Frankie Mann — An Erstwhile Vampire (1920) 🇺🇸
She’s a little bit of a thing, with soft and big brown eyes. That is, she’s a little bit of a thing physically; mentally, it’s quite another story.
by Adele Whitely Fletcher
And she’s original. Movie stars and other celebrities have many privileges, and that of keeping such inconsequential people as interviewers waiting is worn quite threadbare. That’s why I was amazed when the page boy of one of New York’s largest hotels bellowed, my name thru the corridor on precisely the last stroke of seven. It was something new — and something startling. Of course, Frankie Mann’s secretary had told me over the ‘phone that morning that Frankie would have me paged at seven, but seven is quite as good as any other hour and she had to say some specific time.
Preliminaries are short things with Frankie, and we were soon comfortably ensconced on a lounge in one of the reception-rooms, chatting as tho we were old school chums at a reunion.
Reputations are ofttimes the most unpleasant things in the world to possess and
Miss Mann admits candidly (I was going to say frankiely, but ‘twould never do) that she’s endeavoring to do just one thing at the present time — and that’s live down the reputation she won as a baby vampire in the Morosco stage success, “Upstairs and Down.”
“Ever since I played the baby vampire in that play,” she told me, “people insist upon looking at me thru half closed eyes, as tho I were a strange sort of creature, and then saying sweetly, ‘Oh, yes, I remember you; what havoc you did wreck with all those poor men,’ and then they proceed to cast me in a similar role — and I proceed to refuse the engagement. Not that I have any particular aversion to vampires, but I want to do different things — ingénue roles, emotional roles — I want to do something vital, — something worth while.”
It was a cry — a plea — the expressed yearning of a long pent, up feeling, and the big brown eyes smoldered with Ambition’s fires.
Frankie’s such an earnest soul. Life has not robbed her of her belief in good things, of her spontaneous interest, of her naturalness, of her keen sense of humor. She “sees clearly,”— not in the clairvoyant sense — rather she is a connoisseur of life without the sophistication or worldliness which might be expected.
She told me her story simply.
“Father died shortly; after his failure. in business and mother felt that both Alice and I would be successful in public life,’ for we’d shown theatrical tendencies since early childhood. At first I joined a local stock company in Pennsylvania and Ii shall never cease to be thankful for the excellent training I received there. Then I was with the Lubin Company and with the Vitagraph too, for a time — what screen player hasn’t been with ye old Vitagraph?” she smiled questionably, “and then I did the baby vampire in ‘Upstairs and Down.’”
As she talked she had been endeavoring to touch the floor with the tip of her foot, modishly encased in a black velvet slipper.
“Do you know?” she asked, turning her big brown eyes with their curved lashes in my direction — “I do believe I’m growing, for I remember well when I couldn’t hope to touch the floor, if I sat well back in this particular lounge — perhaps if I could grow the baby vampire would die a natural death.”
I asked her if her sister, Alice, looked like her, for I had never seen her on the screen, and she naively told me that she didn’t — not a bit.
“Alice is very pretty, with blonde hair and big blue eyes,” she said; “she’s making a serial in New England and mother is going to join her tomorrow, for she’s never been away from home alone. Of course, I have to stay here, for we are working in the Jersey studios, and then too, I’ll keep the apartment open for my brother.”
She hesitated.
“Our other brother is in Siberia,” and mingled with the wistful note in her voice, there was a ring of pride which seemed to say that the Manns had answered “Here!” when the roll was called. “He enlisted without our knowledge when he was only seventeen.”
Frankie is now working in a serial with the romantic name of “The Isle of Jewels”; she’s quite pleased with it, for she plays the role of a minister’s daughter and could anything be more opposite vampiring?
“Today I did a harem scene and I wear the most original costume ever. No,” protestingly, “it’s not one of those dollar’s worth of chiffon and a stringy of beads sort of thing, but it’s original just the same.”
I mentally decided that a harem costume not “a dollar’s worth of chiffon and string of beads sort of thing,” would be decidedly original, but said nothing.
“Mr. Beck [Arthur F. Beck], Leah Baird’s husband, is producing this serial,” she explained. “Leah’s my best pal. She’s beautiful, don’t you think so?”
I admitted that I did and asked if she, like her pal, would play in Beck feature productions upon the completion of “The Isle of Jewels.”
“I’m hoping for feature productions, after this,” she admitted. “I’m hoping for — oh, just scores of things,” and the brown eyes were soft and dreamy.
“What do you like to do best?” — I found myself asking this inadvertently.
“If I tell, you’ll think I’m a ‘mousy,’ unambitious person,” she laughed.
I promised I wouldn’t, for a few minutes before she had expressed a desire to do stage and screen work at the same time, and one willing to even consider such a busy existence could never be thought of as lacking ambition.
“Well,” she said resignedly, “I can’t think of anything which gives me more real,” she emphasized the “real”, “pleasure than fussing about the house. Just at present I’m having my room done over and each night I’m anxious to see just how much they have accomplished during the day. It will be such a treat to have a rose and ivory bower sort of room, where I can rest in ‘négligéeish’ things after I come home from the studio. I like cabarets, theaters, dancers and gay things too, but I don’t think they could ever come before home with me, for I was lucky enough to be born into a happy family with a mother who is a real pal.”
She admitted she didn’t think herself a great star — that she drove to the studios in the company’s car every day and often traveled in the crowded subway — not thru any primary desire of studying people, but because she did not possess a car of her own.
It is quite likely that Frankie’s hopes will come true, that her air-castles will take material form — but I mistake much If ever she loses her clear perspective, if she ever fails to “see clearly” — there is much of the woman in the girl — I think she will always, subconsciously perhaps, place the home hearthstone above” the worldly joys which success will bring her. She will unerringly seek the pure gold of life and thrust aside the dross.
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Frankie Mann is an earnest soul — Life has not robbed her of her belief in good things — of her spontaneous interest — of her naturalness — of her keen sense of humor. One might say she was a connoisseur of Life without the sophistication or worldliness which would be expected
All Photos by Edw. Thayer Monroe
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Collection: Motion Picture Magazine, February 1920