“I have never gone to college, haven’t any favorite flower, never did anything heroic, and know all my neighbors.” — Maurice Costello in 1912 Q: Have you a nickname? MC: Yes, known everywhere as ‘Dimples.’ …I was born with it. Q: Where were you born, and when? MC: In Pittsbugh, and I wasn’t old […]
“I enjoy every bit of my work. I do not even dread the rehearsals. I left the ‘regular’ stage for the Motion Pictures about five years ago, and do not regret it. I consider picture acting more difficult, because, if one makes a mistake on the regular stage tonight, it can be rectified tomorrow night, […]
“My work averages only about four hours a day. I thoroughly enjoy it. Even the rehearsals are interesting. I consider the Motion Picture business educational and uplifting….My being in the business proves that. I played all over the United States, and for many years in New York, with regular companies, but this suits me better. […]
“I love to rehearse and I adore seeing my own pictures on the screen.” — Howard Missimer (1867-1917) in 1911. “My father was an Esquiman, my mother a Scandinavian….My parents came over for the Philadelphia Centenniel. They were both on the Midway. They met, fell in love, married and settled down in Pennsylvania to […]
“If you think I was born with a silver spoon in my mouth, I wasn’t! I was born in Philadelphia, and went to school in Boston, and all the fancy schooling I ever got was in the good old public schools. It was the Prince School, if you think I am afraid to tell.” — […]
“You know, most anybody can be nice, but you’ve got some work ahead of you to make everybody in the audience honestly hate you. The villains generally have the best acting parts in the story. They make the situations for the hero-boys, and make them stand out. If you want to see a leading man lose […]
“I can almost determine for a certainty from the way a first-night audience takes a show, whether t is going to be a hit. If the women laugh, or are pleased, I don’t care what the men do. I go ahead and prepare for a long run. Here’s an example. It was our opening night […]
“When I was ten years old, my father apparently decided that he had had enough of the frozen north, and brought his family to America. Even at that age, my ambitions were definitely formed – I decided to be an operatic star. But, contrary to to the general reports circulated in Sweden concerning the Western […]
“A brief rest at home and then I got a job with the Reed and West Minstrels as one of the boys in a quartet. Even under the burnt cork the eye of my father found me again, and again I was fired for being no good. Then I woke up and, to get away […]
“Nearly everyone believes that I am not an American, but as a matter of fact, I was born in our National City. I was very young when I went abroad – yes, they called me Billie then; it was my father’s name, you know, and I thought I might as well adopt it for good, […]