Gertrude McCoy — Sans Grease Paint and Wig (1914) 🇺🇸
“If,” said Frank C. Bannon, his hand on the door knob of Gertrude McCoy’s dressing room and his head visible within that sanctum. “If,” he repeated, “I don’t have to go to Fifth avenue with some films, you’ll find me in my office when you’re through.”
by Mabel Condon
“Very well,” I replied obediently. Mr. Bannon had showed me the bread line, the newly-built Edison studio and had introduced me to Frank Lyons, the fat man; hence the obedience.
“But,” Mr. Bannon countered, “I’m almost certain I’ll have to go to Fifth avenue, so I’ll say good-bye now.” So we of the dressing room replied good-bye to him of the door, and the pleasant Bannon countenance withdrew.
“And now,” said Miss McCoy, “we’ll eat.” As though magically summoned, a colored gentleman with a breakfast-food smile and a luncheon tray appeared and proceeded to place the contents of the latter on the little white-clothed table which stood in front of a dressing table, and which, up to then, I hadn’t noticed because I hadn’t had time.
“Usually,” I remarked as we unfolded our napkins, “there isn’t room for a luncheon table in a dressing room.”
“And usually,” replied the hostess, “there isn’t room for one in here. But I made room. Mabel Trunnelle and I have this room together, but we’re going to take Miss Nesbitt’s [Miriam Nesbitt] room because it’s bigger, and she’s to come in here and have this one all to herself. That’ll be all for a while, William,” and he of the smile quietly disappeared.
“Let’s pretend we haven’t only just met,” suggested Miss McCoy.
So we pretended by Miss McCoy informing that she loves housekeeping and used to have a housekeeping suite of her own and that her greatest pleasure on her one day of recreation, Sunday, was to scrub every floor in the suite; and I told about a kitchenette dinner at which there was company and no bread. Then the smiling one appeared with chicken salad, eggs and a green pot of green tea, and when he had withdrawn the subject turned to that of “The President’s Special,” the thrilling Edison film which owes, its thrills to Miss McCoy.
“I hear,” said I, helping myself to an egg of the deviled variety, “that you took a terrific risk in racing that train.”
“Oh, not much,” returned Miss McCoy, giving herself a helping of the same delicacy. “We were only going forty-five miles an hour.”
“And were you using your own little car?”
“Yes, the one that the people around the studio call the ‘coffee-grinder,’ also ‘the rattler.’” She paused, but there was no malice in her hesitancy, only affection for the little car, the top of which was visible even then from its position of “watchful waiting” on the corner across from the studio.
“I know every move of that car so well that on country roads I often rest my elbow on the other seat, put my head on my hand and drive for miles, that way, with one hand. I can see far enough ahead to keep out of danger and it’s very restful. There are only a few of the people around here who will ride with me; they think I’m reckless. But with me it isn’t recklessness; it’s simply going fast. And,” she added, “it’s doing the thing I’m told I shouldn’t do. For there’s always more fun in doing what one shouldn’t do. Besides, I’m not afraid, so why shouldn’t I go fast?”
I knew of no reason and said so, as I accepted the green-rimmed cup of green tea which was passed me, “So, of course,” she went on, “when that part was given me in The President’s Special, I wouldn’t hear to having such a dandy ride faked. All I had to be was cool-headed and fearless, and all I had to do was to keep the car at its topmost speed, prevent it from infringing on the two-foot distance between it and the train, and to remember to shut off all the brakes when within fifteen feet of the terminal. But I didn’t remember; I completely forgot the emergency brake. But I killed the engine, so I stopped all right anyhow.” “Suppose there should have had to be a retake?” I suggested.
“Oh,” she replied, deciding on two lumps of sugar instead of one, “I thought we had better do it over in case the first time was not right, so we did it three times. There was everything the matter with the car afterward, but I just tightened up the things that were loose and it’s just like always.” Not being one of those privileged studio people, I scorned to comment humorously as to that and offered, instead, to pass the salad.
“Fearlessness,” I then observed, “must be a trait of your part of the country.” I had no idea what part that was.
“Rome, Georgia,” my hostess told me. “Yes, I think the people from there are fearless.” And added, “Mr. Seay [Charles M. Seay] is from there.” I reflected upon the bravery of that Edison director and decided in favor of the Georgians.
“I left home when I was very young,” Miss McCoy was saying, “and I came to New York. Because I was tall and slender and blonde, I got into the chorus of The Gay White Way — remember that show? — and because I wasn’t afraid of the stage director when he was cross I stayed there until I got something better, in vaudeville.
“But my introduction into pictures was through Ashley Miller. He gave me his card and told me to come to see him at the Edison studio. And a year later I did. I was engaged and have been here, now, four years. You would know what kind of work I like best, wouldn’t you?”
