CHAPTER XXVIISOMEWHAT DIGRESSIVE
Fromthe old Biograph Stock Company they graduated, scenario writers as well as actors; and here and there they went, filling bigger jobs in other companies, as actors, directors, and scenario editors.
And as manager and head director of the Kinemacolor Company went David Miles. Directly upon leaving Biograph, Mr. Miles had spent a short time at the “Imp” with Mary Pickford and her family, King Baggott, George Loane Tucker, Gaston Bell, Isabel Rea, and Tom Ince. Leaving “Imp,” he had gone over to Reliance. While at Reliance, and in need of a handsome young juvenile, there came to mind his friend Gaston Bell.
Mr. Bell already was signed up for a ten weeks’ stock season in Washington, D. C.; with “Caught in the Rain” by William Collier and Grant Stewart, as the opening bill; Julia Dean, the leading lady; Mr. Bell’s part that of the dapper Englishman, the Grant Stewart part. Mr. Miles suggested that Gaston play the needed juvenile in the Reliance Company’s movie while rehearsing the opening bill of his Washington stock season in New York, and promised a good movie job when the Washington season ended. Said he’d rush him through at odd hours, so as not to interfere with rehearsals, and finish with him in time for the opening.
Well, everything went along fine, and for the last sceneGaston reported beautifully arrayed in a new spring suit purchased especially for his stock opening.
Suavely spoke the director, “Now, Gaston, we have saved this scene for the finish—we must take you out somewhere and run you over.”
“Take-me-out-and-run-me-over?—in my beautiful new suit? Oh, no, you can’t.”
But no one heeded Gaston’s distress.
Everybody piled in the automobile—after a couple of turns it landed on a quiet street. “All out.” The car emptied—camera was soon set up and Mr. Bell shown the place where he was to be run over.
These were amateur days in fake auto killings and injuries, but they did the “running over” to the director’s satisfaction and Gaston’s, as he escaped with no damage to his clothes or himself.
But Gaston had reckoned without a thought of static. How many hours of anguish “static” caused us—static, those jiggly white lines that sometimes danced and sometimes rained all over the film. Early next morning his ’phone rang—Mr. Miles on the wire. “Awfully sorry, Gaston, but we’ll have to take you out and run you over again because there was static.” So they did it again, and again was Gaston dismissed as finished. It came close on to train time: another ’phone—ye gods, static again! He’d be bumped from juvenility to old age in this one running-over scene, first thing he knew, and hobble onto the stage with cane and crutch, which would never do for his precious little Englishman in “Caught in the Rain.”
Well, they ran him over again. This was Saturday. The following Sunday the company was to leave for Washington. Thinking to cinch things, Mr. Miles offered, shouldanything be wrong with the scene this last time, to pay Mr. Bell’s fare to Washington and his expenses if he would stay in New York over Sunday. “Wildly extravagant, these picture people,” thought Mr. Bell, as he departed for Washington with the company.
But no sooner was he nicely settled in his hotel, “static” and “being run over” quite forgotten, and all set for his opening—when a long distance came. Mr. Miles on the wire: “Awfully sorry, Gaston, but there was more static and we will have to take you out and run you over again.” And before Gaston had time to recover from the shock, the movie director and his camera man were right there in Washington!
“Good night,” said Gaston, despairingly, to himself. But to Mr. Miles he said, “Now I’ll tell you what you have to do, you must have another actor handy to go on for me to-night, for I cannot take any more chances.”
Well, they took the scene another time, ruining neither Mr. Bell nor his grand new suit, and as this time the scene was static-less, the day was saved for Gaston. But “never again” vowed he. And “never again” vowed the director.
David Miles kept good his promise and when Gaston’s season in Washington closed, he joined Reliance. There he and George Loane Tucker soon became known as the “Hall Room Boys.” For in an old brownstone they shared a third floor back—also a dress suit. And if both boys happened to be going out into society the same night, whoever arrived home first and got himself washed up and brushed up first, had the option on that one tuxedo.
