Chapter XII

_Opportunity for home life of motion picture actress--_
_Los Angeles and New York as production_
_centers--Screen morals and such._

In this final chapter I shall try to say something about the home life of the motion picture actress. In general actresses are of two classes: those who act both on and off the screen, and those who confine their efforts merely to the studio.

The first class is not particularly open to censure. For, unless I am mistaken, the public desires to see its actresses act on an average of sixteen out of twenty-four hours. One friend of mine, a star, stoutly maintains that she would not go to the theater in anything except the most up-to-date garb and a conspicuous car! Why? Because otherwise there would be sure to be many who would be disappointed in her! If there is anything funny about this it is that it is somewhat true.

Actresses, as public favorites, maintain a peculiar position, as Gil Blas points out, somewhere between royalty and the citizen without being of either. The public seems to feel something of pride when it points out some glittering dreadnaught of an automobile, conspicuous for color or equipment, and says, “There goes Dolly Twinkletoes!”

Personally I have never had this inclination to act both “off and on.” I am afraid, having been of a large family, I should have found it extremely difficult even had I the inclination. A number of sisters, and a brother or two, are a fine cure for any tendency to undue importance.

And now that I have an especially charming daughter, and am happily married, I must really be set down as a conservative. That baby of mine! Being detained beyond hours at the studio one night I hurried home to see her before she was tucked in bed, having no time to take off my make up. She gazed at me as though she were beholding a ghost or a total stranger!

A Chicago picture critic once gave me such advice as I think fit to pass on to those who think of the screen as a career. “Save the pennies,” she said, “they can always be spent if you have them.”

Yet how many, with a splendid opportunity, do not save! Then some day they wake up and find their golden chance gone. As an old philosopher has pointed out, we, who find money so easy at times, must guard against intemperance and folly.

But this is not a sermon. We live up in the beautiful California mountains. There, in a colonial house on a small acreage, with flower and vegetable gardens, Airedales, chickens, a car, a cow, and a cat, I have a feeling of substantial worth-while happiness and that is the kind that counts.

Indeed, one of the best things about motion pictures is that it permits of a home life. The actress in vaudeville or on tour, or even on Broadway with the uncertainty of the length of runs, never has any surety where she will be on the morrow. We, in motion pictures, are fortunate enough to sign contracts that usually call for a year or more work in one city and that New York or Los Angeles. This, I should say, is one of the most advantageous things about the screen as contrasted with the spoken drama. There are many others.

Since Los Angeles and New York are the two centers of the motion picture industry each has its staunch advocates as to suitability, etc. In any group of actresses and actors this will usually be the topic of a lively discussion. Personally I like Los Angeles. At a dinner that I attended some time ago the head of a big distributing company, who is interesting for his shrewd observations, said there had never been a really great picture done in New York City. “For the entire atmosphere of life there,” he continued, “is too superficial.”

I agree with him. Los Angeles is friendly and natural. Its climate is only one of its many virtues.

The screen actress will be called upon to meet the people of the press. Interviews are important. She will find that the number of them will usually be determined by the degree of success of her newest screen play. As for screen writers, one will discover them, in the majority, keen, sympathetic and altogether delightful. No one need have the dread of coming in contact with them that I originally had; nor resort to the subterfuges to evade them. I was very young then.

Public appearance is another factor the screen has to deal with and sometimes I think this is rather overdone. During the separate campaigns for the sale of Liberty Bonds all of us tried to do our share. While I never hope to be able to make a speech, I find that the anticipation of being expected to do so fills me with greater terror than actually being called upon.

I believe it is a good idea for the actress to cultivate some companion art. In between productions, or during an enforced vacation, she will have something then as an off-set to mere indolence. I have been interested in sculpture for many years, and I have an ambition to do something in it that will be of real value. If I don’t, the ambition will have been of real value, for it has assisted in providing me with many happy and instructive hours. That is the main thing.

The study of another art is interesting, too, because we immediately perceive in its form and substance the truth of the saying that all arts are one. Sculpture is a matter of repression and emphasis just as acting is. And when I am doing the figure of my baby, or modeling from life, I am startled to find that my errors, in their way, are akin to the errors of the beginning actress.

There may have existed at one time a silly idea that actresses shouldn’t marry; that it hurt their box-office value, destroyed an illusion, etc. As though actresses were not women! Most of my actress friends are married and glad of it. Almost without exception those who have gone highest in the profession are married. The public has invariably been pleased about it.

I should recommend any young actress to a suitable husband. It will give her a better and deeper insight into life and broaden her sympathy. There is something a little pitiable, something that doesn’t ring quite true, about the actress too ready to boast of her star-spangled freedom.

I have often been asked about the morals of motion pictures. Will someone tell me why we, all of us, are so deeply concerned with our neighbor’s morals? And when we find them not all that could be desired are we filled with sorrow and the wish to effect an honest reform, or with a sort of unholy joy and a desire to spread scandal?

It has been my observation that in motion pictures a girl can be as good as she wants to be. In that way our profession is identical with others. It is true that the glamour of the screen has attracted people who would be undesirable in any business or profession. But we should recognize them as such and never mistake them as representing the entire profession.

The majority of those who succeed in motion pictures do so by honest work. That means long hours and application. I doubt if the average successful business man puts in as much time or as high-tension effort as the picture actress, actor or director who gets somewhere. My friends are of that kind. They are too busy to worry unnecessarily over what the public may think of motion picture morals. They assume only to regulate their own conduct.

I have enjoyed doing this book. From time to time I have been forced to drop my work upon the urgent appeal of my eighteen-months’ old daughter. She has gorgeous blue eyes with lashes long as twilight shadows. Her cheeks are exquisitely pink and her little mouth is like a rose-bud in spring. Her name is Mary. She has brought me worlds of undreamed of happiness.

Someday Mary may want to go upon the screen. Even now she acts before the long mirror. If she can, in any way, secure her mother’s hat she gives a complete performance. My blessed baby!

When the time has arrived for her to start upon her career I shall place my little book in her hands and say:

“There is the most and the best that I knew about the screen back in those old-fashioned days of 1921.”

Transcriber’s Notes

Inconsistent hyphenation has been retained.
p. 30 changed “had” to “has” in “she has contributed”.
p. 40 changed “The” to “the” in “Polly of the Circus”.
p. 46 added a period in “mask. These people”.
Removed excess whitespace at bottom of p. 89 and top of p. 90.
p. 97 changed “diffculties” to “difficulties”.
p. 99 changed “bonds” to “blonds”.
p. 115 changed “closelly” to “closely”.