Bryant Washburn — Sans Grease Paint and Wig (1914) 🇺🇸
Bryant Washburn one recent night at the exposition swung himself onto the rattan table in the Essanay booth and laid aside his cane while he massaged his right hand with the fingers of his left.
by Mabel Condon
“I may get over it — sometime,” he mused doubtfully, and added, “If only my name were shorter, maybe writing it so many times would not have been so bad!”
“Please. Mr. Washburn — will you sign your name here?” a voice came from without the booth. The man on the rattan table turned, six or more girl faces looked up at him and six or more varieties of articles awaiting his signature were thrust into view.
“Why — you’ll excuse me, just now, won’t you please?” Mr. Washburn appealed, glancing at the right wrist he still held in his left hand. “Some other time — won’t that do?” The girls looked dubious as to whether it would or not; then Mr. Washburn smiled and they smiled back and answered, “Surely!”
“Since Monday night — and this is Friday,” he explained casting a sympathetic glance toward the other end of the booth where Francis X. Bushman was autographing cards as quickly as they could be passed to him. “But it just goes to show,” he went on, trying each finger of his right hand separately, “what wonderful publicity an exposition means. I contend, anyway,” he continued, as though on a new thought, “that one can only find out what people think of you by getting away from home, occasionally. For instance —”
“Pardon me, but you have just seven minutes until the Palace closes,” V. R. Day, the Essanay studio manager, told us from across the fountain in the center of the booth.
“And so much to tell,” I regretted. “Hardly anything,” Mr. Washburn deprecated. “You were going to ‘instance’ something,” I reminded him and he returned, “Yes; it was about going away to find out how well people know you. The other night after the exposition, I was walking up Broadway alone and some people passed and sang out, ‘O you Essanay!’”
“All out!” came a far-away voice from the extreme end of the hall and the high silk hat of Mr. Day again came to view on the other side of the fountain.
“That’s only the first call; we still have five minutes,” I predicted. “Can you live your life over in that time?”
“Easily,” Mr. Washburn answered. “Where shall I begin?”
“With your birth-place,” I requested and the good-looking Mr. Washburn picked up his cane and flicked things up off of the rug with it as he began:
“Well, that was Chicago, twenty-five years ago — and I’m not married yet,” he added. He was stating a fact, not blaming Chicago. “About six years ago I went on the stage and traveled with various companies for three years. Nearly all of them were out of New York, so, though I was with New York companies, I really never played here.”
“All out!” again came the voice. It was from the middle of the hall, this time, and simultaneously, one-third of the lights went out, Mr. Day’s hat again showed itself and Mr. Bushman began saying good-night to the departing throngs.
“I’m sure we still have three minutes,” I reassured the man on the rattan table, so he continued with a do-or-die determination,
“I played the lead in The Wolf, was in stock with Percy Haswell and worked with George Fawcett in The Remittance Man and The Fight. The latter we played first in Toronto, then I came back to the states and was with Mr. Fawcett for — well, I don’t know just how long but long enough to know him for one of the nicest chaps I’ve ever met.
“After The Fight, I paid a visit to my home city and received an offer of work at the Essanay studio. I was undecided what to do about it, as pictures were not as desirable a berth then as they became even a few months later. But I met an old vaudeville friend in front of the Press Club and I told him about it and he said, ‘I was one of the first to go into vaudeville and now everybody’s doing it!’ I accepted the Essanay offer. And that was three years ago.
“I’m usually cast as ‘heavy’ — I weigh one hundred and forty — but in the picture we came here to make, ‘One Wonderful Night,’ I have a straight part. The character is that of Howard DeVar and I last throughout the four reels.”
The explanation was made with a laugh and was due to the many villainous deaths the youthful Mr. Washburn has had anywhere between the middle and ten-feet-before-the-finish of various reels.
“It’s a novelty to live through a whole picture without committing a forgery or causing somebody’s death or being guilty of some other act of treachery,” he reflected.
