Bizarre Los Angeles

“I have always been cast to play a mean little snip. Of course, I am proud to have been given the part and I have enjoyed it immensely, but would you believe it? People actually think I am myself just what I play. And it hurts me. I don’t like to be despised and hated. […]

“It seems so impossible that I ‘m afraid I’m going to wake up some day and find myself back in that little Iowa theatre again. You know, it took an awful lot of nerve to write [Hollywood star-maker] Gus Edwards that I was so good. Maybe I could do it again, but I doubt it.” […]

“You know what I want to do? I want to play in pictures by day and on stage by night. They took some tests for pictures in New York, and they were pretty good….And by and by, maybe I’ll be known as Perry…like Garbo and Bernhardt, you know.” — Margaret Perry Source: Alma Whitaker (1930)

“I was never one of Mr. Sennett’s bathing girls like Gloria Swanson, Phyllis Haver, Mary Thurman and the others. I was usually the vamp.” — Julia Faye Source: Harold Heffernan (1955)

“Imagine the nerve-wracking instrument that the motion pictures will become, if an attempt is made to bring every natural sound that accompanies movement and speech to the screen – the exhaust of automobiles, the clanging of street cars, the voices of people, the meows of cats and the bark of dogs. Such clamor could not […]

“I have no desire to make people weep. Too many weep in the world already. I want to make people giggle. Why climb up, or down into tragedy?” — Jobyna Ralston Source: 1923.