The Expressions of Kathleen O’Connor (1920) 🇬🇧

Daring Kathleen, the Serial Star, who owes her smile to the Emerald Isle.

Kathleen O’Connor, the fearless serial star, has been giving her idea of an ideal husband. “He would have to be a man I wouldn’t have to look up to,” she says. “He would have to be very human, and a real comrade — one with whom I could share joys and sorrows, and meet success or failure with perfect sympathy. In short, he would have to be a sort of combination of Tom Mix, Jim Corbett [James J. Corbett] and William Farnum, all poured into one. And what’s more,” she added, with an emphatic little jerk of the head, “he would have to like onions. I simply love them!”

Although her home town is in Ohio, Kathleen’s ancestors were Irish. It is to them she owes her charming smile and her happy-go-lucky disposition.

Into the Pictures.

Her entry into filmland was not the easy one of being connected with a picture studio all her life. When she finished school, she began work as a telephone girl, and while there, won a prize for being the most popular and prettiest telephone operator.

This made her known round the film studios, and she got her first chance with the old Essanay Company. Later she made three pictures with Toto [Armando Novello], the Clown. Then came a small part in “Missing,” under the directorship of J. Stewart Blackton [J. Stuart Blackton]. Later a few pictures with Tom Mix, and so well did she play the Wild West heroine that she was offered the serial part with James Corbett in “The Midnight Man.”

Her Life in Her Hands.

As you may guess, Kathleen O’Connor is as fearless as she is beautiful. She knows that to take the leading part in a film serial she must almost daily take her life in her hands.

She is also very dramatic, which helps her greatly in her work for the film.

She keeps herself fit by a course of physical culture, of which she is an expert. Riding before breakfast, a daily climb on the big head of Charlie, the Universal elephant, and then for a ride on him around the lot is a daily part of her programme.

We are shortly to see her in another big Universal serial, entitled “The Lion Man,” in which she plays opposite Jack Perrin.

While the Studio Burned.

This, like most serials, is full of thrills, many of which, are as dangerous as they look on the screen. For instance, in one scene an elaborately appointed interior was burned to the ground at Universal City, for a scene in which Kathleen O’Connor and Jack Perrin had to remain in full view of the camera until the flames actually singed their hair. Yet they enacted their dramatic roles while the battery of camera-men filmed the action.

Even then the scene was nearly spoilt because the flames almost consumed the legs of one of the tripods at which the cameraman was grinding.

Deserves a Holiday.

As soon as Kathleen had finished this serial sensation, she had planned a visit to New York, and incidentally to her own home town in Ohio. Miss O’Connor deserved a holiday, for she has been working without a day’s rest for over a year. First with James Corbett in “The Midnight Man,” an eighteen episode serial, then with Harry Carey in “The Gun Fight Gentleman,” and in eighteen chapters of the current serial. When she comes back she will begin work in another serial, entitled “The Path She Chose.”

His Marriage Line.

By the way, Jack Perrin, who is now co-starring with Miss O’Connor, lost a wife and family in record time the other day.

Miss O’Connor, who is somewhat of a palmist, was reading Jack’s hand during a short rest. Gazing at a particularly dark line, she told Perrin that he would soon marry and be the father of four children.

Jack looked hard at the line, rubbed it vigorously with a pocket-handkerchief, and it disappeared, and he thereby lost all chances for matrimony.

Kathleen O’Connor confesses that her greatest ambition is to act about one-third as well as Elsie Ferguson, who, she says, is her ideal star.

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Address;
Kathleen O’Connor,
Universal Studios,
Universal City,
California.

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Photo Captions:

• Here I am!
• I’m not afraid!
• Help!
• It’s all right now.
• Only tired.

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(Special to “The Picture Show.”)

Collection: Picture Show Magazine, June 1920