at the attention of Bud to Romany. They liked the young chap; he was kind to them, but Zinga had been slowly turning them against Bud. When the train pulled in bearing True in his private car, Bud was down at the siding, with one of the mine’s dummy engines, superintending the side-tracking of the car. As usual, True was glad to see Bud, while Bud was eagerly watching for the long-lost “daughter,” as everyone at the mines had read the newspaper stories.

Anitra, who judged a man by the size of his diamonds rather than the clearness of his eyes, was little impressed with Bud, and went to her room at the Inn, leaving the men to talk. On the way to the mine Anitra noticed the Gypsy camp and commented about it. Bud explained that they camped there each summer on the company’s property with his permission.

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Incidentally he told them of Romany. He looked for her in passing, but did not see her.

At the mine the mother vein of copper just discovered, was examined and True learned how Bud directed the change in drilling because he had studied the rock strata.

“Bud!” exclaimed True, “you can quit being superintendent of the Top Notch mines and go to Denver and be my general manager.”

Bud’s heart beat faster, then he thought of Romany and so he stammered and asked for a while to think it over. On the way back from the mine Romany stepped out into the road and smilingly handed True a great bunch of wild flowers.

Then she walked over to Bud and patted his horse.

“This is Romany, the little girl of whom I told you, Mr. True,” said Bud. “What a beautiful child!” exclaimed True.

“I am seventeen, and a woman,” laughed Romany, starting to run away.

True called her back and gave her a bill and a gold coin. “The bill is for the flowers, the gold for your golden hair,” he laughed.

On the way back Anitra did some quick thinking. This Bud was a favorite, he had been promoted to general manager—it seemed worth while: As for that little golden-haired Gypsy child—she shrugged her shoulders.

Zinga, who had determined to trail Romany at all times, saw the gift of money and hurried back to camp. When Romany cape back she dutifully gave Chief Alaya the bill.

“The gold, child,” demanded Alaya.

“I—I shall keep that to remember the good man by——” Alaya snarled and wrenched it from her, boxed her ears and sent her away.

Zinga grinned maliciously and told his father what he had seen between Bud and Romany.

The Silent Film Quarterly・!34 “Send Romany here,” ordered the Chief. When she came he pointed a wrinkled, unclean finger at her and said; “At sundown tomorrow you and Zinga shall be married. Some day you will be queen of the tribe.”

POOR Romany knew better than to protest. She crept away to her tree and wept. But she dried her eyes as Bud approached her.

“Don’t worry, Romany. Alaya is afraid of me. He is on our property. He knows I can drive him away. I’ll see that you do not marry Zinga, or anyone you do not wish to marry. Tonight there will be a lawn party at the hotel. Come over and dance for us,” and so Romany’s smile returned and a short while later she was dancing gayly on the spacious lawn for the guests.

Anitra was fast becoming jealous. She saw the attachment between the Gypsy girl and Bud, and determined to end it. Zinga, too, was watching Romany dance from a near-by thicket. With all the guests on the lawn he saw his opportunity and, climbing a rear porch, entered a room and stole a diamond bracelet. Fate decreed that this should be Anitra’s bracelet. While Romany sat near a great rose bush to rest Zinga approached and showed her the bracelet.

“I bought it for you, for our wedding tomorrow,” he leered.

“Pouf ! There is to be no wedding,” l a u g h e d Ro m a ny. Ju s t t h e n Tr u e approached and began talking to Romany.

He was deeply interested in the girl. Some strange fascination held him. Anitra, seeing, became more jealous and flounced off to her room, but came running back with the news of the theft.

“Zinga has it,” Romany whispered to Bud, in fright. Bud overtook him, recovered the bracelet, but on account of his friendship for the Gypsies, he did not have him arrested, but ordered him off the grounds. Zinga hurried back to the camp and told the story.

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Poor Romany! When she returned to camp she was brutally whipped for her betrayal of Zinga. She had committed an unpardonable sin under Gypsy law.

“Tomorrow at sunrise, not sundown, thou shalt marry Zinga, then he may beat you into submission,” thundered Alaya.

Frightened, Romany crept to her couch among the trees. Later when all was quiet in the camp, she ran away to Bud’s bungalow, and awakened Sing Lee, who slept outside in a hammock, and Bud, hearing the noise, came out.

“Perhaps I can arrange to send you to New York with Mr. True, where no one shall whip you. He is deeply interested in you,” comforted Bud, and for the remainder of the night Romany slept inside, Bud in Sing Lee’s hammock and Sing Lee on a rug on the porch. Next morning Bud helped to disguise Romany, putting no trust in the Gypsies. In some of his younger brother’s clothes and with a cap covering her hair, Romany was taken aboard True’s private car. When True heard Bud’s story he willingly consented.

“I shall do what can for her on your account, Bud,” he said.

“And I’ll go to Denver on the new job,” added Bud, joyfully, “but—but I’ll have to come on to New York frequently to consult you.”

“Right,” laughed True.

Anitra managed to hide her jealousy and hatred of Romany on the way back, but at the True home she did everything possible to annoy Romany until True said, quietly, “Daughter, it pleases me to treat little Romany like another daughter. I hope you understand.” After that Anitra was more careful, but her hatred increased.

Back in Top Notch, Bud eagerly awaited the first letter from Romany. Zinga trailed Bud like a skilled sleuth, knowing that in time he would learn what had become of Romany. On the very day Bud received Romany’s first letter Zinga learned, for in mounting his horse, Bud carelessly dropped it from his pocket.

The Silent Film Quarterly・!35 Romany had been sent to a boarding school in Greenwich. She had beautiful dresses and was cared for as True’s own daughter. Would Bud please come on and see her before finally settling in Denver?

Bud certainly would. He started East soon after, but Zinga was ahead of him.

During the weeks at the True home while Romany was being fitted out with clothes, Frederick Hobart, True’s nephew, came on from an outing in Labrador and brought with him his college chum, Bert Fosdick. True was fond of his nephew though he knew him to have a weak character and easily influenced. So he asked Romany to “sister” him. Anitra, never able to get over the lure of the White Way, went into the city whenever she could do so, and always when True was away on business. She was usually accompanied by Hobart.

Romany would not join them. She had no desire for the gaiety of the cabarets.

Anitra was doing everything possible to make Romany unhappy, but had little opportunity. Inky Ames frequently met Anitra, Hobart, Fosdick and their friends in the cabarets. Anitra had her own old stage friends, and Hobart and Fosdick were altogether too chummy with a couple of show girls who dallied nightly along Broadway’s primrose path. Once Inky went over and pleaded with Anitra to “Cut this rough stuff and be decent, since you’ve got a decent home.”

“Forget it,” was Anitra’s only comment. And that same evening Inky overheard Isobel, the girl who had Hobart under her spell, demand a large sum of money, which he promised. Five minutes after Hobart left, a certain well-known “Lounge Lizard” was in conversation with Isobel, and Inky heard her say, “Sure, I’ll get you the money; he’s promised it in a couple of days.”

The next day Inky was at the True home, determined to make a clean breast of it. Anitra begged in vain. Just then True

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stepped into the library. Anitra grabbed Inky, then threw him from her, shouting: “Unhand me! How dare you insult me?” and naturally poor Inky was shown the door without opportunity to say a single word, Anitra making a vicious grimace at him behind True’s back.

Things went on thus for a while.

Romany went to the boarding school where twice Zinga nearly got her, and frightened her terribly, but she was ashamed to admit she had once been a Gypsy girl, and said nothing about it. After the school fete True told Romany to bring on a party of her school friends and have a party at his home. It was at this time that Bud arrived, and also at this time that Hobart became so deeply entangled with the Broadway siren.

Romany was standing in the receiving line when Bud arrived. She rushed forward and with outstretched arms greeted him as a brother. Anitra’s eyes flashed fires of jealousy. And later, when Bud and Romany created such enthusiasm when they danced, Anitra vowed that she would get rid of Romany by hook or crook.

Poor Hobart was despondent that night and Romany noticed it. After the party, just as she was about to retire, she heard a noise in the hall. Quickly donning a little dress, she stepped out of her room, and down the stairway toward the library from where the sounds came. Someone was at the safe, and peering through the portieres she discovered it was Hobart.

Almost rushing into the room she pleaded with him not to do what he contemplated.

Hobart stood dejected, but her pleadings apparently influenced him, and he agreed to return to his room, and Romany happy at her influence returned to her apartment.

However, she did not notice that Hobart had already taken the money from the safe.

A few moments later, as she was glancing out of the window from her room, she was shocked to see Hobart leaving the house.

Quick as a flash she followed him. He went to a cheap cabaret cafe with Romany close

The Silent Film Quarterly・!36 behind him. There she saw him meet Isobel, to whom he handed the money.

Instantly Romany was beside him. “Please leave this girl, Hobart, and come home.

Think of your uncle’s kindness to you, and think of your own future.” Just then the proprietor of the cafe walked up and ordered the chorus girl away, while Romany and Hobart, the latter with his head hanging down, left for home.

Meanwhile in the city Bud ran across Inky at the Waldorf. The recognition was mutual for they had gone to a little Western school together. As they sat talking over old times, Inky went white when he learned that Bud was True’s general manager, and he told the whole story of Anitra, and his part in it.

“I haven’t had an honest night’s sleep since,” he confessed.

Long into the night they sat and discussed the situation.

AT the True home next morning when the theft was discovered, Anitra, with the thought always uppermost in her mind to do something that would turn True against Romany, merely sneered and said, “Ask Romany!”

When True questioned poor Romany she hung her head and remained silent.

“Tell my father,—confess!” shouted Anitra, “tell him why you sneaked out last night and did not get back until nearly daylight——” “Romany!” gasped True.

“I—I did,” sobbed Romany, “but—but I cannot tell you why, and I did not take the money, that is all I can say now.”

“She is guilty. Gypsy blood will tell,” declared Anitra.

“If you say you did not take the money, I believe you, Romany, but,—but you have broken my heart, child,” said True, and Romany ran sobbing to her room.

Romany had never been so unhappy.

