Screen acting

When Mr. Adolph Klauber, former dramatic critic of the New York Times, was casting director for a big picture corporation I chanced to meet him one day in the Fort Lee Studios.

“Read this,” he said, tendering me a letter.

It was from a young girl in Columbus, Ohio, as I remember, who wanted to know how she could get into motion pictures. It was not so much the letter as a small snap-shot photograph of herself which she had pinned to her missive that took my attention.

The picture showed a girl in a sitting position, who was plump to the verge of fatness. She had thick legs and ankles, straight hair, probably brown, and dark eyes. So far as a front view divulged her features were fairly regular. It was not in any way a remarkable picture. Nor did it promise any particular animation in its subject.

She had written to ascertain “what chance she would have in motion pictures.”

“What are you going to answer?” I asked of Mr. Klauber.

“That’s a poser,” he replied. “I was about to write her that she didn’t have any chance; that she probably would be happier if she remained home; certainly so until she obtained her parents’ consent for plans of a career. Looking at the picture I should say she had one chance in a million.”

“That is probably true,” I said.

“But do you know,” continued Mr. Klauber, “that the more I think of it the less I believe that I am endowed with authority to tell anyone that he or she has no chance in motion pictures. How can I know? We see about us every day celebrated stars who, perhaps, began their career with apparently no more chance than this little Columbus girl.”

Mr. Klauber paused.

“For that reason I have not sent the discouraging letter which it was on the tip of my pen to write,” he continued. “Instead I am going to send her a letter telling her that her chance of screen success is altogether problematical; that everything depends upon circumstance, hard work and the native talent that is developed before the camera.”

“I should like to see a copy of that letter,” I said.

I never happened to see Mr. Klauber’s reply to the girl in Columbus. But I am sure it was interesting.

In the past eight years I have received hundreds of thousands of letters from motion picture fans in every part of the world. In answer now to a question I have often heard asked, “Does a motion picture star immediately read all her mail?” I can say for myself, “Bless you, no.”

A single mail has brought as many as a thousand letters and I shall leave it to the reader to determine how one could possibly read one thousand letters and arrive at the studio at 8:30 o’clock. Personally, my secretaries are instructed to attend to such fan letters as request a reply--which practically all of them do--and then preserve the letters that I may read them in leisure moments.

In that way I have managed I think to peruse at one time or another the majority of the letters that come to me. I find the reading of them a great pleasure.

It is nice to receive pleasant compliments on one’s hard and honest effort to do something worth while. I have on many occasions found helpful criticism in my mail. Almost anyone can dismiss a picture with a “I liked it” or “I didn’t like it.” There is the exceptional one in a thousand who will tell you he didn’t like it and why, placing his finger upon a real defect. Often that is a help.

To get back to my point: The letters I receive seem to be written with one, and sometimes all of the following objectives--

1. To request a photograph.

2. To request an autographed photograph.

3. To ask for “old clothes.”

4. To find out how “I can learn to act for motion pictures.”

As for Numbers 1 and 2, the many of you who are making a “collection” know that a picture, autographed if requested, is sent you in due time. Up to very recently the star has considered it a matter of good advertising to remember those friends who are kind enough to ask for photographs. But the demand for pictures has become so tremendous that some of the stars are now making a flat charge of twenty-five cents for their photographs. This barely covers the cost of production and postage.

It was Miss Billie Burke, I believe, who was first to establish a cost charge on her photographs. She did this during the war and donated the receipts to charity.

The most of us have feared to risk offending those picture fans who have been at the pains of writing us by asking them for a photographic fee. We have spent from $10,000 to $25,000 a year out of our own pockets--unless by our contracts our producers agreed to bear this expense--and have trusted that it was money well expended. In the amount of pleasure brought to the little ones I, for one, am sure it has been.

But, as the demand for pictures grows greater and letters pour in from all parts of the world, the cost of materials has been steadily climbing. In 1915 I could send out three photographs for what it now costs to send one. That means something when thousands of photo-mailers each month are being sent to a dozen different countries.

Recently a well known star, a particular friend of mine, declared that it was but a matter of months before all the more popular stars would institute a photographic fee.

As to Number 3, regarding old clothes, I am sure that while the requests emanate from worthy sources no star could possibly satisfy these many supplications.

To begin with if the story calls for clothes that are actually old--old enough to be considered “costumes”--they are usually supplied by the producer and belong to him after production. In the case of modern clothes--meaning new ones--most stars are very pleased to wear them themselves when they have finished before the camera.

Such is mine own case. Whenever there is any danger of my reaching a point of clothes saturation I have several growing sisters who, so far, have been able to handle the situation. After that our clothes go through certain pre-arranged channels of charity.

I make this point in the hope that many young ladies who have written me for my “old clothes” will understand that I have few or none, as much as I should like to accommodate each one of them.

Which brings me to Number 4.

“How can I learn to act for motion pictures?” Six years ago in “The Birth of a Nation” days my mail brought me many such inquiries. Since then, with the motion picture steadily gaining in favor, I have been swamped with this universal request.

“Do brown eyes photograph better than blue?” “Is it necessary to have stage training to act before a camera?” “Can a girl with a big nose succeed in the movies?” “What is the accepted height for a motion picture star?” “Are the morals of motion pictures safe for the average girl?” “If I came to Hollywood and got work as an extra how long would it be before I am featured?” “Do you know any director who will star a small girl, of blond type, who has played parts in high school comedies?” “Are the star salaries we hear of the real thing?” “Does Charlie Chaplin make $1,000,000 a year?”

I have picked at random these few questions. I think I could go on and on, farther than Mr. Tennyson’s charming brook, with others of the same kind. Sometimes I am given to the thought that every young girl in the United States wants to go into motion pictures.

Possibly I am right. You know as well as I. Receiving so many of these letters I have begun to feel as Mr. Klauber felt. I don’t know exactly what to say.

But since there are undoubtedly many thousands of boys and girls not only in the United States but in foreign countries--the Japanese boy, for instance, is particularly keen on knowing the how of motion picture acting--who would like to get into motion pictures, I feel that such information as I have acquired through a wide experience will interest many and perhaps prove of value to those others who are destined to be our cinema stars of tomorrow.

As for my qualifications I was about to say that I am one of the motion picture pioneers. Yet when I say pioneer I think of Daniel Boone. And Mr. Boone, had he lived, would have been an old, old man.