SCREEN MAKE-UP

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 19846, 21 May 1927, Page 15 (Supplement)

SCREEN MAKE-UP

UNEXPECTED EFFECTS (By Dorothy Gish.) It was not until I saw Mary Pickford at work one day in her studio, that I realised the immense importance of “make-up.” Stage make-up is comparatively easy, in film work it is a more complicated affair. In the play “Her First False Step” which I acted in before entering upon film work ll had to speak the line, “Rags is royal raiment when worn for virtue’s sake,” and a make-up expressing an angry flush was necessary. My face, when made up for the stage, resembled as nearly as possible a rich fruit salad—ripe peach cheeks, cherry lips and almond eyes. In film work the powerful electric lights produce unexpected effects, and artists have to paint their faces in all sorts of weird colours.

Most people have all the space between eyebrow and chinbone painted green. To produce sunken cheeks the skin is sometimes painted dark brown; to bring out prominent cheek bones, they are made white. A ruling principle is that there must be no hard lines—only shadows.