To be mistrusted by Mr. True was the saddest blow she could have received. She

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decided to leave his home; so she wrote him a little note, thanking him for his goodness to her, but explaining she could no longer stay at his home so long as he mistrusted her. Then she took her plainest dress, and a few things in a bag, and quietly left her home, later finding a modest boarding house, from where she wrote a note to Bud, telling him of her trouble and asking for his help.

Zinga, who had unceasingly watched Romany, saw her leave and determined to capture her. When the landlady’s boy came out with the note, Zinga told the lad he was a detective, took the note, read it, told him it was “all right,” and to deliver it. Then he sent a message to Romany signed “Bud,” telling her to meet him at the boat at Pier 36, North River, has he was sailing for South America at seven that evening. A few hours later Mr. True received the note which Romany had left for him. He was heartbroken over it as he showed it to Anitra and Hobart. Anitra said, “Don’t worry about it father, I know she stole the money.” Hobart, who heard this, could not hold back any longer, and right there confessed to his uncle that it was he who had taken the money, and he explained the reasons for his weakness. Anitra, who recognized that this confession of Hobart’s would create an even fonder affection from Mr. True toward Romany, decided on a desperate step, and brazenly said that Hobart was trying to shield Romany, because she had seen her steal the money.

Mr. True said he could hardly believe it.

And Anitra said, “If that is all the confidence you have in me, then you must decide right now between this Gypsy girl and your daughter.” Hardly had these words left her lips when Bud entered the library. He had just come into the house and said, “But you are not Mr. True’s daughter.” Imagine the excitement when Bud made this statement, but a moment later, Inky Ames, as well as the tattoo artist, also entered the room, and Bud and Inky Ames explained the whole story to Mr.

The Silent Film Quarterly・!37 True. Anitra, seeing that “her game was up,” confessed her deception, and decided to go back to the “bright lights.” It was a terrible shock for Mr. True. It affected him so badly that he was taken to his room where, for some hours, it was not certain whether he would survive the strain.

Meanwhile Romany lost no time in hurrying to the boat to look for Bud. Hiding in a dark passageway, was Zinga, who grabbed her as she passed, stifled her screams and forced her into a stateroom.

By this time, Bud, who had received Romany’s note, was wild with fear because she had left True’s home, and rushed to the lodging house only to learn that she had gone to meet him. More frightened than ever because she had sent for him to meet her there he got permission to examine her room where he found the forged message.

Never did taxi make quicker speed across Manhattan than then. The boat was just starting when Bud got there,—the gangplank was in.

“Throw a rope!” he shouted. A deck hand did so and Bud swung across the widening space and was hauled aboard. As he was pulled past a porthole he saw Zinga struggling with Romany. Without a word he dashed down the companionway, traced the sounds of the struggle, smashed the thin door with his shoulder and dragged Zinga out. Fearing that he would kill him and to escape temptation Bud tossed the Gypsy overboard. Then he rushed back to Romany. Together they went to the captain and hurriedly explained the situation. A few short blasts of the whistle at the captain’s orders brought a nearby tug alongside the steamer which had in the meantime picked up Zinga. Without delay Bud and Romany climbed down the rope ladder aboard the tug. When the tug docked Zinga was turned over to the police and Bud took Romany back to Mr. True’s home, although at first she hesitated.

The next day Bud received word from Zinga that he would like to him. Bud could

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not imagine what important information Zinga might have, but he called on him in his cell. What Zinga told Bud was so startling that he did not delay a moment in getting his discharge and taking him to Mr. True’s home.

Then Zinga told the true story of how they had found Romany wandering in the woods crying on the second of June, 1902, after the forest fire, and had kept her hidden because she was so beautiful they preferred to keep her rather than take any reward.

“I felt an unaccountable affection for you from the first moment I saw you,” said True, with great emotion.

“And I loved you the moment I saw you go past the camp, and picked the flowers to give you on your way back,” answered the happy girl, throwing_her arms around him.

“Well,” said Bud, dolefully, “I suppose I must go back to Denver—” “Oh, Bud,” gasped Romany, “please don’t leave yet.”

“I’ll stay if you want me to.”

For a few moments no one spoke.

Then Bud whispered to Romany: “I used to think of a certain future with a certain little girl, but it was such a dream!”

“I, too, have had a dream.”

Lovingly they looked at each other, then realized that their dreams were about to come true. Suddenly they became conscious that Mr. True was observing them.

“H-m-m-m-m!” murmured True, regarding them intently. “Bud,” he snapped suddenly, “you’re fired as my general manager.”

“Yes, you are now vice-president of my corporation, with a desk in my office.

You see I can’t let my daughter go, and she can’t let you go, and so ——“ The remainder of the sentence was smothered by Romany, who entered and embraced him.

THE END.

The Silent Film Quarterly・!38

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My Experiences While Filming “Runaway Romany”

by Marion Davies To supplement Marion Davies’s original short story that was the basis for her first feature film, Silent Film Quarterly is also excited to present an article Davies wrote for Film Fun in January of 1918 about the production of Runaway Romany.

Nothing in that constables’ “Guide to Duty” indicated ・・・ an exception in the case of film players. The train came and went, and not a camera crank was turned.

I am a movie fan and have watched with open-eyed astonishment some of the fine opportunity to be a regular star in the daring feats performed by the frail heroines film world. of the pictures, longing to do some of the In the play I am supposed to be stunts myself, but hardly hop-ing to so rescued from an ocean liner. The director literally live the part as I have since done. chartered a boat, and we went up the From time to time I have written short Hudson River, and I was told to jump into stories. One of them I rewrote in scenario the water. I demurred. The river looked so form and showed it to some of my friends. far away. It may have been only 15 feet—it They thought it was so good that they looked 100. The director insisted. Then I asked for the privilege of submitting it to jumped. I took, they tell one of the producing me, a beautiful dive; but managers. The result can you imagine my w a s t h a t t h e fi l m feelings upon being told corporation to whom that the camera man my scenario was submithad missed it? He had ted accepted the story waited so long for me to and.gave me a chance to make up my mind to really be in pictures. make the plunge that, Their offer to have when I finally went over me play the leading part the side, his good right o f m y o w n s t o r y, arm was suffering from “Runaway Romany,” camera cramp. The dive startled me. I had at had to be repeated. various times thought it One of the most amusing would be great fun to experiences was when we appear in a moving went out into Westchester picture play, but when the C o u n t y t o m a k e my opportunity came, I had escape from the gypsy real stage fright or camp. The director picked something like it. The film out a nice, quiet railroad people assuaged my fears; station north of Yonkers and they were very kind and prepared to film me escaping on a assured me that my story was fast express, while the chief, my really good and that they were Two minions of the law gypsy admirer and other offering me an exceptionally discovered that I was not a boy. members of the cast pursued

The Silent Film Quarterly・!39

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in vain down the platform. With me were other members of the company, including Joseph Kilgour, Pedro de Cordoba, Matt Moore and Ormi Hawley. We gathered on the platform of the Dunwoodie station.

Timetables had been consulted and a ticket purchased for the hurried departure of Romany; but best-laid plans “gang aft agley.” The plotters reckoned without the loyalty to duty of the Westchester constables. With unusual detective ability two minions of the law discovered that I was not a boy, in spite of I lived in an auto, my trousers. “There is a law and my clothes against young women’s consisted of my gypsy masquerading in men’s clothing,” costume and a pair of they stated with importance. In vain pajamas. did I protest that we were film folks and that as soon as the scene was taken I was going to leave Westchester County, As the heroine, “Romany.” be a part of the anyway. It was all of no avail. There was pursuing mob when the next train was nothing in the index of the constables’ finally allowed by war schedule to pass the “Guide to Duty” that indicated that an Dunwoodie station. exception might be made in the case of a Talk about work. Anybody who has young girl who was merely playing at being the idea that a movie player’s life is a merry a boy. The train came and went, and not a one and nothing else is greatly mistaken. In camera crank was turned. one week I have acted on Long Island, in Again was proved the magic of the Connecticut, New Jersey and various parts pass good for two. Each constable was of New York State from Manhattan to the handed a slip of paper, entitling the bearer Adirondacks. I lived in an automobile. My to two of the best seats at the opening clothes consisted of a gypsy costume, a pair performance on Broadway. For good of pajamas and all sorts of things that measure the constables were permitted to actors of the speaking stage never wear in public. I celebrated the Fourth of July by doing a state ball in the grand ballroom of one of our best hotels, by fi l m i n g s c e n e s i n t h e Pennsylvania Station, at a Chelsea village rooming house and in a crowded East Side street.

Playing the star of “Runaway Romany” was supposed to be my vacation, but it was one of the busiest and most exciting vacations I have ever experienced.

In Westchester County we filmed my escape from the gypsies.

The Silent Film Quarterly・!40

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by Charlie Chaplin

Between August and October of 1915, Charlie Chaplin (or, more likely,

the Essanay publicity department) wrote a series of articles in the British

magazine Answers. Despite the unmatched amount of research that has

been dedicated to Chaplin’s life, these articles have gone more or less

unnoticed—despite the fact that they form the basis for some of the most famous stories of Charlie’s early career. Here, for perhaps the first time since their original publication, all eight of Chaplin’s weekly installments are reproduced in their entirety, just as the Tramp presented them over a century ago. ・・・ Cross to a German “hero.” Be that as it AUGUST 28, 1915 may, I have rolled half round the world, A lot of people have given me shocks and am still “reeling”—perhaps from the in my time, but, though “I says it as effects, but very effectively as my producer shouldn’t,” the most surprising fellow I’ve wittily enough tells me. come across up to the present is—Charlie I think my sense of humour is Chaplin. becoming sadly shattered by all the Why, it seems only yesterday that I was humour that forms the greater part of my tramping round London dressed in my best acting life. I begin to wonder at times clothes looking for any old play-acting job whether or not I am really funny. My case, that would keep me in grub. To-day I put I think, is rather like that of the unhappy on a collection of garments that would go individual who went to consult a doctor. begging in any doss-house—and I am a The medical man said: star! And that’s why I find Charles Chaplin, “Why, man, all you want is a hearty Esq., such an extremely interesting fellow. laugh; go and see Grimaldi at the —” Yesterday, so to speak, I was just an The patient turned sadly away. It was unknown individual fighting hard for his Grimaldi himself ! daily bread; to-day the picture is changed.

