“May came to the studio – she did her work. Her amazing loveliness made her a star of the silent pictures. She couldn’t act. Nobody then expected her to act. Why should they? All she had to do was be photographed. So she was the mystery girl of Hollywood. The girl you never saw at […]
William Webster Campbell of the American Film Manufacturing company was, to quote himself, “born in Kansas City in 1891 on a night in January when the wind howled miserably and all the world was white and cold.” Seventeen years later he graduated from high school in Kansas City. At about that time he developed a […]
Mystery Of What Burned Martha Mansfield To Death How Were They Kindled, and by Whose Hand — the Flames That So Strangely Wrapped the Lovely Young Film Star in Their Cruel Embrace and Quickly Killed Her? The Philadelphia Inquirer, December 30, 1923 As her thousands of sorrowing admirers already know, Martha Mansfield, the charming young […]
“…Marion Leonard had become the best know actress of the movie world. She was even more popular than Florence Lawrence and Mary Pickford…Miss Leonard is said to have been the first actress before the camera to receive a salary of $1000 a week. It was in 1913 that she signed a contract for 42 weeks […]
“Accident creates more chances than anything else. My best advice is for the young woman who wants to get on, to keep going to the studios and trying to get a place in mob scenes. If she is fairly good-looking and wears clothes well, she has a good chance to get in the line. Keep […]
“None of us knew anything in those days. Mr. Griffith always called us young ladies and she saw to it that we never smoked or drank or played cards. We didn’t anyway. We didn’t have beaus, except Dorothy Gish, who was going with Bobby Harron; we’d come to the set looking like tramps, our shoes […]
SCREEN ACTING LURED VIRGINIA FROM THE WAVES From the waves to the field of dramatic acting! Washington Herald, Feb. 26, 1922 Virginia Warwick, one of the famous Mack Sennett bathing beauties, she of the dark, vivacious eyes, deserted the lure of the swimming tank and the sandy beach to appear in one of the stellar […]
“She swims like Annette Kellerman, drives a machine like Barney Oldfield, fences like Piquard, boxes like Willie Ritchie; and as for bust-tricks of the range from throwing broncos: she was taught all the lariat to ‘bulldogging’ a steer by Tom Mix. She holds the unique distinction of being the first lady to ever perform the […]
“Actresses are supposed to act and yet the most difficult thing is to remember not to act. I get before the camera. ‘Eva,’ says Director Victor Seastrom, ‘your lover is leaving you. You will never see him again. Your heart is broken.’ I begin to feel heartbroken, and then I all tighten up. ‘Stop the […]
“Cortez‘s real name is Jack Kranze. He became Ricardo Cortez in 1922 when Lasky wanted a studio threat to his big star, Rudolph Valentino. Kranze-Cortez came from New York’s East Side, son of a well-to-do Jewish family.” – Reporter Bill Slocum in 1958.