The hall-room days of George Loane Tucker were brief. “Traffic in Souls,” the white-slave picture that he produced for Universal, put him over. An unhappy loss to themotion picture world was Mr. Tucker’s early death; for that truly great picture, “The Miracle Man,” his tribute to the world’s motion picture libraryde luxe, promised a career of great brilliance.
Mr. Tucker had come rightfully by his great talent, for his mother, Ethel Tucker, was an actress of note and a clever stage director also. As leading woman in stock repertoire at Lathrop’s Grand Dime Theatre of Boston, she had a tremendous popularity in her time. And long years afterward, she too went into “the pictures” in Hollywood, for a very brief period.
Mr. Tucker’s “Miracle Man” brought stardom to its three leading players, Lon Chaney, Betty Compson, and Tommy Meighan.
Tommy Meighan’s leap to fame was surprising to both friends and family. For Tommy had been considered, not exactly the black sheep of the family, but rather the ne’er-do-well. During the run of “Get-Rich-Quick Wallingford,” both being members of the cast, Frances Ring, sister to the lustrous Blanche of “Rings on My Fingers” and “In the Good Old Summertime” fame, had married Mr. Meighan, Tommy becoming through this matrimonial alliance the least important member of the Ring family of three clever sisters, Blanche, Frances, and Julie. An obscure little Irishman, Tommy trailed along, with a voice that might not have taken him so very far on the dramatic stage.
Like weaving in and out the paper strips of our kindergarten mats is the story of the Ring sisters and Tommy. For Los Angeles beckoned, with Blanche headlined at the Orpheum, Frances in stock, and Tommy playing somewhere or other.
Blanche and her husband, Charles Winninger, a memberof her company, were invited by Louise Orth for a week-end out Las Palmas way. The week-end proved very significant in results; for through their hostess, who was leading woman at the Elko Studios, a meeting between Mr. Winninger and Mr. Lehrman was arranged the next week which led directly to Charlie’s signing on the dotted line at the fabulous salary of two hundred and fifty dollars a week—to do comedies. But Charlie’s pale blue eyes did not register well enough on the screen, and the comedy note in his characterizations thus being lost, the good job just naturally petered out.
Then Miss Ring, who had now taken over one of Los Angeles’s show places, on the Fourth of July gave a party—a red, white, and blue party at which were gathered more notables than had as yet ever been brought together at a social function in Los Angeles. It was Broadway transplanted. There were David Belasco, Laura Hope Crews, Charlie Chaplin, Edna Purviance, Julian Eltinge, Geraldine Farrar, Jesse Lasky, Mr. Goldwyn, Wallace and Mrs. Reid, Mr. Morris Gest, then representative for Geraldine Farrar and Raymond Hitchcock, who viewing from the back piazza the distant lights of Los Angeles was supposed to have said something when he remarked, “This reminds one of a diamond bar pin.”
It was an illustrious and patriotic party. Before the festivities were over, Mr. Gest unwound the maline scarf from Miss Orth’s neck while Charlie Chaplin sang the Spring Song, and Mr. Gest danced on the lawn waving the scarf and crushing the slimy snails that in droves were slowly creeping up to the house.
The party was illustrious in that it was here voted that Tommy Meighan would photograph well in pictures, andMr. Lasky invited him to the studio and offered him, perhaps, fifty dollars a week, and he made a hit in his first picture with Geraldine Farrar and was then given a substantial raise. At which Blanche, the astounded sister-in-law said, “And to think that at times I’ve had to support that Irishman.” There had been enough job uncertainty to discourage her, so that she had wondered sometimes whether she would have him on her hands for the rest of her life. Even after Mr. Tommy Meighan’s advent into pictures, sister Blanche rather expected, every now and then, that he would be “canned.”
And so Tommy evolved from a liability into an asset, and became the idol of innumerable feminine hearts. It was a colorful paper mat the Ring family wove.
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While out at the Elko studio Charlie Winninger, with all his brilliant and sustaining background, had so disastrously flopped, at Mack Sennett’s studio another Charlie was very busy thinking out stunts that would make people laugh. For the more people laughed, the more dollars could Charlie Chaplin add to the savings for the rainy day, against which, if he ever got the chance, he would make himself fool-proof.