The Bricks are Well Aimed.

Wherever I go I am recognised, and, yes, Really, it is very difficult for an alleged feted. Girls who in the old days would have comedian to realise that he is funny. In the passed me by with not so much as a glance, old days, although I attempted mimicry to-day are only too willing to flatter and merry-making, I was never conscious “Charlie” with their attention. of any success to my efforts. Even now I Still “Reeling.” wonder at my popularity.

In a little States township only a short It comes as a matter of course, time ago the mayor actually turned out somehow, to me now, when I walk along a with the brass band to welcome me! I can greasy pole, carrying a bucket of pig’ssee him doing that a couple of years ago, wash, and at the end of my journey, having when I was “up against it”—I don’t think! tipped my load into my “hated rival’s” face, They say that a rolling stone gathers to fall back, say, into a well or horse-trough. little or no moss, and that, if it does, the I now associate myself with experiences moss is only about as valuable as an Iron

The Silent Film Quarterly・!41 that to any ordinary individual would appear as horrible.

For me to have a full-sized brick flung at my head is only the most ordinary, the most trivial incident in a day, and my first dislike for, after having thrown a bunch of roses at the heroine, picking up a brick and casting it at her, has now absolutely departed.

I not only throw the brick, but I am maliciously careful in my aim, and that smile that you see flickering somewhere below my diminutive moustache is secretly one of triumph at the sureness of my aim.

Youthful Dreams.

But I am digressing. Readers of Answers will have guessed all this by now.

Having seen me plant my foot below the belt of my opponent, they will know that Charlie Chaplin, while gaining in cunning, has lost a lot of his youthful ideals.

Speaking of my youth, shall I tell you a little about it?

I can remember myself now as a particularly curious child—a creature of moods, and delicate in the extreme, a boy who had no knowledge that one day he was going to be in the great army of funmakers.

Coming from a theatrical family as I did, I naturally had thoughts of the stage; but it was not the lighter side that appealed to me. Rather did I dream of being Romeo, and playing to a Juliet, who, perfect in every way, was looking out, over moon-kissed Verona into an Italian sky of serene beauty.

Sometimes, thinking of this, I laugh.

Imagine Charlie Chaplin as Romeo, with, for doublet, a broken shirt-front, his sword a little cane held lovingly in the left hand, and for knightly cap a tiny bowler perched on a mop of black hair!

His Moustache Is O.K. But as I think there comes the rub. In my heart of hearts I know that, although my feet betray me, my moustache is that of a perfect Romeo.

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How I wander from the path! Where was I? Oh, yes; back at my childhood days.

I was too delicate, really, as a boy, to have much education, but I believe that what little knowledge I gained I picked up very quickly. I had a way of concentrating on anything that influenced me, and making myself familiar with it very speedily.

My boyhood passed like a flash, and the day came when I was to choose for myself the line of life that I was to take.

Was my serious side to come uppermost, or was my precociousness to lead me either to bitter ill-success or the fame that I had hoped for in the serious drama?

It did neither. It flung me into the whirlpool of mirth. It made of me a “Merry Andrew” of the film—the flickering creature of fun that flitters across the screen at a shambling run, to make you laugh, and to bring me perhaps not quite that fame that I had dreamed of, but a popularity above the expression of words.

You may be surprised, but my boyhood finished at the age of seven, for a little after that time I was busily working on the music-halls, not for much, it must be admitted, but, like “Meredith,” I was “in”!

At that time I was one of the Eight Lancashire Lads.

My work on that tour was arduous in the extreme; young as I was, I was an adept at dancing and acrobatics. It was excellent training for film-work, for I learned many little tricks on the dusty stages of musichalls that no doubt now have passed, to be but a memory to those who once formed their audiences.

It was later on that I “reeled” forward again to a new experience in acting—my first legitimate engagement in drama. Mr. William Gillette engaged me to play Billy, the page-boy in “Sherlock Holmes,” at Daly’s Theatre—and Billy I played. It was Billy night after night, for what seemed an interminable time, but I must say I never wearied of the part.

In those days, in touch as I was with the centre of the theatrical world, the keen

The Silent Film Quarterly・!42 feeling for acting in real drama was very strong within me. I wanted to play deep, emotional parts in good plays.

Ah, me! The Charlie of those days and the Charlie of these!

Looking backward, I remember my dignified rehearsals in the solitude of my own room—my careful walk, my elegant attitudes. I think now of my mincing step in the movies, my little shambling run that some people say is worth a mint of money to me.

An Unwanted Fame.

My days in “Sherlock Holmes” passed, and the day dawned that brought me one step nearer to film fame. That was when my brother Sydney introduced me to Fred Karno, with whom he was then acting.

Something about my face must have struck Mr. Karno as being amusing, as he engaged me at once to play the comic villain as a foil to Mr. Harry Weldon, who played the part of Stiffy the goal-keeper in a burlesque football match, which many of you have no doubt seen.

After that I played in “The Humming Birds,” and perhaps many Answerites saw me frolicking about in that play like an animated golliwog.

Somehow, though, the cheers from the lads of the village who thronged the gallery, the pitter-patter of the hands from the pit, and the hoarse “roar” of acclamation from the stalls that greeted my acting, did not stir my soul within me. I was still dreaming of being a serious actor, of playing in what is known as “straight” parts, and I felt resentful at the enthusiasm I created, disdainful of my success.

The cheers annoyed me!

It Was Not to Be! I felt sure that if one day I couldn’t be a Tree, I might at least be a Charlie “Sapling”! But my boughs were cut. To use a mixed metaphor, I was not allowed to wing away in search of the higher art. I was already marked down for a creature of humour.

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My comedy antics were successful— those bad lads of the village were making me quite a well-known person.

One day, sick at heart, I approached a manager, and, flinging my chest out and making my eye luminous, I said: “I am tir-r-red of humour. I want to play in the real dr-r-rama.”

I leaned forward and raised my hand.

“I want to wake audiences thr-r-rill. I want to lift them up as Harvey, Alexander, Henry Ainley. I want to hold the serious people in the hollow of my hand.”

“Have a Woodbine?” said the manager coldly.

With all the dramatic tenseness in my power, I drew back and looked at him. Was he taking me seriously?

He came closer, and patted me on the shoulder.

“Buck up, Charlie,” he said; “you’ll soon be better!” Then he came closer.

“Look here, old man,” he went on, “you’re a born comedian. Why waste your thoughts on wanting to be a great tragedian? Make the world laughs, man. It will be better for it.”

Hard on the Servant-Girl.

I can tell you that it was a gloomy Charlie Chaplin who, looking deeply into a glass of barley-water, pondered over the inviolability of Fate. I was sure my powers were great as a big actor, and that evening, on my way home, I tested them on a servant-girl who was sitting at a window all covered in wistaria.

Looking up, I played Romeo to her. It was the last great act of my life, for when I got back to the company a boy came forward with a wire. I took it, and opening it, read something that gave me a new hope for an added interest in life.

It was from my brother Syd, who was then film acting, telling me that a big opening awaited me as an actor for a prominent film-producing company.

The greatest moment in my life had come; but little did I realise then the fame

The Silent Film Quarterly・!43 that was waiting for me just across the “herring-pond”! ・・・

SEPTEMBER 4, 1915 At last I arrived at the studio of the film company that, so I told myself, had been foolish enough to want me as one of their comedians. They little knew the serious type of actor they were getting, as I told the manager who was giving me good advice.

“What we want, my boy,” he said, “is down-right humour and sheer good fun— something that will make the people scream and laugh.”

Then, as he looked at my face, he roared with laughter.

“I don’t know quite what it is,” he said, “but that expression of gloom on your countenance is about the funniest thing I have ever seen outside a mortuary.”

I shuffled uneasily. I was going to be an entire failure; I could see that.

“Now, then,” said the manager, “you take this little scenario, and have a good look over it. You see what you have got to do. It’s all written down there.”

The Ladder was Greased.

I took the manuscript and departed, a prey to gloomy forebodings. The manager had spoken about breaking up houses and destroying cisterns. He had told me that he got a lot of humour out of that kind of thing. Murder struck him as being the funniest thing in the world, I fancy.

Let me just tell you what I did in my first film.

I had to play the part of a man with a limp and a backache, who was trying to carry a scuttle of coals on his head while he was climbing a greasy ladder.

I had been arrayed in a pair of baggy trousers, a little bowler and a tiny cane—a get-up that I distinctly disliked. I put the coal-scuttle on my head, and nimble always on my feet, I commenced my climb.

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I would not let them see me slip on the first few rungs, I told myself. I meant, if possible, to get through the whole business without falling. Up and up I went, my face pouring with perspiration, with behind me that insistent camera whir.

Made a Distinct “Hit.” It was just as I got to the top that something went wrong with the works. The coal-bucket up-turned, and chunks of heavy material came banging all over my head. Then my hands slipped, and I just slid down the long ladder and glared indignantly at the producer.

He roared with laughter till he couldn’t speak. I expect it was my gloomy face and woebegone-looking figure.

I was wrath, I can tell you, but I meant to get a bit of my own back. Suddenly I picked up a lump of coal, and slung it at the producer. It hit him full and fair on the nose, and the camera man actually included it in the film. Next I lifted one of my feet, and caught a stage hand who was gurgling near by a biff in what I have now learned to call the bazooka. He fell back into a pail of whitewash, while his friends ran for safety.

I was chucking coal right and left now.

To use an East Endism, “my monkey was up.” I would teach them to laugh at me!

The Manager Approved.

My first attempt at cinema acting was a noisy one. I brought the house down—at least, the greater part of it, for the great electric globes I broke with coal. I put a couple of stage hands’ eyes out of action, and paralysed the producer; while the cinema operator had to go to hospital for a week for laughing too hard.

The result was that I was called up before the boss the next day, and told that if I went on like that I was made for life!

“There’s a fortune in the way you chuck coal,” he said; “but we’ll make it bricks in future, Charlie. You can throw to your heart’s content, but for Heaven’s sake not when I’m about. Oh, then, there’s

The Silent Film Quarterly・!44 another thing,” he added. “I want you to roam round finding types. Choose someone that strikes your fancy, and then work a little play round him. Follow his characteristics, and so on.”

