Chats with the Players — King Baggot, of the Imp Company (1914) 🇺🇸
When I arrived at the Imp studio, where Mr. Baggot plays his leads and directs his own pictures, that very busy man was rehearsing, and I agreed with pleasure to wait and watch. It was a tiny snatch of a scene that I witnessed — supposed, I imagine, to be just a moment of unbearable stress in a poor man’s life, but one got a big glimpse of a whole world of pain in the way he carried it off. I was so absorbed in the drama that he was conveying that I forgot to concentrate on the things one who has not seen King Baggot in the flesh would want to know. And I was called to earth by a voice near at hand exclaiming in tones of repressed excitement: “Ain’t he distinguished looking, tho? Ain’t he distinguished?”
The exclamatory admirer was a little old woman, whose eyes shone with her tribute, and she had made, unwittingly, a fine summing-up.
Six foot in height, 185 pounds in weight, with direct, blue eyes, and hair verging between a blond and brown, there is, withal, a simplicity about King Baggot — a clean-cut dignity — that is as unique as it is charming. And when he spoke I found that his appearance did not belie his manner. You would like him — you couldn’t help it. And while we are dwelling on personal appearance — right in the middle of his forehead, there is a streak of snowy white amid the brown hair. You’ve probably noticed it. Mr. Baggot says that he has been avalanched with letters of inquiry and doubt as to its being natural — “despite the fact,” as he somewhat ruefully informed me, “that it’s growing bigger every year.” I assured him that I would vouch for it’s being an absolute and unassisted reality.
We faced each other in big office chairs, and Mr. Baggot smoked as we talked, and one of the first things he told me was that his name of “King” is not a stage name, as is commonly supposed, but his mother’s maiden name. His own name, in full, is William King Baggot.
He was born and educated in St. Louis, and he was on the stage nine years before entering the Movie world. Perhaps you have seen him in the flesh, for he played with the Liebler Company in Salomy Jane, in The Bishop’s Carriage, in The Squaw-Man and also in support of Wilton Lackaye.
He’s been on the screen about four and a half years, and he writes practically all of his own scenarios, and, incidentally, gives considerable time to the study of his parts. One of his films, a four-reeler, written in collaboration, is to be released shortly, and is entitled Absinthe. It was taken in Paris, where, by the way, Mr. Baggot and his company have lately been.
While taking the picture, most of the acting was done on the streets, and not one of the company could speak a word of French. At various times they were accosted by the gendarmes, and were vociferated at most emphatically, but as all the vociferation fell on untrained ears, they went on their way serenely. “A few days later,” Mr. Baggot said, “when we secured an interpreter, we found that we had been receiving summonses to court,” In other words, the taking of pictures on the public streets, unlicensed, was forbidden, and the gendarmes had been vainly endeavoring to enforce the law. Such is the advantage of being a stranger indeed, in a strange land.
Mr. Baggot recently played the title role in Ivanhoe, released abroad, and he says that the picture has had the record sale of the world — that more copies were sold than of any other picture. Also, he is proud to be the founder and president of the Motion Picture organization of the world — the Screen Club.
“We’ve reached the five hundred membership mark,” he said. “Every known man in pictures belongs — we’ve members in London, in Paris and in Australia.”
Do you wonder that with all these interests and all the success and the esteem he is held in thus obviously proclaimed — do you wonder that he smiled when I asked him if he thought life worth living, and repeated the question after me?
“Do I think life worth living?” he asked. “It has been very good to me so far.”
He doesn’t care to play light, romantic leads, he told me, but prefers the extremes, either comedy or tragedy.
“I’m an ardent Motion Picture fan,” he vouchsafed. “I love to go — and I have my screen favorites just the same as every one else — laugh with them and weep with them. Outside of that, my one hobby is fighting— prize-fighting— and I never miss an opportunity to see one.”
When I asked him what he thought of the censorship of films he said, “Just censorship— no more. I believe that is a good thing, for they have no right to produce some of the pictures they do.”
When I finally left him to go back to the several hours of work he had ahead of him, I had the pleasing feeling of having come in contact with a personality that rang true — one who both worked and played with a genuine sincerity.
G. H.
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Collection: Motion Picture Magazine, March 1914