Gloria Gordon — At Last She Beat the Jinx (1927) 🇺🇸

Dark, slim, pretty, and eighteen — picked as potential star material by the man who gave Clara Bow, Alyce Mills, and others their first chance.

That’s Gloria Gordon, who is being primed for featured roles by J. G. Bachmann, producer of Preferred Pictures. Her first appearance for him was in Dancing Days.

No spectacular coup of fortune has marked Gloria’s grasp on recognition. Rather her climb has been typical of the hard, slow process — of disappointments and setbacks. Two years ago, she played hooky from high school in Florida and joined a movie troupe for a day’s work. Disappointment No. 1 — the company proved to be a fraudulent organization to bait the screen-struck. It even attempted to exact pay from its casts instead of giving it! When Gloria discovered that there wasn’t even any negative in the camera’s magazine, she threatened to call in the police and thus rescued her deluded coworkers.

On a visit to her sister in Cleveland a few months later, she was in the elevator of an office building when an artist who was drawing a series of illustrations for the novel, The Flapper Wife, spoke to her and asked her to pose for him. The story was eventually sold for the screen and little Miss Gordon found a contract in her hand to make a series of personal appearances with the showing of the film in vaudeville houses.

Hoping that this would prove a wedge toward her own entry into pictures, she came to New York, where she found continuous extra work, but nothing more. Although casting directors liked her, the big plums were for the better known. Successive visits to Mr. Bachmann’s office brought always the same response, that he was either “out” or “in conference.” Finally, one day, Gloria decided to wait until he came either “in” or “out of conference.” After a few hours, the producer stepped off the elevator and Gloria introduced herself. That was Friday, and Saturday she was signed, not as an extra, but as leading lady in The Romance of a Million Dollars, with Glenn Hunter.

But the jinx wasn’t broken yet. On her third day of work, a miscalculated leap from a moving automobile resulted in a sprained ankle, and Alyce Mills stepped into the lead.

But Mr. Bachmann comforted the disconsolate Gloria with promises of another chance as soon as she recovered. And he was as good as his word, for the billing on Dancing Days featured Gloria Gordon in large type.

Photo by: Apeda Studio

Collection: Picture Play Magazine, January 1927