“STARS” AND THEIR “FANS”

Otago Witness, Issue 3802, 25 January 1927, Page 76

“STARS” AND THEIR “FANS”

BEHIND THE SCENES AT HOLLYWOOD. “Beautiful and dumb” was the laconic description of movie players applied by a studio official with whom I discussed the subject when on holiday recently in California. Beautiful, or at any rate pretty, one is prepared readily to admit; but what. of dumb? This word has a special meaning in America: it signifies stupidity and lack of initiative, being a shortened form of dumb-bell, which is an equivalent of half-wit. Dumb is, therefore, somewhat libellous, for there are many intelligent people in the screen community. One only needs to mention Chaplin, Lloyd, von Stroheim, or Lon Chaney 'to prove that. * * * Beauty, male and female, there is in plenty at Hollywood. The place is a magnet which draws good-looking people from every corner of the earth. Every morning you will see the casting-office at every large studio besieged by meij and girls hoping for “extra” work, which may one day lead to their becoming “featured players” or “stars.” It is said that there are more than 20,000 persons always out of work in the Californian city. I discussed the “dumb” player with many people in Hollywood. Most of them denied the implication, but, having seen many films in course of production, I am forced, to the conclusion that movie-acting is almost entirely the product of the filmdirector. Frankly, the actor who wants to give his own interpretation of a role is rather a nuisance; and, while the director claims that he always welcomes suggestions from the players, actually he has determined the general delineation of all the parts in. the picture long before he starts work.

This course is made inevitable because the director himself.is not a_free agent, and often has to forego his own pet ideas. He .is responsible to the production-exe-cutive, a committee of experts whose sole duty is to ensure that all the pictures turned out by the studio shall be moneymakers in the picture theatres.

It is almost inevitable, therefore, that the director, deprived of his own initiative and reduced to a position of secondary importance—in the old days he was actually responsible for the amount of money spent on a picture—is disinclined to give his players their head. He discourages temperament, and calls for willing submission. In a business where time is more important than money, he cannot tolerate players who demand special attention or unusual consideration. _ Mr Monta Bell, who was Chaplin’s assistant in “A Woman of Paris,” and who has made numerous pictures since, told me that one of the most popular men on the screen to-day—Mr Adolphe Menjou—is the ideal actor to direct. He is absolutely passive clay in the hands of the director. He makes no suggestions, and offers no criticisms. He stands, sits, moves, laughs, smiles, exactly t■> order. He is prepared to be moulded into any shape the director likes. In “A Woman of Paris” Menjou was paid one hundred pounds a week; his salary with Famous Players-Lasky today is £BOO a week all the year round. In other words, he is the successful “movie”player. The actor may claim that his personality is the most important feature in the picture, and tfiat the public always thinks of a film in. terms of the “stars.” The executive officials declare also that it is the projection of the player’s personality which often makes or mars the film. I believe they are both partly wrong. The public goes to see the “stars” because it likes their looks; in other words, their persons, not their personalities; their beautiful features and figures, not their characterisations.

lhe “stars” lend their beauty, the beauty the public knows well on the picture postcard, in the “fan-magazine,” or in the film close-up, and usuallv are content. A beautiful actress’s main concern is not to let still photographs go out of the studio which makes her look ugly, and most prominent stars have clauses in their contracts guaranteeing that no photographs are released unsanctioned by them. What do they look for in the photographs? Not expressions betraying ' tense emotion—a plaver said to me that it was incredible that so clever a girl as Lya de Putti should allow the director of “Vaudeville” to distort her face with shadows. No, the “star” will not let her beauty be impaired even by nature, -and that is all that matters.

It cannot be denied that some of the most popular “stars.” especially among the men, have been the worst actors. Who will say that it was not Valentino’s looks which were his main asset? His acting .was often so feeble as to he a liability, and there are other living “star”-players who must b e put in-the same category. The fact is that, - given a reasonable amounLof. common sense, some elements of acting craft, beautv, and a skilful director, almost anyone can be made into a film star. After all, you can make a good picture without “stars,” but not without a director.

Except in the cases of players who direct themselves—Chaplin and Fairbanks, for example—circumstances make it almost impossible for an actor activelv to project his personality into the picture. He merely lends Jris face and body, and alloys it to be pulled this way and that, as if it were wax. 41 Consider the scene either outside the studio—“on location”—or on a stage. Everything militates against good acting. Dust and dirt are everywhere • property, scenery, and all the paraphernalia of the mechanic are heaped together in confusion. A set is built, much of it two-

dimensional, which will secure perfect results on the screen; but to the players it conveys practically nothing; a window, chairs, a chandelier, a polished floor, floor surface ingeniously faked to resemble marble; that is all. In a semi-circle, facing the set, are serried ranks of arc-lights and mercury vapour lamps which emit a fierce glare that- causes the white human flesh to appear yellow, and all its coloured surface, lips, veins, and cheeks, a vivid purple. Everyone seems stricken with some fearful plague. ''lire “stars” get no more consideration than the “extras,” except that they may rest in their own private canvas chairs. A hundred persons, languid “stars,” fussy “supers,” hammering mechanics, cameramen, spot-light men, director’s assistants, continuity clerks, surge round the centre of operation. The floor is covered with an incredible tangle of electric cables. In the middle is the director, the sole man who has the faintest idea of what it all means. Megaphone in hand, he controls every, branch of the operation.

The “star” rises from her chair, gathering her beautiful dress gingerly round her to keep it out of the dust. She goes on the “set,” the arcs burn up, and she makes a few grimaces at the director, wiio is representing the villain threatening her off stage. She probably repeats this performance mechanically a dozen times, but only three or four of her efforts are recorded. Finally, the camera takes the scene to the satisfaction of the director. It does not matter if the “star” thinks that was her worst interpretation of the idea. * She has recorded the director’s impression, and that is the one required. She may do nothing else in a ten-hour day. The outsider wonders how she gains any right effect at all. There is no applause, no booing; only the clatter of the studio and the crooning of a small string orchestra, whose object is to soothe shattered nerves. Painfully, the “star” waits for the moment when she shall see the picture thrown on the screen, and, in the meanwhile, she turns for sympathy to any outside influence. She reads her “fanmail”—the effusive letters which she receives from “fans” in all parts of the world. She speaks of the -writers of these letters as “my public.”

Some players have got beyond the “fanmail” stage, and never read the letters, though a tactful secretary has the unenviable job of replying to them. But many, including some of the brightest rising “stars,” definitely try to model their acting on “fan-mail” advice. One director told me that he often had to undo the work of these fanatic admirers before reconstructing the player’s technique. I replied that no one in England would believe that reasonable persons paid any attention to the meaningless nonsense which such letters contained. But he quoted instances in which films had been definitely injured, because the players, the names he mentioned being household words over here, had listened to the advice of their unknown fanatic friends. He went on to tell me that enterprising persons had actually set up a profitable business in Japan supplying the native “fan” with suitable letters for despatch to film-stars. They are written in English, which prevents the sender, knowing what his letter says. But that does not matter. For a trifle extra, a full list of the names and addresses of all the stars is available for inspection by screen-struck correspondents.

—L’Estrange Fawcett, in John__O’ London’s Weekly.