Dorothy Mackaill — Following the Blue Print (1927) 🇺🇸
Dorothy Mackaill is English, youthful, and bright. She served her apprenticeship, briefly, in the "Follies," seized upon a lucky opportunity to play a lead opposite Barthelmess, progressed in similar capacity with other heroic gentlemen, and arrived where she is to-day, well along the spangled road to stardom.
She is not much of an actress, true enough, but few stars are. Dorothy strings with the crowd.
In such things as "Shore Leave" and "Twenty-one" she is at her best, playing naturally and spontaneously, brightening the picture unconventionally and without affectation. In such things as "The Dancer of Paris" she is no better than Mae Murray, wet paint, low tide, or prickly heat.
She has a keen understanding of the film industry and its decidedly devious workings. She has fought shy of bad parts and has nursed shrewdly and wisely her not inconsiderable, public. She has gone ahead slowly, rather than risking quick flight followed by quick flop.
The first time I met Dorothy Mackaill she was even younger than she is now. She couldn't have been more than eighteen. Barthelmess had engaged her to be the heart interest in a furbelowed romance hight "The Fighting Blade." Between scenes she amused herself by shouting "Hey!" and listening to the echo reverberate through the barren reaches of the old Fort Lee studio. At luncheon later she cheerfully continued to "Hey!" at intervals during the table talk. She was delightful in a hoydenish way, refreshingly natural, unacquainted with such a word as poise, and happy in her ignorance.
Five years have dealt kindly with her. Five years can do terrible things to the world at large, one might point out with no claim to being a philosopher. But time has not scarred Dorothy.
She was working like a beaver, or Trojan, according to your taste, and she looked no older; she assumed no air that might be — and often is — assumed by a "Follies" girl who has made, as the saying goes, good; she exploded with occasional frank outbursts just as freely and lustily as she had "Heyed!"
No longer, however, was she merely a lovely foil for the amorous advances of an importunate lover. No longer did she coo in her wooer's arms. In this respect she had changed, for there, beneath the blinding lights, she was acting away for dear life, simulating grief, sorrow, and sadness as she heard what must have been bad news from Vincent Serrano, at the moment her father.
Again and again, under the driving direction of the energetic, swarthy little Mendes. Dorothy indicated surprise, horror, despair, the moods flitting across her face in quick succession. She emerged from each take of the scene spent and nervous. Retake followed retake. She was acting. It was no fun.
Thus it was that, finding the dreary, factory atmosphere of the Cosmopolitan atelier incompatible, we arranged a second meeting, at the Mackaill chambers.
This was better. Put the pretty Dorothy in the intimacy of a smart Park Avenue apartment, and her charm has a chance. In the vasty settings of "The Song of the Dragon," * [* Title to be changed.] she had been all but lost. The film heroine's home had had the proportions of Madison Square Garden. But Dorothy's own apartment fitted her admirably.
Curled, as the metaphor so often has it, on a damask settee, Dorothy permitted the dull glow of a lamp to pick out the gleaming, golden glints in her hair, while she told me how difficult it was to side-step the banal in the commerce of filming pictures.
"A director can work wonders, of course," she granted. "A good man can take a sap story and reshape it into something almost subtle — you know what I mean? But how many such directors are there?
"I have found this Lothar Mendes to be a marvel," Dorothy confided. "From Germany, you know. Very dynamic, very much wrapped up in his work. Impassioned. Fervent. He has made me do emotional acting that I had never even suspected I could do — you know? He has hypnotized me into scenes. It has been hard work, but a wonderful emotional training. I think he's one of the few great directors."
At the moment I thought that she was overenthusiastic. I placed little significance in her high estimate of the newly imported director. Three days later, however, I understood all, when the papers blazoned the news of the Mackaill-Mendes engagement. And that it was not a publicity match was shortly demonstrated by a regular, bona-fide marriage three more days later.
Dorothy is slim and pretty — a magazine-cover girl with an added dash that is individually her own. Her hair, as I have hinted, is golden-brown and shimmering, under the proper auspices; her eyebrows arch distinctively; her lower lip is full, but not pouty. This is a trick in itself — to achieve a full lip, yet avoid a pout.
Her weight, I guessed, was something constantly to consider, what with all the publicity blurbs that had swamped the country regarding her 130-pound contract. (If she exceeded that mark at any time, so the legend ran, her fair head was to be chopped off.)
"I do have to watch my weight." declared Dorothy. "That story was true. It states in my contract that I mustn't exceed a certain weight. The funny part of the whole thing is that the same clause is in Doris Kenyon's contract, and the papers were all given the same story about her a year before the one on me, but they didn't play it up. Then when the weight clause was announced in my contract the press leaped at it. Just a lucky break for Dorothy."
Here is one cinema success, however, who has not relied upon what are known as the "breaks from England, she carefully laid out her plans — then followed them. Cautiously, shrewdly, she has progressed, taking each successive step according to the blue print designed years ago.
The "Follies" gave her a liberal education in poise and worldliness. Then when she played opposite Barthelmess, she received offers to star, which she was canny enough to decline.
"I knew people went to see Dick's pictures," she said, "and I was assured of a large audience every time I played with him. As an unknown, the big idea was to be seen enough to become known. As Dick's leading woman I had far more opportunity than I would have had as a half-baked star of one of those quick, two-week, independent pictures."
Later, there was Dorothy's Paramount contract. As soon as she had subscribed to it, she was cast in "His Children's Children." Dorothy grinned and bore it, believing that better days were coming. Then came "The Next Corner." This was, unlike lightning, striking twice in the same place — two sorry cinemas in succession. Stamping a small but shapely foot, Dorothy shouted "Hey!"
When Messrs. Zukor and Lasky arrived and turned to hear her lament, she indicated that she would like nothing better than to destroy her contract. The Mussolinis of Famous Players decided that destruction was better than dissatisfaction, and accordingly the document became a few scraps of paper. Dorothy was again a free lance.
A minor incident to you, perhaps, it meant much to a young player and, what's more to the point, it illustrates the girl's spirit. Not many actresses are tearing up contracts in this dizzy day and age.
Thus she has passed from company to company. After Famous it was Fox, and from there First National beckoned, until at present she hovers between stardom and featuredom, now starring, now co-starring, in pictures that at least promise to be good. No one knows when a film will jell, but at least one can side-step the ones that look bad from the outset, such as "The Savage" and "Paradise," both of which Dorothy eluded.
She talks knowingly and sanely, avoiding the temptation to be cynical. She does not talk about her "art," but she does manifest a keen interest in the sort of parts allotted to her, ever and again letting out a lusty "Hey!" in protest.
Dorothy Mackaill's new name is Mrs. Lothar Mendes. She met the German director for the first time when he started directing her in "The Song of the Dragon" — which title is going to be changed, by the way. They fell in love and are now married.
When Dorothy Mackaill shouts "Hey!" she usually gets what she is after.
Photo by: James N. Doolittle (1886–1954)
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Collection: Picture Play Magazine, March 1927