“Dramatic?” I guessed.
“Yes, with a great deal of sympathy in them. I dislike comedy roles. It makes me ill to be cast in a comedy,” she further expressed her non-preference of this variety of part. “The next picture I’m to play in is “In Sheep’s Clothing.’ It promises a likeable role. And after that is to be Shakespeare’s ‘Twelfth Night.’ I can hardly wait for that one. And later, maybe, there’s to be a series for me. It’s not all decided yet, but I’m reasonably certain of it. So far I’ve most enjoyed ‘The Impersonator’ and ‘The Shattered Tree.’ I loved both of them. The President’s Special was the most exciting, so, of course, that, too, is among the ones I liked best doing.”
William stealthily entered and replaced the salad dishes with ones of cantaloupe. Then he smiled himself out silently, and the conversation turned to sports, though through no reference to William’s display of acrobatics in his faultlessly waiting on table in the little dressing room. Rather, it came about through mention of a play in which Miss McCoy made up as a boy.
“I love to wrestle. People around the studio didn’t know it then, but they’ve remembered it since I put my opponent on the flat of his back during the making of that picture,” said Miss McCoy, smiling at the remembrance. “Wrestling and horseback riding are the things I love best. And autoing.” The girl across from me with the wide blue eyes and soft southern voice smiled out through the window at the top of the little car, which, though it has been ever faithful, is about to be replaced with a racer, monogramed and dazzlingly white, and capable of even more than forty-five miles an hour.
“I love my little car; I never go anywhere without it,” declared the owner of the little car as she rumpled her napkin beside her plate and we rose to give William final right-of-way. “But we must progress,” she amended. “We must progress.”
We did, Miss McCoy to relieve the little car of further waiting and I to an upstairs office and thence via devious routes — it’s so easy to get off of the right car at the wrong station, coming from the “Bron-ix” back to the starting point. Times Square.
—
Egan Joins Ramo
John S. Egan has been appointed auditor of the Ramo Canadian offices. After familiarizing himself with the trade and meeting the exhibitors in Montreal, under the guidance of Frank W. Foster, Canadian manager, he will make his headquarters at the Toronto office at 11 Richmond street, West. Mr. Egan has just resigned as manager of the camera, kineclair and educational film departments of the Eclair Film Company to connect himself with the Ramo Company, and will no doubt prove himself a valuable asset as he comes from a family of practical film people, being a brother of Mrs. Agnes Egan Cobb, manager of the Leading Players Film Corporation and Features Ideal departments of the Eclair Film Company, and a brother-in-law of C. Lang Cobb, Jr., manager sales and publicity of Ramo Films, Inc.
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Horace Plimpton vs. Reckless Realism
It is the belief of Horace G. Plimpton, manager of the negative department of the Edison Company, that there is too much risk taken in the making of pictures. The risk to which he refers is that in which the player figures, and which, so Mr. Plimpton believes, has almost gone beyond the bounds of reason, so keen are the public, the film makers and even the players themselves, for realism in pictures.
“Many of the risks to life are unnecessary,” stated Mr. Plimpton one day last week in his long office on the second floor of the Bronx studio building.
“I don’t believe in the players risking their lives,” he went on. “The business isn’t worth it and never would be, no matter how big it became. Why, the loss of one life at this studio would be a horror that I feel could not be lived down. I would feel terribly about it, should such a catastrophe occur. I’d feel almost personally responsible.
“There are ways of faking almost every risk,” Mr. Plimpton continued, “and I would prefer that way to having the players taking their lives in their hands.
“Straight cowardice, of course, would be a different matter. If a player came to me and said, ‘I’ll do this thing if you want me to, but I don’t feel that I’m capable of taking this risk; I’m not in training and don’t feel fit to do it,’ why, I’d feel he had done the right thing in coming to me and telling me this. But if it were simply a case of ‘cold feet’ I wouldn’t care to have him around.
“Yes, I think the risks people take nowadays for the sake of realism, when the feat could just as well be faked, are unnecessary,” concluded the man who gathered an Edison stock company that brought world-wide fame to its owners.
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Shipman Leaves Pan-American
Ernest Shipman has disposed of all his interests in the Pan American Film Company and resigned as general manager of that firm. After a few weeks’ vacation Mr. Shipman will become active in connection with new plans to be announced later in these columns.
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Edward Rosenthal, age 69, secretary and treasurer of the Paragon Film Company of Topeka, Kas., was killed on July 13 while taking pictures near Wausau, Wis. A rock, thrown by a nearby blast, crushed his skull.
Collection: Motography Magazine, August 1914
Motography Magazine, 1910s, 1914, Mabel Condon, Sans Grease Paint and Wig, Gertrude McCoy
Collection: Motography Magazine, August 1914