Estelle Mardo, Mirror Star (1916) 🇺🇸
Estelle Mardo, a one-time member of the Biograph Company and since then with the Vitagraph Company of America, by which company she was featured with Maurice Costello, has been engaged by Captain Harry Lambart, of the Mirror Films, Inc., as leading woman for one of the companies which that organization will have working at the Glendale studio.
Miss Mardo first got a part of any prominence with Lawrence Marston, who gave her the role of Elinore in The Road to Yesterday. After that she played many important parts and went into stock. She then went with D. W. Griffith and played opposite to Henry B. Walthall in The Floor Above for the Mutual. She played opposite to King Baggot at the Imp studio and went south later to appear in The Littlest Rebel with E. K. Lincoln. She then went to the Vitagraph and later did several parts in pictures for the World Film Corporation.
Harry Hyde, a former director for the Biograph, began his first picture for the Mirror Films, Inc., when he started in on what the author of the scenario, Adrian Johnson, called an impressionistic detective story. Captain Harry Lambart, chief producer for the Mirror Company, assigned the players to Mr. Hyde last week. The picture will be brought out featuring Estelle Mardo and Harry Carvill, a well-known veteran of the stage, who has appeared in many London and New York successes.
Mr. Hyde has come to the Mirror Films as director after a successful career in the making of motion pictures largely in the service of the Biograph Company, where he made pictures for some years. His first picture for the Mirror is of the sort with which he has had success in the past.
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The Strand Shows Many Pathé Pictures.
Pathé is contributing largely to the program of the “Strand,” New York’s million dollar film palace. Last week a three-reel subject, The Gold Cobra, a colored scenic Old, Unchanging Holland, an educational Quaint Dances of Japan, The Pathé News and Monkey Shines, a “Heinie and Louie” [Jimmy Aubrey | Walter Kendig] comedy, all Pathé pictures, were shown.
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President to Address Trade Board
Committee of arrangements making every effort to extend fitting reception to Chief Executive.
The officers and committees of the Motion Picture Board of Trade of America have completed tentative arrangements for the board’s first annual dinner, Thursday, January 27, at which President Woodrow Wilson will be a guest and the principal speaker. The latest announcement is that the President’s bride, formerly Mrs. Norman Gait, will honor the affair by her presence, occupying a balcony box with a party of friends from Washington and New York. This will be the initial visit of Mrs. Wilson to New York as the first lady of the land, and that fact alone will make the dinner one of unique interest, especially in view of the fact that it has been decided to invite ladies to occupy seats at the tables on the floor.
The great ballroom of the Hotel Biltmore, seating 850 people, will be entirely filled, the tables being occupied by from six to ten persons. The dinner itself will not vary greatly from the annual affairs to which New York is accustomed, such as Chamber of Commerce dinners and those of the other large commercial and civic organizations. The positive statement is made that there will be no “stunts” or other special features. The speeches will be the thing. The affair will mark the full recognition of the motion picture industry as one of the most substantial in the country from the standpoint of capital invested and the character of the men engaged in it.
“The future is veiled to a certain extent, of course,” said J. W. Binder, executive secretary of the board, “but the recent past has shown what can be done in the way of upbuilding and broadening. The public realizes that the motion picture is one of the three or four great forces in the great moral, intellectual and social life of America. The visit of President and Mrs. Wilson as our guests is auspicious and significant.” Commodore J. Stuart Blackton will be the toastmaster. Other than the President and Mr. Blackton, the speakers chosen are Supreme Court Justice Samuel Seabury, the Rev. Cyrus Townsend Brady, Senator Henry A. Ashurst of Arizona, Collector of the Port of New York Dudley Field Malone, Martin W. Littleton, Dr. Stephen S. Wise, and, it is expected, Thomas A. Edison and Governor Martin G. Brumbaugh of Pennsylvania. Governor Whitman and Mayor Mitchel are on the guest list and others who have been asked to occupy seats at the guest table are Cardinal Farley, William F. McCombs, Admiral Robert E. Peary, Admiral Charles Sigsbee, Major General Leonard Wood, George Eastman, Melville E. Stone, Governor Arthur Capper of Kansas, Governor Frank B. Willis of Ohio. David Bispham, Robert J. Collier, Roy Howard, Edwin Markham, Hudson Maxim, Robert Adamson and George H. Bell.
The committees in immediate charge of the affair are made up as follows: Invitation, J. Stuart Blackton, J. E. Brulatour, William A. Johnston and J. W. Binder. Arrangements, Walter W. Irwin, John R. Freuler, J. A. McKinney, Watterson R. Rothacker, Paul Gulick and J. W. Binder.
Secretary Tumulty and Dr. Cary Grayson will be in the presidential party and will have seats near Mr. Wilson. Secretary Tumulty long has been a friend of the motion picture and is an appreciative patron of the picture theaters in Washington. According to officers of the board there was never any question of the wives and other feminine members of the motion picture men and their guests attending the affair. The dinner will start at 7.30 o’clock.
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Dispute over Sunday Shows.
The question of Sunday opening came to an issue in Freeport, L. I., recently, when members of the churches held a meeting to protest against the running of shows at the American, one of the two important houses in the town. It is said that in fighting the opposition, the management of the American has the hearty co-operation of those who control the Plaza. On this point there will be no rivalry.
For many months the motion picture men of Freeport have been losing legitimate Sunday business because their houses remained closed and possible patrons went to Lynnbrook, Rockville Center, or other neighboring towns where no objection has been raised to Sunday performances.
On Jan. 2 a program was offered at the American to satisfactory patronage, and on the two following Sundays business showed an increase. Meanwhile those opposed to the innovation had mustered their forces, and the up-shot of the indignation meeting was an announcement that church members would boycott the photoplay houses until Sunday shows had been abolished. The theater proprietors express an equally firm determination to insist upon their rights and at last reports a compromise had not been effected.
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Held for Grand Jury
Arthur Bard and David Keene Held for the Federal Grand Jury on Fraud Charge.
David Keene, president and treasurer of the Associated Film Sales Corporation, a concern he is charged with forming in this city in connection with Arthur Bard, formerly of San Francisco, has been held to the United States Grand Jury in $7,500 by Commissioner Houghton. He is charged with using the mails in a conspiracy to defraud in the sale of moving picture films. Bard, who ranked as vice-president of the concern, was held on a similar charge a few days before Keene’s arrest.
The complaint, according to Assistant District Attorney Samuel Hershenstein, charges that Bard was sent on here from San Francisco by the Associated Film Manufacturers of the coast city, as an agent. He was to open offices in New York as the eastern headquarters of the manufacturers’ association. He arrived in due time and did establish offices. He met Keene and, so the charge alleges, instead of selling films and accounting to his home house, formed the sales corporation, sold films by using the mails and also was in the market to sell stock of his corporation. It is alleged that all the western manufacturers got for a large number of valuable films intrusted to Bard was a number of shares of stock in the sales company.
Just how much loss was entailed or is claimed by the San Francisco house is not set forth in the moving papers. The matter will be laid before the Grand Jury at once and an indictment is expected during this term of court.
Collection: Moving Picture World, February 1916