Billy Jacobs (1915) 🇺🇸
“My name’s Paul Jacobs, but I’m Billy Jacobs in pitchers.”
That is what three-year-old Paul will tell you if you ask him, and if he is in a fairly happy mood he will say “n-da you wanna see me play dead?” If you do you will say yes and soon after Billy will suddenly be stricken with heart failure or be shot by an “Injun,” and fall heavily but cleverly to the floor, and no amount of questions or talk will bring him to his senses. For five minutes he will lie there, never a quiver showing that he is alive. A good and clever actor is Billy Jacobs.
This pocket edition of a famous leading man is but a little over four years old, but he passes for three all the time. He is small and even the clerks in the stores take him for a two-year-old. Little Billy was born in Idaho, near the border, in Laclede, on the last day of July, 1910. The first seven months of his little life were spent there when he and his mother and father went south, and ever since 1911 Billy Jacobs has been a manly little citizen of Los Angeles.
His advent in pictures was gradual. In the early part of 1913 he made his first appearance in Keystone films. He lives next door to that studio. One sunny day Pathe Lehrman [Henry Lehrman] was doing a picture out in the street near the plant, and he needed a child. There was Billy, playing happily in his front yard. On the corner was an ice cream vender. A nickel bought a cone, the cone bought Billy, and ever since that blessed day it has taken many bribes of coaxers of ice cream cones to get Billy to do his picture acting.
Then followed a score of months of tedious work for the directors who handled this miniature star. Lehrman even used to stand on his head to get a desired laugh out of the sober little man. Faces and funny gestures fell shy with Billy’s laugh nerves, but when Pathe stood on his head Billy laughed, but Pathe laughed last — in the projection room where he would chuckle at the kid’s little screen smile. Gradually people began to look for the kid films, and to this day the name of Billy Jacobs is always linked with the foremost kiddie pictures by fans and exhibitors throughout the country. It was nearly a whole year that perfectly good film had to be wasted on Billy, for he would insist that the camera be cranked while he rehearsed. More footage was lost on Billy that would be thrown out of the average company doing a single reel.
Another few months of hard work and Billy was quite an actor, even local papers devoting considerable space to “Billy Jacobs, actor, twenty-nine months old” when he was that age. Billy has worked under several good directors, his last one being Robert Thornby, at the Sterling-Universal studios in Hollywood. Thornby has spent more time in a day with his “kid company” than the average directors spend with their companies in a week, in actual hard work. One paper spoke of Billy as “the most wonderful child actor, and from the moment he flings his irresistible smile across the screen until he winks his eye in a mimic imitation on his father, he is just the best little scream ever — this little chap in his lovable characteristic child mannerisms, etc.”
At the present time Billy is not at work, or play, for he likes the work as if it were play, because his company has ceased production, and all the actors have gone. The Sterling brand still exists, but there are no releases, at least for a few weeks. Billy likes to direct. Sometimes his director will have to stop and let him put on a scene or two before the real scene can be made, so interested is Billy in the pictures. To describe Billy’s screen personality is a difficult task, besides everyone who knows Billy on the screen is fully aware of his ability, personality, and loveableness, if it can be called that — so this is but a sober statement of the famous little child actor’s history. For his story of today, and his acting, read his chubby face on the screen.
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Pathe Freres Releasing Splendid Picturization in Five Parts, of the Dumas Novel, Margaret de Valois.
Reviewed by Margaret I. MacDonald
In the filming of a brief period in the history of the persecution of the Huguenots, according to the impression of the times fashioned by the pen of the great novelist, Alexandre Dumas, the Pathe Freres have lost no opportunity in making the production a good one. Its historic value is enhanced by the photographing of many of its scenes on the exact locations where incidents of the story of the troubulous times of the Inquisition have actually taken place.
An added charm of the production lies in the fact that it has been hand colored. And perhaps one is glad of this more especially in the out-of-door scenes; for instance, the stag hunt which has been interpolated to emphasize the devotion of King Charles IX to out door sports, and to make more lucid the reason of his undying gratitude to Henry of Navarre, whose brave act prevented the king’s being gored to death by an infuriated stag, and which forms one of the main pillars of the story. This latter scene, and the chase across country of stags, hounds, horses and men is, as before said, especially effective in colors.
The character of the cruel queen mother, Catherine de Medici, has been splendidly portrayed by Madame Grumbach, while Leontine Massart wins favor in the sympathetic role of Queen Margaret. Also fine impersonations have been given of Cocomas and La Mole, the adventurous characters, who in their devotion to widely divergent causes, become friends through strife, companions in misery, and lose their heads on the same block, by the hand of the same executioner, and within a few seconds of one another.
The production is necessarily spectacular. The scenes following the order of the king for the massacre of the Huguenots are splendid samples of composition and realism. There are deep and effective sets true to the period, and there is present throughout the picture that atmosphere of romance and nervous tension which marked this era of uncertain human existence.
To the American audience the dramatic action of the picture, which is distinctly French in style, may appeal as somewhat exaggerated or conventional; but in criticism of this point it must be remembered that it is the French character and mannerisms that the players are seeking to portray, and that of a period distant several centuries from our present day conditions.
The picture classes as a large and splendid feature production upon which expense has not been spared, which has value not alone from the entertainment standpoint, but as an educational exploitation. It is a beautiful production, and one which reflects great praise on its makers.
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McLaren Opens the Colonial
W. S. McLaren opened the Colonial Theater at 1420 East Main street, Jackson, Mich., on January 11. The house played to heavy business on the opening night, and many were unable to gain admission. It is one of the two houses in that city which gets 10 cents admission. A Baird moving picture machine is a part of the equipment, and the pictures are projected upon a Master Gold screen which is manufactured by the Masterlite Company of Detroit, Mich.
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Billy Jacobs
Scene from Queen Margaret (Pathe)
Collection: Moving Picture World, January 1915