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.

“The players at the Vitagraph were so generous about – what is it you say – teaching me the ropes? Do I not speak good New York?” — Helena D’Algy BIO Silent film player Helena D’Algy was born Antonia Lozano Guedes Infante in Madrid, Spain, around June 1, 1906. (Note: other online biographies claim that […]

“They can get my shirt off my back. And when I want a role very much, they just know I will work almost for nothing to get it.” — Lina Basquette

“Unfortunately, before I realized that I was supposed to be a mysterious person, now that I’m in pictures, I had told several New York reporters and fan magazine writers the true story of my life – and now it’s too late to change it. I never starved in attics when I was a little girl […]

“After I left my husband, I played small bits in various stock companies on the Pacific Coast. Then I got a real break and was given the ingenue lead in ‘Hit the Deck,’ which had a long run in Los Angeles. It was while I was playing in that show that I took a screen […]