It was the “so on” that led me to a pretty little fight in a nearby park a couple of days later. I noticed a tramp-like individual who was lounging on a seat, and busily devouring some hunks of bread. He was wearing huge boots that struck me as being pictures in their way—moving pictures.

He was “Some” Scrapper.

I sat down and watched him, and when he proceeded on his journey, followed at a discreet distance. We came to a bend in one of the paths, and, passing round this, I could see him come up to a dainty girl who was watching some swans in the lake.

Very cheekily he raised his hat, and tried to get into conversation with her. She looked rather pale, so I hurried forward just as the tramp caught at her hand.

“Take your hands off,” I said abruptly.

But I was not prepared for the Nemesis that suddenly caught one in the centre of gravity, and shot me a few yards away.

The tramp’s feet had let out like piston-rods, and he gently raised his hat to me. I was not thinking so much then of the value that this particular type would be as for vengeance when I gave chase.

A spirited little fight ensued—a fight in which I must frankly admit the tramp had the advantage. To use an Americanism, he was “some” scrapper. He used every part of his body, from his feet, which were like a couple of riverside barges, to his bullet-like head, with which he butted me at moments when the fight was going against him. He hit me everywhere, and I was not sorry when at last he sheered off.

The Man With the Pistol.

I can see him now as he politely raised his bowler and vanished in the distance. It was from that character that I evolved the

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Charlie Chaplin that you know. During that fight I had carefully watched the evolution of my enemy’s feet. The boss wanted blue murder of the knockabout kind; if there was anything qualified to give it, it would be those speaking members of my friend, the enemy.

I put him into the next little play that I did, and it was an enormous success immediately. But some of the actors with whom I played strongly objected to the use of those feet that caught them in such unexpected places.

“Charlie,” said the boss, when we had filmed the thing to a finish, “you’re a wonder. Get some more types!”

Oh, those were happy days! Full of action, I can tell you, especially on one o c c a s i o n wh e n fo l l ow i n g o n e o l d gentleman of ninety, who had a peculiar gait that pleased my eye, he turned and let go at me with a six-shooter, and then tried to kiss me. He had escaped from a nearby asylum, and I nearly went to one that night. But I finally recovered from the fright I had, and—well, I put him into a play!

All In the Day’s Work.

Life was one constant round of excitement, but I discovered that this knockabout work, although it brought success, was not the most pleasant form of occupation. To you it may seem amusing when someone taps me on the head with a mallet or lifts me a few hundred yards with an upper-cut. But it doesn’t appeal to me as funny.

I remember a kick I got from a horse that sent the company into fits of laughter, and me to a sick ward for a couple of days; but there, that is all part of the game. We are all players, and we have to play our parts whether they are dangerous or not.

One of the funniest things that has followed my success on the films has been the flood of proposals that I have had from various of the fair sex. There was one old lady who remembered me in her will, and

The Silent Film Quarterly・!45 left me a canary and the family Bible. But there was one girl who invited me to meet her at a teahouse. She was very fascinating, and I went.

It was during the meal that a very tall, dark individual, with a couple of fists like a bulldog’s snout, came to the next table, and looked daggers at me. I commented upon this new arrival to the girl. She only laughed.

“D’you know him?” I said, anxiously eyeing the stalwart starer.

“Oh, yes,” she replied, stuffing her handkerchief into her mouth to stifle her mirth. “He’s only my husband!”

When Seen on the Screen.

When she had turned I had vanished like streak of lightning into the distance, and I have made inquiries since before keeping appointments with unknown girls.

These things all add to the excitement of a film-actor’s life. It is a curious existence, being funny to a silent audience —sometimes that is, for occasionally even the people who are filming the play can hardly restrain their laughter. And I notice an extraordinary thing, that, although during parts of my performance I may be struck with the funny side of my work, whenever I see one of my films shown on the screen I find laughter very difficult.

I was very glum once in a picture palace watching a film at which everybody was laughing, much to the anger of an old gentleman, sitting next to me. But that is another story, and no doubt now he tells of the silent individual who lacks a sense of humour, little knowing that it was Charlie Chaplin.

But I thank goodness for the fact that sometimes I can be funny, as once taken by a detective friend of mine, I found myself witnessing an evening of entertainment at a dancing-hall in the Bowery district of New York.

Saved by the Tango.

They don’t like strangers in these places, and somehow they picked myself

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and my friend out as being interlopers. It looked as though there was going to be some shooting, for a dark-looking Dago with an ominous knife in his belt was squaring up to me, when, exerting all my efforts, I tried to imagine myself in a film play.

I ran round the room with the gait you know so well, and ended by climbing the hangings of the curtain, and finished the evening off by dancing the tango in the most burlesque manner possible to imagine.

I verily believe I saved my skin, for soon we had that place roaring with laughter, and when my friend and I left, it was to the cheers of the biggest band of cut-throats I have ever had the ill-fortune to look upon. ・・・

SEPTEMBER 11, 1915 Although some people may think it, cinema acting is by no means an o c c u p at i o n t h at b e c o m e s d u l l o r monotonous.

I can personally vouch for that, and declare that every minute of my time since I started acting for the bioscope has been full of interest—and, yes, amusement!

Shall I tell you of the most amusing thing that ever happened to your humble servant?

To-day, even, when I think of it, it makes me rock with laughter at the memory—the memory of a happening that would have driven dull care away from the most sorrowful heart, and have made the dullest person laugh with the heartiest laughter imaginable.

Fuddled by Fate.

It happened in this wise. We had arranged to take an “exterior”—that means an outdoor scene. In this part of the long reel that we were filming, I had to steal a lady’s purse, and bolt down the road to where a motor-car was waiting, to carry

The Silent Film Quarterly・!46 me on to a little gathering of brother tramps, who were expecting me.

Everything was fixed up, and the day arrived when the scene had to be finished off. I can see myself now, as I neatly slipped past two youths who were, as I then thought, the escort, as arranged, of the actress I had to rob.

I gave these worthies careful kicks, intended to send them into the middle of next week, snatched at the lady’s bag, and bolted down the street.

It must have been my defective eyesight, or fate—call it what you will— that prompted me, in my keenness to get on with the business, to take the wrong lady’s purse, and to knock the wrong young gentlemen sprawling and perfectly senseless into the gutter. But be that as it may, I muddled the people and the act, and found myself arriving at the corner where the motor-car was to have awaited me with no machine at hand to speed my departure.

Tally-Ho! Behind me, in full cry, were the nowrecovered swains and half a dozen policemen, to say nothing of some sportsmanlike dogs, that intended to give me a run for my money.

It was a quiet little country town we had chosen; but I cursed it at that moment, for I noticed with chagrin (good word that!) that several lusty villagers had carefully armed themselves with hay-forks, and, yelling like Dervishes, were coming full-tilt at poor Charlie.

Did I wait? Did I boldly face the crowd and show fight? Was I a coward?

Yes! I ran like the very wind, my broad, long boots badly hampering my running record. My coat-tails were sailing out behind me, and I had lost my bowler in the flight. But, still clutching the purse and my tiny cane, I ran like one possessed.

Leaving the road, I dashed across a couple of fields; followed by the pack, now in full cry. The lady was keeping well up with the rest, and was waving an umbrella

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that in my thoughts I could already feel to be cutting off my retreat.

Over the Hills and Far Away!

On, on I flew—and you know how I can fly when I get going—away over the fields, jumping a small river in transit, and crawling over hedges that cut me almost to pieces. My baggy trousers were almost in tatters by now, and my breath was coming short, but I stuck it—yes, I stuck it—raced on with, before my terrified gaze, visions of those frothing dogs getting at my political constituency.

Looking back, I could discern what seemed to me to be a thousand figures trailing away behind me.

Was I downhearted?

Candidly, yes! and not a little afraid that soon my wind would give out, and I should fall an easy victim to the blows of my adversaries. My first thought, on not finding the car there, and seeing the crowd following me, was that suddenly the company had all gone “loco”; but as I looked down at the bag my eyes froze with very horror, for I saw that it was not the reticule I should have snatched from the fair damsel.

Was the Bag Worth It? In my youthful days I have seen foxhunts, have watched the riders in full scent; but never until now did I properly appreciate the feelings of that poor animal of the coverts and the fox-holes. He was a bosom pal at the thought, but I didn’t intend to let the hunt get my brush. Oh, dear, no! I was too wily for that!

They should have a run for their money, that is, if there was any in the bag. I doubted it!

As I ran along, little did I realise of that other figure who was following parallel, pausing at times, and in that pause busy at a work that would have very much surprised me had I known its meaning.

Once or twice I thought that my pursuers were gaining on me, so I spurted harder, my feet coming up and down and

The Silent Film Quarterly・!47 bearing me nobly over the ground, a ploughed field now, for I had left the rolling meadows, and was sprinting like a lighted fuse for where a friendly river lay in the near distance.

At last, panting for want of breath, I arrived at the stream, and was just preparing for a dive into it, when a length of barbed wire, trodden into the slush at its side, caught my attention, and gave me, perhaps, what is the most brilliant idea I have ever had in my life.

Follow My Leader.

Giving one hasty glance over my shoulder, I saw that as yet my pursuers were not within actual danger distance. So, running along the stream, I raised the barbed-wire slightly, very carefully, just enough for their feet to touch and their eyes not to see.

Then, having made what I thought to be my last prayer, I plunged into the water and sank, carrying down with me a mouthful of evil-tasting mud.

As I sprang, I was just missed by an inch by the foremost of my pursuers, who, in attempting to lay hold of may trousers, tip-tilted over, and went a header into a more slimy spot than that I struck.

Worse than this. One courteous son of the soil, is flinging a pitchfork at me, caught my unwary, submerged enemy in the rear, creating quite a diversion, and making the stricken man burst out into such a song as I have never had the pleasure of hearing before.

Meanwhile, I had drawn myself out of the ooze and was hanging on to the hedge, finding sufficient strength at last to negotiate the bank. Here I turned to watch the scene, to see my other pursuers and how they would fare.

I laughed at the thought that the owner of the hand that had flung the pitchfork little realised what was happening, when his foot caught in the

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barbed wire, and he tipped, head foremost, into the river.

A Mallet to the Rescue.

