Clara Kimball Young — Sans Grease Paint and Wig (1914) 🇺🇸
“It will give me big opportunities,” said Clara Kimball Young, as she sat back in the big office chair near the window, that belonged to the desk near the door.
by Mabel Condon
It was her husband’s office and her husband’s chair; hence both were Clara’s, and “Jimmie” Young [James Young] found things of importance to discuss with the big, auburn-haired and pleasant looking man who paced back and forth with him in an adjoining room, and who is Harry Jay Smith, co-director with Mr. Young.
The office is new to “Jimmie,” for he has but recently assumed its duties, though since taking up his new duties he has converted into scenario from the play Lola, in which the popular Clara Kimball Young is to be featured and which is to be put on at the studio in Fort Lee, N. J., the $100,000 one erected in place of the Eclair studio that burned, and that is now to be used by the Peerless Feature Producing Company.
This is the company that is to manufacture the Schubert, Brady and Owen Davis plays for release through the World Film Corporation. The officers of the company are Lee Schubert, president; Joseph Rhinock, vice-president, and Britten N. Busch, treasurer. And Clara is to be the “resident” star; for while other Broadway stars will come and go, at the studio, in their respective best-known roles, Clara will stay on in a preordained and large number of parts. The first Clara picture will be the five-reel one of “Lola,” and after that there is to be “Darkest Russia” and many others.
So Clara, in her white broadcloth gown that had a footing of black velvet, and a short cape-coat, lined with striped silk, and a fall shade of pink hat, talked happily of what she hoped to do in the variety of roles that will be her’s in the company and the studio that are new to her.
“I want,” she declared, “to play every variety of emotion. I love the dramatic and I intend to reveal it; I like good comedy, too; but I do not care about burlesque. I think,” she folded her hands and thought aloud, “that I am better in drama than in comedy. Anyway,” and this must have been what really settled the question on whatever occasions it had been discussed. “I like it better.
“Those who have noted my leaving the Vitagraph company, may be surprised,” she said, and in so doing sensed the public thought. “But there are so many people who are being featured there, and deservedly, that I felt I would have a better chance to do the work I want to do in a company that will make only features, and that will give me the opportunity to do what I feel is a bigger work. I can select my support —”
As though to prove it, “Jimmie” and the big, auburn-haired, pleasant looking man entered to have Clara choose between a blonde and a brunette type for one of the parts in an early Peerless release.
“The blonde,” chose Clara instantly, and told why. “Because she is a greater contrast to others of us in the cast and she photographs the better for the part.”
“I like strong support,” she added, when the reference committee of two had departed, “and I want everybody in the cast to be the particular type each part calls for; if people don’t fit their parts, then I don’t believe they should play them. But in a company where there are many people to play the leads, one can’t choose as to parts. Now, however, this new affiliation will allow of my deciding whether or not a part fits me, or I fit a part, and that surely should be satisfying.
“The parting with the Vitagraph company was a friendly one; I felt that I could better myself by going into a feature company. Mr. Young had already left, so we liked this proposition and here we are, ready for work. We start our first picture at the Peerless studio on Wednesday. And I’m so anxious to start!” The big dark eyes that have helped make Clara one of the most popular of screen artists, opened wide with the enthusiasm and pleasure expressed by their owner, and a generous smile made for accompaniment.
“We’re getting rid of our home in Flatbush,” informed Clara en route to the street from the fourth floor offices of the Peerless Company in the Leavitt building on Forty-sixth street. “It would be too big a journey to Fort Lee every day, so we’re taking an apartment on Riverside Drive at One Hundred and Fiftieth street.”
“That’s not far from the ferry,” put in Mr. Young, as he cranked his car and shut the door on the occupants of the rear seat. The car sought Forty-eighth street, where it turned down Broadway toward Forty-second; and Clara had just finished telling about the speech she made to a clamoring audience at Proctor’s Fifth Avenue theater only the other night, when the stop at the Longacre building was made.
“Mr. Proctor was kind enough to say he didn’t think it would lessen the patronage of that house,” laughed Clara, as she climbed out of the rear seat to get into the one beside “Jimmie.”
“It was all right, that speech,” defended Mr. Young as he tucked Clara in beside him.
“We’ve got only a few things to do today,” Clara thought to inform as the car started. “Just five or six gowns and hats to select and some —”
Then the car turned south into Broadway and a South Ferry street-car hid it from view.
—
Catherine Greely, of the Eclair western Studio, is recovering from her recent dangerous illness and her many friends will welcome her return to the films.
Collection: Motography Magazine, September 1914