Gladden James — Flivving With Gladden (1920) 🇺🇸
He had been discovered — he being that previously unheard of mortal who doesn’t think the car he drives the finest on the market, for the price perhaps, but surely in some way or another the finest.
by Adele Whitely Fletcher
Gladden James admits with the utmost candor that his very bon ton car “has nothing but its looks to brag about.” Maybe he was particularly dissatisfied with his car on this rainy day but he’s the sort who would say what he thought anyway. However, one didn’t mind him being late in the least when they remembered he had offered to come to their office and spare them the rainy trip to the studios where they were to have seen him.
He took, the stairs to my office two at a time and breezed in with his frank smile and hearty manner — typical of the great out-of-doors.
“Sorry to be late but my car broke down and I had to leave it at a garage and hire another vehicle,” he explained, “some day I’m going to find some nice, unsuspecting person who doesn’t know anything about the importance of an engine in a car and sell him mine. It looks great but try and get it to take you somewhere!”
It was after five o’clock when he arrived and realizing the offices were fast being deserted, he hesitated.
“If you don’t mind riding in the dilapidated vehicle I have parked downstairs, I’d like to drive you home.”
“What is the vehicle?” I asked, “a Ford?”
“It used to be,” he grinned, “but I don’t think Henry himself would recognize it now.”
Grateful for anything which saved me my nightly process of lurching and frantically reaching for the worn leather strap of the trolley I accepted — and was certainly not sorry. Gladden James knows Life as only those know it who study it — as those know it who love it. He philosophizes — he is not afraid to take Life’s tears with its laughter. One imagines his bookcases filled with the better things which writers have given to the world.
He believes absolutely in the power of Truth — or as he expresses it, “the glory of Truth, for a lie cannot live, and it eventually reacts — it is a boomerang which returns to him in whose mind it was born. I’m not a fatalist, particularly,” he continued earnestly, “but I believe in Fate — the Fate which corners those who live their lives regardless of others, regardless of the laws, written or unwritten, which were made to protect humanity.”
With the greatest sincerity he told me he was “getting old” — but his boyish face with its blue eyes and healthy glow belied his words. And has he not found it wise to grow a moustache in order to look older in his screen portrayals?
Through the streets, crowded with the home-bound populace, we crawled. The rain had stopped leaving huge puddles here and there — drops fell from the spans of the elevated structures. The danger of skidding was great, for hired vehicles are not provided skid chains and conversation necessarily was disjointed.
But when we entered the park where the road was clear the speedometer needle registered more miles per hour on the dial and we whizzed between rows of dripping trees.
“I missed the showery days when I was in California with Norma Talmadge on The Heart of Wetona, but I loved the Golden West,” he explained, “People out there take time to live. I’m afraid we of the East could learn a lesson from our western brothers. Life is short at the best, and do we get the most out of it?”
“Did you like California well enough to remain there?” I sought to learn.
“Yes, I did,” he admitted, “but I was glad to get home to Mrs. James and the little Jameses.
“I’m very proud of my family, and have the greatest contempt for the man who doesn’t acknowledge his family ties because he is in public life. To me that man not only insults the woman of his choice but womanhood itself. I’d like you to meet Mrs. James” — this proudly.
“She’s not in public life,” he went on, “and I’m glad she isn’t, for I try to keep my home a retreat from the world I know all day — a place where I can seek rest and mental recreation. As for the two kiddies, I want them to have the home life I missed. I’ve belonged to the public ever since I was six years old when I appeared in a local stock company.
I can remember how ‘cute’ my fond parents thought I was — and how relatives came in droves to watch me perform. They thought I was so good that I finally believed it myself so I kept right on and finally found my name on the cast-sheet. That was one auspicious occasion!”
He laughed heartily at the recollection — he’s just a big boy to-day and except in those rare minutes when he grows serious he makes you think of the hero of your high school or college days — I’d like to see him in a play where he could wear football togs and appear on the gridiron. And perhaps that wish will come true for plans are brewing — plans which will either find him playing under contract for one company or accepting engagements here and there.
“I wouldn’t return to the stage for the world,” he told me “the movies are great and some day, not distant I hope, they are going to come into their own. Our public is going to demand the best the screen affords and it will be some best, too. It was because I believed in the unlimited possibilities of the screen that I left the stage.”
We made a sharp turn in the road on one wheel — a squirrel scampered across the road and into the trunk of an old tree.
“But I’m grateful for my stage training,” continuing, “and I’ve often played the same role on the screen which I played on the stage. It happened only recently when I appeared in The Third Degree, with Alice Joyce.”
When he finally dropped me at my door, figuratively speaking, I asked him if he had to motor all the way back to the city.
“No, no, indeed, I live only a five-minutes drive from here myself,” he laughed; “how could I bring up my family in the city — how could I live there myself — I must have room to breathe!” — and down the street flew the Henry, around the corner on one wheel — it was gone!
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He philosophises — he delves deep and is not afraid to take life’s tears with its laughter.
Center, with Anita Stewart in one of her first pictures, and below, with Norma Talmadge in The Heart of Wetona.
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He’s just a big boy today and except in those rare minutes when he grows serious he makes you think of your high school hero.
Center, with Alice Joyce in The Third Degree, and below, a snap with his baby.
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Collection: Motion Picture Magazine, January 1920