Gertrude Olmstead — An Irish Esther (1924) 🇺🇸
The flower of Hollywood was culled to be tested for the rôle of Esther in Goldwyn’s production of Ben-Hur. Among the eligibles was Gertrude Olmstead, as she had just completed her Universal contract.
When somebody mentioned that the test was for the coveted rôle of Esther, Gertrude, of course, became excited. “A brunette in a blond wig with an Irish face to play a Jewish character! Am I really conscious?”
She is still slightly dazed from the shock of their final choice of her and is tremendously eager to make good. Naturally, for it may mean a big thing to a career that heretofore has promised nothing exceptional.
Esther is a sweet, gentle character of deep spiritual feeling. Her drama would tax the capabilities of any young actress and one feels a certain curiosity to see what Gertrude, pretty, but rather untested, will give to it by way of depth and realism.
A beauty-contest winner, Gertrude had been feted by the home-town Elks, and made a great fuss over. In Hollywood, she found herself merely one of many.
She went through a terrific and nerve-wracking training at Universal — in comedies, Westerns, everything made on fast schedules. Her lack of talent was pointed out to her often in unsympathetic fashion — for the directors have little time to train novices, or to humor girls whose feelings have been hurt. Her first years out here were not easy. But their lessons she tried, the best she could, to understand.
“I can realize now how dumb I was. Even now I’m not half as clever as Colleen and Pat and Helen and Carmel [Colleen Moore | Helen Costello | Helen FErguson | Carmel Myers]. I can’t think of smart, witty things to say. I’m just ordinary, the same as if I lived back in Illinois and went to parties and didn’t act in the movies at all. But anyway,” with a flash of spirit, “I’m not as dumb as I used to be!”
No, the past three years have not made Cinderella into a great beauty, a splendid actress, an intellectual paragon. Gertrude is still just a pretty girl of perhaps less outstanding qualities than some of her companions in Our Club. Gray eyes and a wealth of brown hair frame a sweet but rather inexpressive face; grace, girlish charm she has; and for hobbies: dancing, eating chocolates, tending to her pansy-beds and going to the movies.
Recently she played rather girlish, insipid rôles in “George Washington, Jr.” and Cameo Kirby, and Gene Stratton Porter selected her as an ideal type to play the second lead in “The Girl of the Limberlost.” But none of these rôles gave her a chance to develop acting ability.
In no way extraordinary — and yet perhaps in these very nebulous qualities of her lies the reason for her being given the rôle in Ben-Hur, because the policy of casting the production is to secure actors whose personalities are. not great public favorites. The picture is to be featured rather than any individualities and, were the actor’s personality too familiar, his talent too proven, it might detract from his realistic impression of the new rôle.
Will capable direction, as in other sudden successes, bring out unsuspected ability in Gertrude Olmstead and give us another of those surprises that from time to time add interest to the movies?
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Photo by: Clarence Sinclair Bull (1896–1979)
Collection: Picture Play Magazine, July 1924