For, so I have been told, Charlie Chaplin had known rainy days even when a youngster. He was only seven when, in a music-hall sketch, he made his first theatrical appearance. Later, he toured for some time through the United Kingdom as one of the “Eight Lancashire Lads.” There was an engagement with “Sherlock Holmes,” and then the association with Fred Karno in “The Mumming Birds.” To America with Mr. Karno he came, appearing asCharlotin the now famous “A Night in an EnglishMusic-hall.” When he debarked he was far from being the richest man on the boat.
The movies claimed him. He was discovered by Mack Sennett in this way. Mr. Sennett at this time was busy on the lot out in Los Angeles. He heard of a funny man in an act called “A Night in an English Music-hall” playing at Hammerstein’s Victoria Theatre, which used to stand at Broadway and Forty-second Street, now replaced by the Rialto Motion Picture House. Mr. Adam Kessel and Mr. Bauman, the firm for whom Mack Sennett had nightly warmed the Alexandria’s leather benches in the hope of landing a job, and for whom he was now producing comedies, were both in California, and so in September, 1913, a wire was sent to Charles Kessel, brother of Adam, to go over to Hammerstein’s and get a report on the comedian about whom Mr. Sennett was so anxious.
Mr. Charles Kessel, the secretary of the company, heartily approved of the comedian, who was none other than Charlie Chaplin. He thought so well of him that he sent a letter asking Chaplin to come in and see him. This Mr. Chaplin did. Mr. Kessel asked him how’d he like to go into moving pictures. Mr. Chaplin answered that he had never given them any thought.
Said Mr. Kessel: “I’ve seen you act and like you, but you needn’t make any assertions now, nor any answers, but go out and make inquiries as to Kessel and Bauman and if you think well enough of them, well then we’ll talk.”
Mr. Chaplin found out that the firm was O. K. So Mr. Kessel said: “I’ll give you a contract for a year and gamble with you—I’ll give you the same salary that you’re getting on the stage.”
“One hundred and fifty dollars,” said Mr. Chaplinquickly. He really was getting sixty dollars. “All right,” said Mr. Kessel so quickly that Charles as quickly swallowed his Adam’s apple, and regretted he hadn’t said more.
“But I don’t think I care to change from the stage to the pictures.”
“Well, our contracts are for fifty-two weeks, no Sunday work, no intermissions between pictures; in vaudeville you get thirty-two weeks and you pay your own traveling expenses.”
Mr. Chaplin said he’d make up his mind and let Mr. Kessel know.
So in about six weeks a letter came from Mr. Chaplin from Omaha saying he was ready to start. The contract was mailed December 19, 1913, and signed January 2, 1914.
“Mabel’s Predicament,” a one-reeler, was Charlie Chaplin’s first picture. “Dough and Dynamite” the first two-reeler. Mr. Chaplin’s success was instantaneous. It also must have been tremendous, for the Keystone Company (Kessel and Bauman) within five months dared to do a comedy five reels in length. When the five-reel comedy was announced, there were many who thought that now surely the picture people were going cuckoo. No one believed an audience would stand for afive-reel comedy.
They did. The picture was “Tillie’s Punctured Romance,” adapted from the Marie Dressier play, “Tillie’s Nightmare.” Marie Dressier was engaged for the picture and for fourteen weeks she received the unbelievable salary of one thousand dollars weekly and fifty per cent of the picture, which, released in June, 1914, was one of the sensations of the picture world.
All sorts of offers now began coming to Mr. Chaplin. Carl Laemmle was one who was keen to get Charlie undercontract; he kept himself informed of Mr. Chaplin’s activities even to the social side of his life so that he would know when and where best to set the bait.
Out at Sunset Inn, a place by the ocean where movie people then made merry, Charlie Chaplin was to be one of a party. Mr. Laemmle being wised up to it, gave a party of his own the same night, a most expensive and grand party. Well, he would have Charlie’s ear for a moment anyhow, and one never could tell.
