Chats with the Players — Harry Beaumont, of the Edison Company (1915) 🇺🇸

Mr. Harry Beaumont — born de Beau — untangled himself from a group who were applauding the execution of Mary, Queen of Scots, and came toward me as willingly and happily as little Willie when papa says, meaningly, he’d like a little talk with him in the woodshed. It was evident to the most neophytic interviewer that he had no enthusiasm at the prospect of talking about himself.

“Mr. Beaumont, please believe me that it hurts me worse than it does you,” I assured him. (Seems to me I heard that phrase somewhere once.) Whereupon he looked rather less apprehensive, and we sat down on the gallows steps with mutual well-feeling.

“I believe I’d rather be — well, executed than interviewed,” began Mr. Beaumont, pessimistically “Now before we start in I may as well tell you I’ve got no views on religion, philosophy or politics to elucidate, and the public will just have to shuffle along somehow without ‘em. Now let’s start in and get it over as quick as we can. My name is Harry de Beau, Beaumont on the screen; born in Abilene, Kansas; family, American-French; profession, acting, legitimate, vaudeville and photoplay; hobby, automobiling and adventurous stories — am I going too fast?”

My fountain-pen was gasping inkily over the notebook page:

“Abilene — American-French — acting — automobiling — adventure,” I wrote hurriedly. “I love my love with an A because he is attractive (tall, slender, fair complexion, brown hair). I admire him with a B because he is bashful, lives in the Bronx, is fond of baseball — I beg your pardon!”

Mr. Beaumont was laughing heartily, and the ice was broken.

“You’re dead right about the baseball,” he declared. “I bet on Boston every time — but I don’t see how you know —”

“I sat in front of you at the Polo Grounds once,” I told him I knew by the shape of my straw hat after I got home that you were an enthusiast. Is the subject of Motion Pictures taboo?”

“Will a butcher talk about lamb chops?” parried Mr. Beaumont. “No, siree! I can set my Big Ben for five a. m. and talk from then till the cows come home on Motion Pictures. I’ve been three years in the work, played in one hundred and fifty pictures and like it far better than the stage. It’s homier and I like my home. It’s good, clean work, too — at least here at the Edison studio it is. Censorship? Too narrow now, I think, but I suppose it’s necessary to keep studios from overspeeding.

“Bliss Milford, Marc MacDermott [Marc McDermott], Mary Pickford, Harry Morey are all great photoplayers, I think, and Cabiria is the greatest photoplay I ever saw. I spend many an evening, like Diogenes, with my lantern, looking for good photoplays, but I ‘ve seen a lot of punk ones, too.”

“Do you write ‘em?” said I. “I mean good ones, not the punk brand.”

“Sometimes, yes, and short stories, too,” he replied, fidgeting. “Came near being drowned in one of ‘em once.”

“Woman suf—”

“No politics,” he answered me; “I’ve said it once, I’ve said it twice. What I say three times is so! But on the q t, I’m in favor of it. I’ve got a pretty good argument in favor of it, but I’m not letting on what it is.”

I was much interested. A mystery! Cherchez la femme — but before I could probe further, Mr. Beaumont glanced at his watch and rose hastily.

“Glad to have met you,” he assured me. “Sorry I’ve got to leave you, but, you see, I’ve got to kill a fellow — that bald-headed chap over yonder — at ten-thirty. So long!”

With this bloodthirsty speech and his most charming screen smile, “Harry,” of the Edison Company, strode away. A few moments later I saw him and his innocent, unsuspecting victim pass, arm in arm.

These photoplayers are a hard lot.

Oh, watta world! Watta world!

The Tattler.

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Collection: Motion Picture Magazine, March 1915