He was followed in a minute by about six policemen, all the farm-hands who had joined in the chase, and the lady of the purse, who went in with one of the biggest splashes I have ever seen in my life.

It was “some” dive!

Gaining my breath on the bank, and trying to restrain my laughter as I watched the curious, animated scene, I looked about me for just a handy little weapon in case the worst happened. I found it at last—a broken-down mallet, left by some workmen who had been erecting fences or tents near by.

You can imagine how lovingly my fingers closed around the handle of that useful object. Slowly, very slowly, the head of a policeman appeared above the water.

He looked around, and then— Biff !

Down came the mallet on his drenched head. He smiled in a dazed sort of way, and then fell back, into the water. A yokel was the next to get the “knock,” and soon my handy little hammer was gently tapping the heads of all and sundry who appeared from out the flood.

That was a joyous moment of victory, I can tell you, and the defeat of the enemy was complete at last. Those that escaped my playful pats crawled over to the opposite bank, drawing their unconscious friends with them. At last I was left in peace to watch that weary, bedraggled line crawling away.

The Power of Gold.

Half an hour later I was facing the “Boss,” and explaining how the whole film had been “mussed” up.

His eyes twinkled as he stretched out his band and said: “My boy, you’re a genius!”

I took it for sarcasm, and, shrugging my shoulders, prepared for the notice that I thought must immediately follow. Instead,

The Silent Film Quarterly・!48 he clapped me on the back and, laughing heartily, said: “Chaplin, my boy, that was the finest piece of comic business it has ever been my lot to see!”

“You mean—” I heard myself saying faintly, as from a great distance.

“That I had the whole thing filmed,” he added, laughing again. “Right from start to finish, Charlie. And what a finish!

You nearly properly finished half of ’em. It was the biggest thing you’ve ever done, and it will bring down the house!”

“But the lady and the policeman, and the rest?” I murmured, dazed.

“Money squared them all right,” said the boss softly. “And when I told them who you were they laughed at the joke, so that's all finished up right!”

“So are my trousers,” I said moodily, as he turned away.

Hard on his Victims.

But he did not hear. He was too concerned with suppressing the chaotic noises that were coming from his already strained throat.

Looking back, I can afford to laugh as he did, and especially at the memory of those surprised, dazed faces as I laid them low with my chunk of wood. I introduced that in my comic business afterwards, and found it very effective, although I did nearly kill a couple of stage hands before I had got the action perfect.

But what do dangers—to others—and discomforts—likewise to others—matter to the true artist? He must have only one goal —the laughter of the thousands who will watch the film. ・・・

SEPTEMBER 18, 1915 Those of you who watch one of the films in which I act may think it is a very simple and amusing business to bring this film into being. Let me at once disillusion you.

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I shall never forget the first really big film I took part in. After chasing across a couple of meadows with the hero and falling into a pond—to say nothing of being set upon by a bulldog and chased by an infuriated goat—we discovered that all our exertions had been for nothing. Owing to the faulty light the whole thing had to be done over again.

In the heat of the moment it is all very well to do these exciting things, but when they fall through and have to be repeated, you look at the matter in a different light.

The Brick was Really Felt!

Unfortunately, the bulldog was as fed up as I was the second time, and I got a nasty bite, as he didn’t feel inclined to fall into the pond, but fetched me in instead.

Alack-a-day! That was a dirty business; but it was not so bad as one of the most amusing incidents in my life, when we had to take an “exterior” in an almost unknown Californian village.

It was a place with about ten houses, and you can imagine how dignified were t h e l e a d i n g c i t i ze n s — b e wh i s k e re d gentlemen, who, full of authority and “Californian juice,” came out to watch our play-acting.

In this little drama my part was to make very violent love to the leading girl— a love accompanied by the throwing of occasional brick-bats and various misadventures that followed my sudden courtship.

At one moment of the piece I had to throw, instead of a bunch of flowers, a rather heavy square of felt, that I was using in place of a brick.

Wrecked by a Pigsty.

The village audience didn’t know this, and when it struck the lady full and fair, a couple of sturdy yokels rushed at me. A moment later I found myself lying on the ground with them sitting on my chest, while the village fathers were running for the local police.

The Silent Film Quarterly・!49 That was a high old day in the village, I can tell you; but at last the matter was explained, and the play proceeded with.

Things like this are not unusual in cinematograph acting, as there are people who take matters so seriously.

That reminds me of a rather comic actor who acted with me. He became infatuated with a lady. She turned up one day to see us filming a piece. Of course, her arrival put my friend entirely off his stroke, and, instead of tipping me into a pigsty, as was intended, he fell in himself, and, what is more, got filmed!

I shall never forget the sight of that figure staggering out under the eye of his best beloved, who, sad to relate, on seeing her hero in such a disheveled state returned him his ring!

Humour that Hurts.

My friend never played comic parts again. He had had enough of falling into pigsties to last him the rest of his life.

You will see from this that it is not all beer and skittles being a knock-about comedian for the films. Sometimes, when you are playing about, say, with mallets, or falling off ladders, you get knocks that may last for a lifetime, and what may bring a laugh to your eyes may bring a bruise to my head.

But that is neither here nor there. The life is full of varying incidents, and—yes, romance.

You would not believe it, perhaps, but “Charlie the Tramp” gave rise to quite a pathetic incident.

An old lady who had seen the film was so down-right overcome by my ill-fortune in finding another suitor making love to the girl that I, in my tramp-like heart, had seen fit to worship, that she turned up at the studios one day and, after expressing her sorrow, insisted on giving me a sovereign and calling me “My poor man!”

Into a Tomato Frame.

It is remarkable how seriously some people take films. Other actors have told

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me the same thing. There was one who met his wife from her being so infatuated with him in a play in which he had taken part.

They are now, I believe, the most devoted of couples.

But I wander from the path. This is not fooling for the film, but rather the more serious side of the cinematograph business.

One of my most funny film experiences happened in this wise: The part I had to play was that of a tramp flying from the justice of two men whose meagre meal I had just purloined.

Well, at first everything went well. I managed to “pinch” the dinner, and then away I sprinted, over a meadow and along a road, at the end of which was a high wall. Now, it struck me that I could distinctly improve the film by climbing this wall, and looking very terrified in doing so.

I came to it, and, leaping upwards, caught hold of the top and drew myself up.

From here I glanced back at my pursuers, and then jumped into what I thought was a clump of grass. Alas for my optimism! It was a place where tomatoes were being forced; but my unhappy situation decidedly amused the operator, who had also climbed the wall, and was taking me for all he was worth, laughing the while.

In Gaol at Last!

He, like myself, was not prepared for what followed. Through the trees came a curious medley of people, all of them young—the motliest gathering I have ever seen in my life. They surrounded me, and laughed until I fancied their humour would cause them to explode. I had visions of a horrible massacre in that garden!

I looked carefully at them, gazed into their humour-struck faces, when suddenly I became attracted by something else—the look of shiftiness in the majority of their visages. Slowly it dawned upon me that I had fallen amongst thieves. They were garbed in reformatory dress, and visions of the lock-step came to me.

The Silent Film Quarterly・!50

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Now they commenced to touch me, and were drawing me back to the building, whilst on the wall the operator was laughing like an hyena, despite my calls to him for help.

It certainly did not come from his direction, for two of my captors made a dash at him, and he was gone like greased lightning, leaving me to my fate.

I wondered what would happen to me, and decided to humour my guards, so I danced for them, and it only made them laugh all the harder as they dragged me nearer to the house.

I was one of them should decide to capture me for good.

Funnier things, though, than this have happened to friends of mine. I knew one man who was unfortunate enough to fall off the ladder down which he was carrying a very fat lady during a fire scene. It made the film but destroyed his breathing apparatus for quite a time.

Readers of this will now have come to the decision that being funny is indeed a serious business, but here comes the rub— if you take it seriously it’s fatal. Sounds paradoxical, but nevertheless it is true.

Their Natural Mistake.

I must confess I was getting decidedly nervous, and doubled my efforts at humour as we neared a door. How I breathed with relief when it suddenly opened and an individual in uniform carrying a gun appeared and rapidly drove my captors away!

“I saw you from a window,” he said, as he smiled at my dumbfounded face.

“I cannot imagine why they were bringing me here,” I exclaimed. “Can you?”

Another smile flickered in his eyes, but with an effort he kept his face straight.

“My dear fellow,” he murmured, “when you danced and did antics they thought you were one of them—they thought you were one of the bad boys of the village, instead of the cinema.”

To-day I laugh at the incident, but I can assure you I didn’t at the moment of the experience! And when I told the operator what the warder said he had to go into the infirmary for a week, as he strained himself laughing.

Would he have laughed as much if he had fallen into the hands of those merry lads? I wonder!

We abandoned that film—for that day, at any rate—as I decided to have a day off, and you can rest assured that I never ventured that way again. I was nervous lest these reforming young people who thought

A Ticklish Experience.

Another peculiar happening that occurred to me was on an occasion when, during the rehearsal of “Charlie at Work,” I inadvertently upset a bucket of whitewash on to my innocent head.

For a moment I thought my last hour had come, for, tug as I might, the bucket would not yield. I felt suffocating. I ran here and there trying to push the bucket off. I felt rather like a dog with its head in a sardine tin, and it was a rotten feeling.

Added to the injury was the insult of the camera man who thought that I was attempting some new trick, and was splitting his sides with laughter as he watched me gyrating like an animated golliwog about the studio.

I could hear his guffaws, transfixed though I was, and it was only when I sank, a weak little thing, to the floor that he rushed towards me, and, planting his foot on my chest, drew the bucket off. Although the helper, who came very late, had filmed this extraordinary incident, it never appeared, although I worked the same stunt—of course, with less danger—with the help of the foreman, Billy Armstrong, who acts as such an excellent foil to me in “Charlie at Work.”

Start with a Character.

It is the character itself you are attempting to portray that contains whatever bits of comedy you are going to

The Silent Film Quarterly・!51 succeed in “getting over.” The peculiarities or peculiar situations in which you can place the character furnish the basis for the comedy. In consequence, playing, say, a comedy barber role calls for a serious study of the character of a barber.

