LIFE IN A CINEMA CITY.

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume VI, Issue 273, 3 November 1916, Page 7

LIFE IN A CINEMA CITY.

SIR HERBERT TREE’S EXPERIENCES. “PARADISE." WHERE EVERYONE OWNS A MOTOR-CAR. Sir Herbert Tree, the well-known actor, reached Euston one niglit last month from America, u here he had been acting tor the tilins. in gloving health and high spirits -with no luggage. an empty cigarette case, and a Imlkv manuscript under his arm labelled “Nothing Matters.” The luggage would surely turn up. be said. Halt a dozen hospitable hands tendered tobacco. , , “Nothing Matters?” echoed the actor. “()uite true; I’m homo again in London. The desire has obsessed me. But ‘Nothing Matters’ is the title ol volume of short, stories which I have just, completed. They are. ol tinGrande Gnignol type, and I hope they will earn something tor charity. “I have stolen these .few weeks at the expense, ol my cinema work which inow in abeyance. But- .1. had to tome over. Homo sickness , got intolerabm. Amcriea is profoundly interesting, California a paradise. But London is London. I am due. in Boston again on October 15th. I open there witi, ‘Henry V111..’ and proceed to othei large cities, completing the tour in .Jannarv, and then I come, home again. “By the way. f watched the prepara; lion of Griffith's new film ‘lntolerance with immense interest. Il is a siiipendous affair. A kind ol uorld history, which has cost a hundred thousand pounds to produce. ’ fis like Hinging nionev in your lace. “A NERVE-RACKING BUSINESS." “Frankly, months ol cinema acting is a nerve-racking business. It is impossible to convey to you the magnitude and strangeness of the lavs Angeles picture colony, it here twenty thousand persons live by and live for the cinema industry, they near the costumes of their immediate employment --a m-ient Britons, G reeks, creatures of the quaintest imagination, mix Ireoly in the streets, or speed around in motor cars. Everybody bail motor-car. There ate 200,000 licensed in California. “To the film actor they are essential, for. whereas some pictures are .made in the studio, and some in the immediate open air, you will more often have to go to a ‘location,’ a natural or prepared environment which may be forty or fifty miles away. Why, his and I motored a hundred and five miles to a dinner party one night, and then motored home. I had to get into the trappings of Macbeth at nine o’clock. One may be many hours in a heavy make-up, and to have to wait about is tiring. “Then, the detached sections of tne work deprive you of the stimu'us f developing a character as in the short, coherent traffic of the stage. The atmosphere of Los Angeles is wonderful. That keeps you fit. We had a charming home. A bungalow with sleeping apartments open to the air, and an acre of garden, where masses of eucalyptus with great red blpbs formed the background to orange and lemon trees.”