HOLLYWOOD AS IT IS

Evening Star, Issue 19776, 28 January 1928, Page 18

HOLLYWOOD AS IT IS

LESSON FOR HUMANITY, The extra players in the crowd scenes of films made in Hollywood look a light-hearted, gay lot of people, certainly. And when they are actually working in a film indeed they are gay. A few days ago a film director at a studio hero said to one of His assistants; “.Look at the old fellow doing that animated hit of acting over there! Is he one of the regulars'* The assistant replied: “No, ho isn’t, tic’s nearly crazy with joy at having goo the day’s work. His wife ami daughter haven’t eaten for three days, they are dying of starvation, tie’s acting Ids bit with all that enthusiasm out of sheer happiness!” Similar situations occur every day in Hollywood. And among the crowd of actors who create “atmosphere” in pictures one notices, frequently, a distinguished face. Someone informs the visitor, casually, that the owner of the face is General X, or Major V—naming men who perhaps in the Russian, perhaps tho German, the French, or the Austrian army possessed names to conjure with during the days of 1914 to 1913.

And now they are extra players in Hollywood, only too happy when they receive a day’s salary for playing an extra.

Armageddon lias one of its strangest sequels in the studios of California. Oflieers of high rank from every European army are brothers to-day, and comrades of “ temporary gentlemen,'' of penniless noblemen, of once-famous stage celebrities, of opera stars fallen on bad days, or ruined country gentlemen. Those form a large proportion of tho film “ crowds.”

“ What? ” cries a young man. " i’is getting twenty-live dollars a day when .I’m only getting seven dollars fifty. My dear chap” (addressing the easting director) “lie was General W’s batman. You really ought to pay mo a little more. Just consider, I’ve got a title to keep up!” And this young man, bearing one of the oldest European titles, _ laughs gaily as ho goes off to take his place in the rank and file of the crowd assembled under the blazing studio lights. The Archduke Leopold, of Austria, has just finished a small part in one film. Everybody liked him. The propmen and the studio hands called him, affectionately, “ Archie.” He was acting with a Frenchman, a Belgian, and Englishman, and a German —all of them formerly officers who fought in the trenches, some on one side, some on tho other. There are tens of thousands of men and women registered as extra playtis; there are, on an average, 2,000 of them employed every da}-. For the rest — managing, ways and means, hope, starvation. Hollywood is all heartbreaks; but somehow, in the smiling, haunted eyes of the men whom the tide of the Great War swept oni here there is something other than heartbreak. There is a sermon for humanity, if they would read it.