The moment you have drained dry the particular character you are studying you must drop all evidences of seriousness and proceed to act the part with such spontaneity that when the camera records your efforts it will appear as though each motion you have made was done on the spur of the moment.

Like everything else, it’s quite simple— when you know how to do it! ・・・

SEPTEMBER 25, 1915 One of the liveliest days I remember occurred when we were rehearsing “Champion Charlie.”

A we l l - k n ow “ p u g ” h a d b e e n produced to give me a few tips about boxing, and I must frankly admit that when I faced him for my first lesson I felt not a little nervous, as he was rather a terrifying spectacle, and possessed “some” muscles, to say nothing of a little eye that flickered like a machine-gun.

And the way his fists worked! They were like the piston rods of an engine!

Well, we got going, but, noticing his ominous look, I smiled wanly into his stern face. He didn’t take the slightest notice.

I then made numerous preparations, and sought to make out that this was a mere pretense. But that man was out for a fight. I could see it as I stepped up to him and playfully tapped him on the shoulder.

Accidental, But a Winner Suddenly I felt a kick like a horse, and discovered very quickly that the heavens were splashed with stars. I counted a million, and, tottering to my feet, tried to kiss the producer, who was standing by.

“Some blow,” I said, in hushed tones to him.

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He only laughed, so I went in again, dodging round and round my opponent to get, at least, one blow in before death struck me.

The next vicious hit I got spun me right round, but, fortunately, in the spinning my right hand was held extended, and it caught my opponent a terrific blow underneath the jaw, and he had to be carried quietly away.

You can just imagine that I was in the seventh heaven of delight that night. I not only had knocked out a very useful boxer, but I had preserved my own. life. I afterwards learned that my antagonist was one of those fighters who has an annoying habit of taking life seriously. He is now repenting at leisure.

Under Fire.

I seriously believe that he wanted to take my life, but now I believe that he will take me seriously instead. He has not shown any desire to fight me again.

Awkward moments like this often occur in a cinematograph artiste’s life.

There was one incident that I shall never forget. That was when I had to run away from a string of people across a couple of fields, half a dozen brooks, and a few orchards.

In one of the orchards was standing an irate farmer, who, not realising that the moment was a “reel” and not a real moment, gave chase, accompanied by a very useful double-barreled gun, which he fired at intervals.

At school I used to lament the fact that I could not do a mile in record time, but that day I did three in an astonishingly short space. I went like greased lightning, hampered though I was by my boots.

I shot across meadows like a bolt from the blue, but, fortunately, unlike “Tilly,” I didn’t get my “romance punctured,” although some shots from the farmer’s gun came very near.

On An Off Day.

The Silent Film Quarterly・!52 After that I had an off day, and the readers of Answers will say that I needed it!

Now, an off day with the cinema artiste is more an exception than the rule, as one has constantly to imagine himself being filmed —just going over in his mind the actions that he will perform in order to get them perfect.

So on this, my off clay, I hied myself to a deserted spot, in order to put some of my stunts to the test. I would gambol round a little clearing that I had chosen, and, selecting a tree, would imagine it to be the actress with whom I was to perform in my next long reel.

Lost in my work, I did not notice that from various quarters a host of little boys had gradually materialised. Their amazed eves were watching me from the undergrowth, and it was only when they roared with laughter that I realised that I had an appreciative, if unexpected, audience. I understood then what fame was, for they knew me as well as I knew myself.

“Do your run for us, Charlie,” they would say, and run I had to, round and round the clearing, until they were satisfied.

We Were the “Star Turn.”

It was a brilliant little moment whilst it lasted, and you can imagine the pleasure I, an actor without audiences, felt at last hearing applause, and not acting to a studio full of people intent on their work, when a hand-clap would be out of place.

Another off day I remember very well —an off day spent with G.M. Anderson, better known as Broncho Billy.

We had taken ourselves to a box at a prominent theatre, and were recognised by the audience. I blush to say it, but immediately the house was in an uproar. I had seen people looking at me in the streets, recognising me, but I never expected such a recognition as this.

We were just ordinary visitors to that theatre, but it turned out that we were to be the “star turn” in the bill, for they

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absolutely refined to let the show go on unless we came on the stage and did a little “turn” for them.

At first we drew back, but at last the pandemonium about us simply had to be stopped, so we carried out the wishes of the majority, and appeared on the boards.

The Thrill of the Footlights.

The thrill as I saw those footlights!— the feeling of looking out at that audience keen with interest. The old days—the memories flooding back to me. Nights of mimicry and merriment. The darkness out in that vast well of the theatre, the faint tune coming from the orchestra, the old days that I thought were dead. The limelight—and then the applause!

It was an off day that will live in my memory for a life-time—just a return to the past—a tiny holiday for the cinema actor to a silent audience.

Finally, we blipped away. Our moment had come to an end.

Like an onlooker, a humorist sees most of the game. A funny interlude occurred to me not so long ago. I had come into the studio dressed in my ordinary clothes, and wearing a coat with a turned-up collar that somewhat concealed my face, when I was attracted by a loud-voised individual who, surrounded by an admiring circle of people, was telling them of certain “screams” of his that had brought the house down!

His conversation was punctuated by little jokes that fell very flat. He got a laugh from some of the people, but the majority were looking sadly at him. Perhaps of his audience I was the most doleful.

Only Charlie!

At last he turned to me.

“Why, man,” he said, “haven’t you got any sense of humour?”

I smiled blandly.

“No!” I replied. “I am very sorry, I haven’t. You see, I am only Charlie Chaplin.”

Then I moved away.

The Silent Film Quarterly・!53 Not so long ago very much the same kind of incident happened in the studios.

We were visited by a gentleman who held forth on the fact that it was easy enough to get laughs at knock-about work. We humoured him, and suggested that he should give a little exhibition to show how easy it was. We loaded him up with a hod of bricks, and told him to do some comic work with a ladder against the wall of the studio.

He did. It was so comic that he couldn’t see out of either of his eyes for a week, and the last time he called on us he couldn’t say enough about the difficulty of our work. He had had some.

Perhaps the readers of Answers know that during the filming of a play it is quite a customary thing for the actor to talk.

What he says doesn’t matter so much, but it must appear that his mouth is moving.

We had one man in our company who was a wit of the first order, and would insist on, during actions of the play, telling his most screamingly-funny jokes. He would also talk, at times, in affectionate diminutives, and, as it was never realised by the audiences who saw the film what he was saying, it didn’t matter so much.

The Kiddies Knew!

One day I was present at a little show given to a host of children from a deafand-dumb school. Everything went on well until our witty friend appeared on the screen. Then suddenly a smile went round the audience during a moment that did not strike me as being particularly funny. They were nudging one another in their glee, while I stood watching amazed, thinking that they had all gone loco suddenly.

I plucked up courage to ask the mistress who accompanied them the reason of their silent mirth. There were tears of laughter in her eyes as she looked into mine. “ Yo u s e e, M r. C h a p l i n , ” s h e exclaimed, “my students are experts in lip-

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reading, and they know every word that that comedian there is saying!”

I paled, for at that particular moment my humorous friend was telling the camera m a n wh at h e t h o u g h t o f h i m . I remembered the incident quite well, and, remembering, stole out of the cinema theatre, leaving the school children to their humour.

To those who wish one day to take up the life of a cinema actor, more especially the man who fools for the films, may I give a few words of advice? Don’t be funny noisily. Humour must be a silent thing.

Practise a few little stunts on your friends, say. A very good start would be for you to take your fiancee down to the river's edge, blindfold her, and push her in.

If You Survive.

That will make anyone who is watching roar with laughter—unless, of course, there is a policeman near by.

To leave a lot of banana peel on the pavement is also another thing you can do silently. Just walk along that pavement and slip, to fall into a coal-hole, from whence you are rescued more dead than alive.

Be careful not to cry out when a brick hits you in the left ear. The humour of the situation will lose all its effect.

You will notice that I do these things very silently.

Lift your eyebrow round to the back of your neck, and people will roar with laughter. Receive a brick on the point of your nose without flinching, and you will evoke a howl.

You can practise these things very easily, and if you are alive after the third day, you are made for life! ・・・

OCTOBER 2, 1915 I shall never forget a lady coming up to me recently at Los Angeles, and asking me what it felt like to be famous. I will give to the readers of Answers almost the same answer as I gave to her.

The Silent Film Quarterly・!54 “There are penalties attached to it,” I said, and I enumerated them. “Only the other day in the streets here it took a couple of policeman and a fire-hose to extricate me from a mob of small boys.”

I was unfortunate enough, too, on another occasion to spend a short vacation at the seaside. Oh, the happenings! If some Royal personage had gone there to be feted he could not have been mobbed as I was.

I found more people there who called me “Charlie” than I had ever done in the course of my life. I must tell you of one gentleman—a dear old man I had thought him to be—who, after we had moistened our throats with ginger-beer, told me of his bad fortune.

The Golden Key. “Do you know, laddie,” he said, “I have in my pocket a key to a safe which is absolutely filled with money, and I haven’t the fare to take me to where that safe is situated.”

“What about half-a-crown?” I said quietly.

Tears came into his eyes.

“Charlie boy,” he murmured, “half-acrown would do everything!” And then a sudden thought struck him. “Look here,” he said thickly. “For your kindness I will present you with the key. And what do you say if we make it five shillings?”

I handed over the five shillings, and, thinking that I was on a good thing, travelled the next day to the little town he had told me about. There I found the field and an old tin box, which I discovered to be filled not with gold ingots, but a very large-sized brick.

I wept salt tears, realising that that was another of the penalties of being great.

Candidly, though, it sometimes becomes a nuisance. You can achieve real success at cinema acting, and yet only wish to make a successful living.

Those who knew me in the old Karno days will know that I was never that type of individual who courted notoriety, or who

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wanted to be feted right and left. I know that I am a funny man of the “movies,” and that in itself is satisfaction enough.

Would to Heaven that even a cinemaactor could travel incognito! I would give anything sometimes to know that my face could be transformed at a moment’s notice, and that no one would know me. But, truth to tell, I have been so closely watched on the screen that everyone recognises me.

I shall never forget a truly pathetic incident that occurred on a recent occasion when I was traveling through one of the large cities of America.

