Chats with the Players — Nicholas Dunaew, of the Vitagraph Company (1915) 🇺🇸

Nicholas Dunaew was born in Moscow, Russia, on May 26, 1884. He is an author, actor and producer, well known not only in his own country but all over Continental Europe. Mr. Dunaew’s father, Alexander Dunaew, descendant of a long line of Russian noblemen, was also born in Moscow.

His mother, whose maiden name was Feodosia Bagrowa, claims St. Petersburg, Russia, as her birthplace. She came of a literary family, and it is from his mother Mr. Dunaew inherits his ability as a writer. Mr. Dunaew received his education as a pupil in the Moscow High School and as a student in college at St. Petersburg, where he received a degree in literature. He also studied two years in law school, but did not graduate.

Mr. Dunaew in his writings favored dramatic work and quite naturally interested himself in professional people, studying their methods and gradually acquiring a desire to act himself. On January 16, 1904, he received his first offer to appear in public as a professional, accepting an engagement with Alexander Bilief to appear as Franc Moore in Robert Schiller’s drama, The Robbers. His success was immediate, and after a season with Bilief he organized a company of his own and toured Continental Europe in a repertoire of plays, including Ibsen’s Ghosts, Tolstoy’s The Power of Darkness, in which he played Nikita; Trilby, appearing as Svengali, and in his own plays, The Spider, The Vampire, The Terrible God and Two Nationalities. Mr. Dunaew has also appeared in New York, at Daly’s and Jacob P. Adler’s Theater on the East Side, playing in dramas by Tolstoy, Gorky, Ibsen and Andreyev.

It was during one of his visits to this country that Mr. Dunaew became interested in Moving Pictures. Blanche Walsh, appearing in a visualization of “Resurrection,” required a man who knew Russian topography and conditions to give the necessary atmosphere to the picture, and Mr. Dunaew was selected as the best fitted.

Picture work attracted him, and after his engagement with Miss Walsh he sought an engagement with the Vitagraph Company, becoming a stock member.

Becoming thoroly acquainted with the requirements of the screen story, Mr. Dunaew has taken up scenario writing in addition to his posing, and, receiving permission from Madame Tolstoy to picturize the dramatic works of her late husband, has in completed manuscript form The Power of Darkness and War and Peace, two of Tolstoy’s most wonderful works.

Since joining the Vitagraph Company Mr. Dunaew has appeared in a number of pictures, “My Official Wife,” “The Call of the Past,” “The Win(k)some Widow,” etc., his characterizations ranging from comedy to heavy tragic roles.

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Musings at a Motion Picture Theater

by Harvey Peake

The man who thinks the picture theater is immoral has been known to slip over a counterfeit dime for a ticket, when he came on a tour of investigation.

A deaf patron can get as much pleasure and understanding from a picture play as the person with the most acute hearing.

A move in the right direction would be the introduction of filmplay outfits into all places where time hangs heavily on the hands of the inmates — for instance, prisons, jails, waiting-rooms in depots, doctors’ offices and barber-shops.

Some shows that advertise a two-hour performance would have to modify that statement greatly if they would omit advertisements from their screens.

There must be enough film plays written each year to serve as the earth’s equator, if they were placed side by side.

Collection: Motion Picture Magazine, March 1915