The party in full swing, Mr. Laemmle invited Mr. Chaplin over to his table, and after a few social preliminaries said, “Let’s talk business; I want you to come and work for me.” But Mr. Chaplin, always a clever business man, answered, “I’m enjoying myself—I don’t want to talk business to-night, I’m on a party.”
Mr. Laemmle was all set to secure the services of the rising young comedian, so he would not be daunted. Charles could talk “party,” buthewould talk “business”; Mr. Laemmle offered a little better salary; promised to advertise Chaplin big, and make him a tremendous star.
But Mr. Chaplin was too clever for Mr. Laemmle. With a most sweet smile he turned to one of Mr. Laemmle’s guests, Louise Orth of the corn yellow hair, and said, “Gee, that’s great music; I like blonds, and I am going to dance with a blond, may I?”
Itwasgreat music, about the first syncopated music with a saxophone heard in that neck of the woods. There was a great horn into which the dancers, if they desired an encore, threw a silver dollar. There needed to be five particularly anxious dancers to get the expensive orchestra to repeat an orchestration. The dollars clicked down the horn into a sort of tin bucket on the floor below, and theloud jangle of the silver money could be easily heard by the dancers who would listen attentively for jangle number five, and then “On with the dance.”
As the music finished for the first dance this night, the dancers stopped and with much excitement waited for the click of the silver dollars. Charlie Chaplin was out for a big time; also he wanted to worry Mr. Laemmle, and, one thing sure, he was not going to talk business this night. So he was the first to say, “This dance is worth an encore,” and he threw a silver dollar into the horn.
It was perhaps the first time Mr. Chaplin had been known to spend money in public either for food or music, for every one was so tickled and flattered to have him as a guest that he never was given a chance to spend money. So Charlie’s Chaplin’s silver dollar nearly caused a riot on that dance floor. The guests hooted and screamed and those who knew him well enough and had been given stray bits of confidence, called out, “You cannot plant your first dollar now because you’ve spent it.” And Mr. Chaplin answered, “Oh, don’t you worry, I planted my first dollar some time ago.”
Mr. Chaplin could never squander money; memories of lean days inhibited him from doing that. But he must hold off Mr. Laemmle; and he was enjoying the dance.
Two other dollars had joined Charlie Chaplin’s first one, and clicked their way down the yawning chasm of the brass horn, and then a pause, but just for a second. Grabbing his blond partner, Mr. Chaplin threw the two needed dollars into the horn’s hungry maw, and the moaning saxaphone started off again while Mr. Laemmle looked sadly on. He never did secure the screen’s greatest funny man.
In six months Charlie Chaplin’s rise to fame and fortunewas phenomenal. Not only had a kind Providence richly endowed him, but he worked very hard, as genius usually does. Even back in those days, Mr. Chaplin often began his day making excursions with the milkman. From the cold gray morning hours of three and four until seven, the two would ramble through the poor districts, and while the milkman would be depositing his bottle of milk, Mr. Chaplin would hobnob with drunks and derelicts, and in the later hours, talk with the little children of the slums, drawing out a story here, getting a new character there, and making the tragic humorous when finally the story was given life on the screen. The story of “The Kid” as Mr. Chaplin and Jackie Coogan told it, was nearer the truth than any audience ever guessed.
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The ups and downs of the movie world!
Mack Sennett all dressed up and grouching on a leather settee in the hotel lobby, waiting for his prey! He would not be handed dry, old sandwiches all his days. He was out for steak, red and juicy. He got there and has stayed put.
Henry Lehrman patting his inflated chest! He got there, but stayed put the littlest while.
Charlie Chaplin, who topped them all, working while others slept, out on excursions with the milkman!
Tommy Meighan of the genial smile and Irish red-bloodedness. He got a chance, and the ladies liked him. Nice personality, and good actor, even so.
Not alone in the movies is it easier to get there than to stay there. Chance sometimes enters into the first, but to stay there means ears attuned, feet on the ground, and heaps and heaps of hard work.