“Refined treachery,” I amended. Any other kind would be impossible, even in the make-believe, for anyone with the refinement of features and physique that Bryant Washburn possesses. Besides, I was thinking of “The Mystery of Room 643” and “A Man for A’ That.”
In the first Mr. Washburn cleverly inveigled valuable papers, and in the second he was a fortune hunter. Then there was “The Elder Brother” with Bryant playing the younger one and becoming fascinated with a cabaret dancer and smoking doped cigarettes that a heavier “heavy” than he, had purposely given him. But Francis X. Bushman who was his “Elder Brother” and a doctor, saved him and so Mr. Washburn had the doubtful happiness of living to see his elder brother claim the cabaret dancer, whom he, Bryant, had wanted himself.
“Anyway, I didn’t die in that picture,” he reflected with a satisfying smile.
And then came the third and last call, “All out!”
The fountain in the center of the booth ceased founting, the remaining third of the Palace lights went out and on the wide and still illuminated staircase, we met Mr. Day and his band of Essanayers.
“We close the Palace every night,” Mr. Day remarked. And everybody trailed out into Lexington avenue and respective directions.
The next day, which was the last of the exposition, was the western company’s good-bye to New York. And Chicago-bound, they said it from the rear platform of the Limited.
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Buys “Littlest Rebel”
The Photoplay Productions Releasing Company has just purchased the first copy of the “Littlest Rebel,” having obtained the Illinois and Wisconsin rights on this picture for what is said to be the largest price ever paid for a feature for these two states. The picture will be released through the G. and G Feature Film Company, of which A. M. Gollos is president.
The G. and G Feature Film Company now has the rights on “Should a Woman Tell?” and the Littlest Rebel and is ready to take bookings on either of these subjects.
The Littlest Rebel will be shown in a down town theater immediately after the first week in July, but as the company has several prints it will be able to furnish exhibitors with immediate booking.
The Photoplay Productions Releasing Company has made arrangements to take the entire output of the Photoplay Productions Company of New York, which is expected to be at least six big features before the end of the year.
There are some splendid lobby displays on the Littlest Rebel, consisting of two kinds of 24 sheets, three kinds of 8 sheets, three kinds of 6 sheets, four kinds of 3 sheets, a number of kinds of 1 sheets and “trimmers,” which are all calculated to bring big business, while there is a special lobby display which is being turned out by a New York company for use in connection with this picture and which will be totally different from anything ever used before in the picture business, it is declared.
The Littlest Rebel, a play written by Edward Peple, scored one of the greatest successes ever known to the legitimate theater, running a whole season in New York and forty weeks in Chicago. The principal parts are played by well known picture players under the direction of E. K. Lincoln, former star of the Vitagraph Company.
The scenes in the picture are taken in the South in the exact country described by the author. Every detail of the production was studied with great care — original battle flags were used and it is claimed a genuine declaration of war is flashed upon the screen. United States regulars, with hundreds of horses, cavalry, infantry and artillery, armed with ammunition, were employed to furnish action, color and atmosphere to this beautiful war story. Mimi Yvonne, a well known English child actress, was imported to take the leading part in this dramatic production and it is claimed that the picture exceeds the legitimate stage production in the working out of its many beautiful scenes.
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A pretty bit in The Littlest Rebel.
An exciting moment in The Littlest Rebel.
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Newman Announcement Frame
The illuminated sign illustrated herewith is one of the various products of the Newman Manufacturing Company, which appears to be an excellent device for motion picture theaters. The announcements can be quickly changed and each sign is furnished, complete, with 250 tile block letters, measuring 2½ inches high by 1½ inches wide and ¼ inch thick. The letters are black on highly glazed, white tile blocks. They are interchangeable and can be easily inserted by sliding them into the grooves of one end of the board. The frame is made of angle brass, 1½ inches wide, and the cross strips into which the letters slide are also brass. The inside measurements are 31x38 inches. This sign can either be set on an easel or hung on the wall. More complete information can be obtained by addressing the Newman Manufacturing Company at 721 Sycamore Street, Cincinnati, Ohio.
Collection: Motography Magazine, June 1914