Chapter I: Foreword

In her travels and through her amazing--to put it mildly--correspondence, the motion picture star finds that there is everywhere a great curiosity about screen acting.

What does it require? What, if any, are its mysteries? What system of detail is there that permits fifty-two hundred feet of celluloid ribbon to spin smoothly past the eye to make an interesting story?

I look upon this book as an answer to the thousands of letters I have received in the past several years asking as many thousands of questions. A motion picture star’s most intimate audience, after all, is her correspondence.

There comes to her sometimes the vague realization that in a dozen different countries little children, their sisters, their brothers and their parents may be, at one moment, viewing her image upon the screen in a dozen different plays. It is all too stupendous; too impersonal. But though she cannot be a breathing part of these audiences she learns often what is in the hearts of many. This message comes through the mails; that is her broad point of contact with her international public.

Five years ago these letters were largely to request photographs and the star could tell something of her popularity by the number of pictures mailed out. But, as the screen has grown in importance and merit, the star’s correspondence has indicated a lively curiosity in the art of camera-acting. So much ambition; so many questions!

I have often thought that to make a satisfactory reply to the thousands of questions I have been asked would be to write a book, and--well, I wrote it. I have tried to outline the important steps in the building of a screen career. In doing this I have evaded technical phraseology. It is not indispensable to a knowledge of screen technic and might tend to confuse.

I believe that anyone desiring a career in motion pictures can profit by that which I have written out of my experience; that others can learn from it something of the work-a-day life of the screen actress.

In conclusion I would take this opportunity to thank the tremendous number of children and grown-ups who have at one time or another written me. They serve always to remind me that those of us upon the screen have an influence and responsibility that go beyond a mere make-believe.

MAE MARSH.

Contents

Chapter Page

I. The Universal Impulse 15

II. Stars and Meteors 23

III. Seven Qualities 33

IV. Beauty and Expression 43

V. Story, Make-up, Costuming 51

VI. Noses, Chins and Eyes 61

VII. Camera-Consciousness and Such 73

VIII. Emphasis and Repression 81

IX. Long Shots, Intermediates and Close-ups 91

X. About Atmosphere 101

XI. Mr. Griffith 109

XII. Home Life of the Star 121

Illustrations

Page

The Author and Mary Frontispiece

Lillian Gish and the late Robert Harron 27

Charles Ray 37

Mary Miles Minter 47

Mary Pickford 55

Madame Nazimova 65

Blanche Sweet and Wallace Reid 77

Norma Talmadge 85

The Author and Some Beginners 95

Gloria Swanson and Thomas Meighan 105

Mr. Griffith 113

The Author at Home 125

MAE MARSH, MOTION PICTURE ACTRESS

_I_

_The arts are old, old as the stones_
_From which man carved the sphinx austere._
_Deep are the days the old arts bring:_
_Ten thousand years of yesteryear._

_II_

_She is madonna in an art_
_As wild and young as her sweet eyes:_
_A frail dew flower from this hot lamp_
_That is today’s divine surprise._

_Despite raw lights and gloating mobs_
_She is not seared: a picture still:_
_Rare silk the fine director’s hand_
_May weave for magic if he will._

_When ancient films have crumbled like_
_Papyrus rolls of Egypt’s day,_
_Let the dust speak: “Her pride was high,_
_All but the artist hid away:_

_“Kin to the myriad artist clan_
_Since time began, whose work is dear.”_
_The deep new ages come with her,_
_Tomorrow’s years of yesteryear._

--_Nicholas Vachel Lindsay._

_From “THE CHINESE NIGHTINGALE_
_and other Poems” by Vachel Lindsay._
_Published by The MacMillan Company._