Chats with the Players — William Garwood, of the Imp Company (1915) 🇺🇸
What a wonderful thing personality is, and how fortunate above his fellows is the man who possesses it in the measure that Billy Garwood does!
I have watched Garwood on the screen a score of times and have been impressed by the fact that he does so much less than most of the other Motion Picture stars to get his effects, and that he gets them all “over” as impressively as they do. The fact is, that Garwood has made a study of the power of expression as against action, and those keen eves of his can tell a whole story which otherwise would have to be made plain by the movements of hand or body, or by some exclamative expression which would savor of exaggeration.
This art of silent expression, if we can term it that, is one of the greatest acquirements in the Motion Picture business and cannot be attained without a great deal of experience and study, and it will generally be found with those who have had a previous stage career. Garwood is a good example for young actors to watch — not to copy, but to see how much he can do without violent action.
Billy Garwood’s personality is not confined to the stage by any means, and he numbers his friends by the score. When he meets them there is no false warmth in his reception, and when he revisits a studio he has become dissociated with, he is greeted not only by the leading lights, but by the stage hands and the office force, for Garwood is a good fellow thruout, clean in appearance and clean of thought.
I know much of William Garwood’s private life, and a man can best be judged by the way he treats his own kith and kin. During his stay in Santa Barbara with the American Company there were very few Sundays that he did not make the journey to Los Angeles to visit his parents, and many were the gifts he brought with him.
If Garwood has any particular weakness, it is the love of good clothes, and he can afford to satisfy his longings in that direction. At one time when I visited him he was looking disconsolately at what appeared to me to be the interior of a tailor’s shop.
I asked for the cause of his tribulation, and Garwood pointed to his wardrobe and said, “It’s awful — scarcely a decent thing to wear. I must certainly strengthen my wardrobe.” I counted the suits, and they numbered twenty-four, every one of them in tiptop condition, but neither gibes nor jeers could change his opinion that his appointment sartorial was in a shocking condition and that he would have to expend a few paltry hundreds upon strengthening it if he wanted to hold his job.
Yes, William has another weakness: he likes his cigarets with a small monogram on them and carries them around in a solid gold cigaret-case, one of his numerous presents from admirers.
Garwood had solid experience before he ever entered the Motion Picture field, and apart from those healthy, necessary and gift-giving stock engagements he appeared with several of the reigning stars, including Virginia Harned and Miller Kent, and was on the road with Dustin Farnum in Cameo Kirby, which, at this time of writing, is being adapted for screen purposes by the Lasky Company, with Farnum in the title role.
His first appearance in pictures was with Thanhouser, from whom he went over to Majestic, and this joint engagement covered three useful years, at the end of which time Billy was a finished product. He was engaged by the American Company and featured with this Santa Barbara concern for several months, when he received an offer from the Imp Company in New York which was far too good to turn down; so Billy traveled East, whilst the boys wrung his hand and the girls put their handkerchiefs to their pretty eyes. All told him to hurry back again. The passing of William was quite a sloppy affair.
William Garwood is a healthy specimen of manhood, and he gives much of the credit of his condition to walking the hills and to swimming and morning exercises. During his Santa Barbara time he used to hike the hills with a miner’s pick and come back loaded with specimens, and he swears to this day that if he only had had the time he would have located some mine or other. As it is, he is quite a geological expert. Everybody knows that he owns an onion patch and that he hated to leave it behind him.
However, there is compensation in the thought that he can carry his bankbook along, and that it has been considerably fattened by the proceeds of said onion patch as well as by other profitable investments, for amongst other virtues Billy is an excellent business man and one of the few actors who have not been bitten by the genus wildcat.
And now William Garwood has gone to the East, and I am disconsolate, for he is the best sort of a pal, and he will be eating lobsters and things on Broadway whilst I toy with salads and fruit in sunny California. At that I do not envy Billy, and one of these days when the snow is foot-high on the ground and the Eastern foliage is on a winter vacation he will come meandering back again and will get a reception that we have been keeping in storage which will warm the hearts of himself and friends. May it be soon!
The Tatler.
Collection: Motion Picture Magazine, July 1915