“I’ll tell you something. When the ‘copy’ fails to refer to every moving motion picture actress as beautiful; dwells on the wonderful coloring of her eyes; the heavenly countenance which is hers, and the marvelous figure she possesses, combined with the impression we get that every time she utters a word great clusters of American beauty roses fall gracefully from her lips, then I will consent to looking at it in a different light. When the leading man, or star, fails to be the handsomest Adonis that flits about the earth, and publicity men refrain from writing about the love letters they receive from hundreds of admirers daily, then you might run a paragraph about me in the Evanston Fortnightly Bugle saying that I love my work; that I have made good and bad pictures; that I have been ashamed and also encouraged when viewing some of my work on the screen; that I have four letters, from women, which come to me every day by the morning mail and that they possess the most endearing evidence of enduring affection. They come from my mother, my grandmother, a dear old maid aunt and an old school chum of mine.” — William Garwood
Source: H.H. Van Loan (1916)
“I am interested in everything; therefore my mail is enjoyable. But I value the ones that do not flatter. I recall a letter I received some time ago. It came from a married woman out West, who, it appeared, was more impressed with me and my work than was becoming to one who had domestic ties. She admitted having a good, loyal husband, who provided for all her needs, and, as a result of his labors, they possessed a good home and comfortable means. But she had become rather infatuated with either my work or myself, and finished with a lot of heart-pourings. I answered it, and perhaps was too severe with her. But, at any rate, I gave her a good lecture and confided to her that I was considered the most brutal individual on earth by the four women who had divorced me, and that each of them had charged me with cruelty of the severest variety. I advised her to stick to her loyal husband, his home and his wealth, for I, like many others in my profession, would never appreciate her great sacrifice, should she decide to surrender all and come to my attic bedroom, which I supported out of my meager salary of $25 per week.” — William Garwood
Source: H.H. Van Loan (1916)
“You see, the trouble is that we are paid too much flattery by the world in general. It is you who spoil us, with your prettily worded stories about the way we eat, what we do when we are not at the studio, and all that sort of thing. I fail to see why the public should be more interested in me than the foreman in an iron foundry.” — William Garwood
Source: H.H. Van Loan (1916)