My Little Patient.

In the street I was stopped by a nurse.

“You are Mr. Charles Chaplin, I believe?” she said nervously.

I raised my hat, and smiled by way of reply.

“Oh,” she exclaimed, “could you do a great favour for me, Mr. Chaplin? Will you follow me?”

Mystified, I strolled along by her side, whilst visions of dens where I was to be robbed sprang up into my mind. I can tell you, I was fairly astonished when I discovered myself in a hospital. The nurse took me to a cool, white ward, in which a dear little fellow was sitting up in bed, his eyes large with wonder as he looked at me.

“Mr. Chaplin,” murmured the nurse, “ever since he came here in his delirium he has been asking for ‘Charlie.’ I knew there was only one Charlie; it must have been Providence that sent me out into the street, and found you.”

I sat down by the boy’s bedside, and might as well confess that I even did one or two little tricks for him, until at last he slipped off into a restful slumber.

As I write, on my desk is a little missive in a childish hand, telling me of a youthful convalescent on the Californian coast—of a little chap into whose cheeks again are coming the roses of health.

But let that pass. Let us speak, rather, of the difficulties of being famous. I have

The Silent Film Quarterly・!55 caused almost riots in the streets at times, and have often been requested by the police to hurry away to avoid congestion of the traffic.

These things are becoming quite usual, and recently, owing to the curiosity of crowds, we have had to ring the Essanay studios about with a stockade to keep the sightseers from breaking in.

As you can well imagine, often great difficulties occur in the filming of exterior scenes owing to this self-same thing. I have got up as early as three o’clock in the morning in order to avoid the crowd.

Chilly work that, but there was one day that I shall never forget when an “exterior” seemed absolutely hopeless, owing to the press of people who were thronging about not only the camera-man but myself.

In this scene I had to play the part of a fireman, and with a very healthy-looking hose I was to play it on all and sundry who attempted to put out the fire.

You can imagine that in the play I was not intended to be one of those model firemen who climb up escapes and extinguish fires miraculously. My part was to hamper everyone. Just as I was preparing to do this, the crowd came.

“Hallo, Charlie!” said urchins as well as grown-ups.

At first I smiled, but at last, getting rather exasperated, I motioned to one of the scene-arrangers to switch on the water, and then carefully taking aim, I played that flowing stream on the crowd.

What a sight! They turned and fled.

“Now, then,” cried the producer to the operator, knowing me well by this time, “reel this off, man, for all you’re worth!”

T h e c a m e r a - m a n fo c u s s e d h i s machine just in time, for I was off like a bird chasing that crowd and playing the hose on them, the company in fits of laughter. After that we finished the play in peace; and I can tell you a successful one it was, with that flying multitude playing so great a part in it.

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But sometimes we are not so successful. One glorious June day dawned when, up like a bird, merry and bright, I was looking forward to a really good day’s work in the adjacent fields, when the same old crowd turned up. In the film we were playing there was a lot of brick-throwing— the usual kind of stunt that makes people roar with laughter.

Unfortunately, though, the people took the play too seriously, and I verily believe that the Californian brick industry went up by leaps and bounds that day. Bricks materialised from nowhere. They were chucked at us from all directions, for the audience was seemingly magnetised by the humour of the moment.

So was I! I was borne back to the studios on a stretcher, and so were half the company, whilst the place looked more like a battlefield after the finish than a scene for an exterior. After that we gave the film up as a bad job, and I had some recreation.

My Only Billiard Match.

During this time I devoted myself to billiards, and I really think I ought to tell you of my first game. It was doing an unkindness to the world not to film it.

I was playing with a fat man named Ponsonby, who was rather a good player.

Now, Ponsonby “broke,” and I followed, having carefully chalked my cue. I played at the red, but, alas! shot my ball right into Ponsonby’s eye.

Of course, I apologised and raised my bowler, which I was wearing so that I could get a better light by looking under the brim. Ponsonby accepted my apology, and as I had not been working for some time, I did my little run round the table just as he was going to take up his position to play.

Unfortunately, I caught one of my boots in his leg, and cannoned him into a pocket in which he had never dreamt of burying the red.

He glowered, but said nothing, and made his shot, which, alas! had no result.

The Silent Film Quarterly・!56 I then walked along with my cue, and as I bent down to play he said: “Now then, Charlie, be careful. This is a difficult cannon.”

Unluckily, I shot back my cue, and caught him in the other eye.

Cricket in the Studio.

“Look here, you're doing this on purpose!” he exclaimed. “Do try to remember that this isn’t a film play!”

I assured him that it was an accident, and then—cruel Fate!—in turning round my cue caught him full in the face. I dropped it then accidentally on his toe, slipped on it myself, and shot right into the middle of his stomach.

I bolted for my life!

I have never played billiards since. I believe it is a good game, but for me it has lost its fascination, for even now in my dreams I see Ponsonby’s face as he rose from the floor and looked through two blackened eyes at me, the while he rubbed the part I had accidentally struck. He was a cue-riosity all right!

I can tell you, that was some cannon!

There are other games that I have played, and I remember a day in the studio. It was an off day when someone suggested that I should teach the staff the ancient and honourable game of cricket. I agreed to do so, and when we had rigged up a wicket, and had procured a chunk of wood for a bat, the game commenced.

A Real Good Reel.

At first everything went well, but when they put me on to bowl things happened. I had become so accustomed now to throwing everything, from a brick to a barrel of whitewash, at anyone I might see, that when I got the cloth ball we had constructed I could not resist the temptation of flinging it for all I was worth at the batsman’s head. He returned it in kind, and his shot—an excellent one— caught me full in the eye, so that I fell back.

As they say in lyric verse, that started it.

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Soon things of all description were lying right and left. The studio was turned upside-down, and the manager, who had come upon the scene, was almost stunned by a tin can that one of the stagehands had thrown in the merriment of the moment.

Then the manager joined in, and a cameraman with an eye to business prepared his machine, and took the whole thing. Afterwards—that was, when we were privileged to come out of the infirmary— we saw the film. Honestly, I think it was one of the funniest short reels that has ever been my lot to act in. ・・・

OCTOBER 9, 1915 It is truly said by Shakespeare that a man in his time plays many parts, and short though my experience of the cinema has been, I have indeed played various roles. Some have been serious—curious, you will say to that fact, but it is nevertheless true—but I must say, in justice to my present role, that the majority of my parts have been funny.

None, however, was so screamingly funny as on a recent occasion when I attended a tiny American theatre as an unknown spectator at a competition—a competition connected with Charlie Chaplin.

You will laugh when I tell you this, but you will laugh more when I tell you the sequel. I had visited this hall of amusement, all unconscious of the fact that a Chaplin competition was being boomed.

They were offering very good prizes for anyone who could portray me to the life, and when the “turn” came on I watched it with interest to see how those would-be Chaplins would acquit themselves.

Couldn’t Copy Himself!

The majority were ridiculous, one or two there were who had a faint knowledge of myself and had evidently watched my actions very carefully, but being naturally amused by this performance I thought it

The Silent Film Quarterly・!57 would be a screaming joke if I attempted to copy myself.

I went “behind,” and after numerous little formalities had been gone through, it was arranged that I should go on and try my luck.

I went. My make-up was nil, I just relied on my little actions. I must say here, in justice to myself, that I was a little out of practice, but I was hardly prepared for the jeers that greeted my performance. They didn’t like me at all. They thought I was an absolute guy compared with those others who had played Charlie to them.

It was only at the end of the show that I revealed myself to the manager, and he enjoyed the joke immensely. I can hear his laughter now as I write, but when I think of the yells of that crowd it brings tears of merriment to my eyes.

Caught with the Evidence.

I was in rather a nasty corner on one occasion during the process of filming a long reeler. I happened to be strolling down a woodland path when suddenly two burly individuals sprang out upon me, and I found myself a prisoner in their grasp. It must have been ill-luck that tempted the producer to fill my pocket with a largesized rabbit for film purposes. On this defunct animal my captors fixed their attention.

“Let me go!” I said. “Don’t you recognise me? Don’t you know who I am?”

They glanced at one another and smiled a knowing smile.

“There’s not much difficulty about that,” they said. “It’s easy enough to see, my man, what your game is. We had three of your kind here only the other day. There has been too much poaching in these woods!”

I almost sat down in the middle of the road with laughter.

“Me a poacher?” I gasped. “Why, man, I’m an actor!”

He Laughed.

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“Yes,” said one of them, “we know that, too; but no amount of play-acting will get you out of this, my friend. Actors don’t carry dead rabbits about with them.”

“But I’m a cinema actor,” I said.

“That is part of my make-up.”

They refused to listen to reason, and dragged me away to a splendid house, standing in its own grounds, of which the master was summoned.

As he saw me, my sad, downcast face, with the rabbit protruding from the pocket of my dusty morning-coat, he put his hands on his hips and laughed so heartily that I thought every moment he was going to burst.

My guardians were distinctly mystified.

“Found him poaching in the woods, sir,” said one, “so we brought him along.”

Then it was that at last the gentleman, who was laughing like a hyena, found his words.

“Don’t you understand?” he said to the two. “Don’t you see whom you have captured?”

The men shook their heads.

“You’ve caught Charlie Chaplin! He’s no poacher!”

I looked at the two gentlemen as though to say, “I told you so,” but they needed no subduing look from me. They looked like two streaks of whitewash at that moment, and they hadn’t a word to say for themselves. I can see them now as they turned away and walked very slowly, very sadly down the drive.

Let me tell you of a rather amusing incident that occurred with regard to my feet. I was interviewed by a journalist, with whom I found myself out of sympathy. We had had reason to discuss my feet, and as the worthy man was rather piqued with my reception—I must say here that he had come at an awkward time, when I could scarcely give him any attention—he inserted an advertisement in his paper to the effect that Charlie Chaplin’s famous boots were entirely worn out, and would any possessor of old boots that might serve

The Silent Film Quarterly・!58 for acting purposes send them round to me, and gave my private address.

They Began to Come.

I saw the advertisement in the evening issue, and at first I laughed, but not so the next day. I was awakened at about sixthirty by a small boy knocking at the door.

“Say, guv’nor,” he said, “father threw these boots at me a moment ago, and I saw your advertisement—” “Oh, you did, did you?” I said politely.

