“How I Got In” (1917) 🇺🇸

A new department, in which the leading players tell of their beginnings in pictures and how they got their first start

Last year we published a series of articles, “How to Get In.” These articles were written by leading photoplayers, showing, from their viewpoint, what the chances are to get into motion picture work. As a result, we were besieged by requests asking these same players to tell how they — individually — “got in.”

So we sent out letters of inquiry asking them not only how they got in, but their first impressions of the camera; how they would improve motion pictures; if they like screen work better than stage work, and what they say to persons who aspire to become motion picture stars. Here are the answers, and they differ in some ways as widely as do the writers. However, nearly all agree in one way — in giving the same advice to photoplayers that Punch gave to the man who asked his advice about getting married — “Dont!”

We urge our readers to read these articles carefully and understandingly. Each one is the story of a life’s hopes, ambitions, discouragements, and final success. The story is not ended yet, but is being lived, and between the lines we read the secret of success. And it is no different in motion picture work than in any other line of work — just careful, painstaking, conscientious, plain hard “plug.” Without it there is no royal road to success. Further “How*I*Got*In” “confessions” will follow in each succeeding issue of the Motion Picture Magazine.

1917–08 — Alice Joyce
1917–08 — Earle Foxe
1917–08 — Marguerite Clark

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Collection: Motion Picture Magazine, August 1917