“Well, if you will hand over that leather I will copy father, and quickly, too, my lad!”

But the boy had fled.

I was not left in peace long. This time it was a little girl with a pair of mother’s, and after her they came thick and fast. Old gentlemen with grey beards and shabby boots appeared, ladies of all kinds and descriptions, small boys, almost babies, and young dudes who, for a lark, brought round their left-off shoes. Some of them had the audacity to leave their shoe-leather on the door-step, and what my house looked like about eleven that morning I can hardly tell you.

Of Every Kind and Colour.

There were boots everywhere, of all kinds and descriptions. There were black boots, brown boots, white boots, boots down at heel, bursting out at the toes, a regular festival of boots, and the climax came when a cartload of them was flung out on the doorstep and an individual handed me a card, on which was written, “In answer to your advertisement.”

Although in this case I was the victim of a joke, there was an occasion when another individual suffered at my hands. It was during the filming of “Charlie in the Park.” Those who have seen this film will remember that I am prodigious in my casting of bricks, and it so happened that my hand lighted on one larger than usual, and sighting what I thought to be one of the company’s policemen, I heaved it.

Alas, for my choice of an object! It was not a faked policeman that I had flung at,

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but one of the genuine order, and, drawing his truncheon, he came at me for all he was worth.

Hampered though I was by my boots, I ran like the wind—so did the operator, who in that film got my terrified expression to the life. It made the reel, and fortunately I escaped with my life, and succeeded in bringing a very successful play to a dramatic finish. ・・・

OCTOBER 16, 1915 On one occasion I came to a little town, to find it in the throes of an election for a town council.

I meant to have some fun in that little township; so, getting a local printer to run me up a few bills, I plastered “Vote for Charlie Chaplin” all over the town, and that evening, assisted by some friends, rigged up a platform and addressed the electors.

They liked it, especially when I added an impromptu dance.

“Charlie Chaplin is the man!” they cried. And even the children went through the town, crying “Vote for Charlie Chaplin!”

You can just imagine the surprise on the faces of the local candidates. Their meetings were not attended at all, and, despite all the efforts of the keepers of the booths, the majority of the people voted for myself.

“Vote for Charlie.”

It was one of the funniest incidents in my life, and, as I write, I can see that sleepy little township rocking with merriment as the mayor went on to the balcony of the biggest building in the place, and announced the result of the election. I think the winner had about ten crosses. It seemed grossly unfair that I didn’t get a place in the council of that sleepy constituency, as I reckon I got most of the votes.

The Silent Film Quarterly・!59 By the way, there was one particularly dramatic moment when, during questiontime at one of the meetings, I made bold to ask: “Who killed Cock Robin?” A child who had seen me in the audience said: “Charlie Chaplin!”

The next moment I had three very hefty labourers sitting on my chest.

A more curious experience than this, though, was when I wished to emulate Broncho Billy, my friend of the Essanay films, and attempted to learn broncho busting.

The Boy with the Gun. A fatherly horse was brought to me with a kind of clockwork action and a cast in its left eye. I was put on it, and ambled round the field on its broad back, not noticing that a small youth was taking careful aim at the horse’s flank with an airgun that fired darts. One caught my animal, and, giving a terrified snort, it leapt in the air, and then slowly its head turned, and, with regretful eyes, it looked at the child, and almost spoke. But the next moment another shot had caught it in the region of its spindly leg. That did it. The next moment it was going like the wind.

Round and round the field it travelled, with me alternately gripping at its neck, the saddle, and its tail. Anderson’s face was a picture, and I must confess I felt very uncomfortable.

“Go it, Charlie!” he said. “You are busting that broncho all right, all right!”

I told him that the broncho was busting me. The hind buttons of my trousers had gone with a click, I had lost my bowler, and the business end of my collar had wandered round at the back of my neck.

In Feminine Attire.

Meanwhile, the child was still aiming carefully at the horse as it passed. I think on the second time round the field it was doing about a hundred miles an hour, and still going strong. But I had forgotten all about everything then. I was dizzy in my

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head, and when I finally came-to the animal was sitting on its haunches, looking with angry orbs at my fallen figure, while G.M. Anderson and the boy had gone.

You will think that my life has been full of ups and downs. It has, but never so much as on one occasion when I was rehearsing for “Charlie, the Perfect Lady,” a film that is shortly to be produced by the Essanay Company.

To see if my make-up was as good as I thought it was, I shaved my moustache off, and, dressed as the elegant girl I had to portray, wandered out into the street.

Presently a gentleman, with a head like a pimple and a neck as long as an ostrich, came up to me, and, raising his straw hat, remarked what a perfect day it was.

“Did you say a perfect fool?” I said, under my breath.

But he, thinking that I had murmured my consent to a walk, stepped along beside me—that was until I unexpectedly shot him into the gutter by a method that he could not imagine.

He got up, looked about him, and then joined me.

“Boys will leave banana-peel en the pavement,” he said.

I smiled.

“Yes,” I remarked casually, pointing to the pavement, which was devoid of any peel at all. “There’s another piece.”

My foot was in action again, but this time he didn’t get up, and I was left in peace.

Fo r a t i m e my w a l k w a s n o t interrupted, but I was not to be left in peace for long; for, coming out of a restaurant, where even the waiter had failed to penetrate my disguise, I met this time another ardent swain, who invited me to go on the lake with him.

“Row, Row, Row!” I suppose he thought that his look was languishing. When he turned away I nearly died with laughing, but I accepted his

The Silent Film Quarterly・!60 proposition, and we went out on the broad stretch of water.

He could not row at all, but we managed to get the boat along somehow.

Little did I realise the disaster that was to follow on my rash adventure, for underneath the willows the gentleman tried to make love.

“Just one kiss!” he murmured.

I playfully slapped his face. In reality, it was more like a knock-out blow than anything else.

“I think we will row again,” I said then. And very reluctantly he pulled the boat out into mid-stream.

Then the idiot crawled across to me to continue what I suppose he thought was a mild flirtation, when suddenly the boat tipped over, and shot him into about three feet of slime.

I followed, and, naturally upset in more ways than one, I let out at him as he rose to the surface. My hat had been washed away now, and my “make-up” no longer concealed my manly countenance.

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The Real Woman in the Case.

I have seen men suffer from fright, but I have never witnessed a face such as his.

Suddenly he turned and swain for the bank, with me in close pursuit. He got out of the water at last just as I managed to reach the bank; then he turned once and looked at me. The next moment he fled, looking as though a hundred furies were on his track.

There was one at any rate—one who, with a carefully-aimed brick, brought him low. When I arrived at his side he was just regaining consciousness.

“I’ll teach you to make love to me!” I said, as I sat on his chest.

It was just then that a woman appeared from underneath the trees.

“My husband!” she exclaimed, as she saw the fallen man.

And then it was my turn to be off, for I could see what was to be the fate of the husband, and didn’t want it to be mine.

THE END

Life is a hurdle race over the “ifs” and “buts.”

Any woman can manage a man if she can only prevent him from knowing it.

Why is it that nothing tastes quite as good as the thing that doesn’t agree with you?

A lot of people go on praising “the good old times,” and hoping they will never come back.

There are some women who can call I another woman “dear” as though it were a swear word.

If there is any particular thing you are really fond of doing, you may be quite sure that, sooner or later, a society will be I started to suppress it.

I suppose education is a good thing. All the same, this world is full of fathers who have to support sons who know ten times as much as their fathers do.

A kiss may be a reward—or a punishment.

You have to be very well off to buy really good friends.

“Chaplinisms”

There are plenty of other ways of being unhappy besides buying a motor-bike.

Written by Charlie Chaplin in 1915, taken from his weekly column in Answers.

Quite a lot of people favour the principle that half the truth is better than none.

Knock a film hero down, and see if he hits is you back.

Very likely the horse will become extinct in time, but asses will be with us always.

A screen villain is not always so black as he is filmed.

The best way to get on with some people is to get on without them.

A wise man looks miserable when his wife goes away for a couples of weeks.

Every dog has its day; but some poor dogs have the shortest day in the year.

Keeping a man’s nose to the grindstone is not the way to sharpen his wits.

If a person is not everything you expect him to be, he is everything you least suspected.

Don’t put old wine in new bottles —drink it!

Some young men seem to be fired with but one ambition—to increase their sphere of uselessness.

It sometimes happens that a fellow lives to marry the daughter of the fellow who turned him down.

Sunday is the day that father eats up everything in the house so that he can growl at feeling rotten on Monday.

People who assert that the world is growing better seem to forget that a new brass band is organised almost every day.

A wise man has doubts—only fools are always positive.

In politics, dishonesty is too often the shortest way to a policy.

Truth is is stranger than fiction because there is less on the market.

It’s easy enough to nail a lie, but you can’t always keep it down.

Woman was made out of the rib of man, and she’s been filleting him ever since.

The less work a man does the more tired he—makes other people.

Don’t hide your light under a bushel; use a reflector and double it.

Beware of the fragrance of temptation; it is like a fool disguised as a wise man.

There is is a lot missing from the life of a boy who never owned a dog.

A “wonder” lasts nine days, but a woman’s curiosity goes on for ever.

He who laughs last, lasts. The other man generally bursts a blood-vessel.

Philosophy is a fine thing for reconciling us to misfortunes— especially other people’s.

When a man agrees with our opinions we’re rather apt to give him credit for more intelligence than he deserves.

The most clever man will be a fool at times, but the most foolish woman will always get her own back.

Generally speaking, the man who is capable of filling a £2,000-ayear job has one.

You know, young men are very selfish. They swear they love with a deep love the girls of their hearts; then they expect those girls to leave happy homes just to marry them!

The wise man built his house on a rock, but a wiser erected his on the sands and insured it.

The man with more money than brains needs it, poor chap.

A stitch in time saves mine—my trousers, I mean!

Scratch an Armenian, and you find a Turk; scratch a German, and— I’d better leave it at that.

The chap with the heftiest punch is usually the best peacemaker.

Of course, time may be money, but I have heard of a man playing poker for six hours and coming away without any.

About the only encouragement some men get from their wives is being told that they are not so bald as they were a year ago.