Grace Cunard — Became a Photoplayer on a Dare (1916) 🇺🇸

This clever actress, who had been playing in stock since she was thirteen years old, remarked to a friend one evening that she wanted a change, and was thinking of entering vaudeville.

by Mabel Warren

The friend suggested the Moving Pictures, and dared Miss Cunard to try them. It was upon this dare that the actress applied for a place. That was four years ago, and the work has been so fascinating to her that not once has she had a thought of returning to the stage.

But, tho the spirit of fun took her in, she is an assiduous worker, and in all her roles is most exacting with herself.

Conscientiousness gives to her work a finished touch that could come only from a thoro understanding of her art.

From the ingénue and comedy to the dramatic parts has she played, but her preference is for strong roles, particularly those of mystery and adventure. To play the adventuress — the most wicked one and of the deepest cunning — is her greatest delight. These characters of deep motives she is aptly able to play, for there is about her a sort of magnetism that holds the interest of her audience.

Next to acting, Miss Cunard enjoys writing scenarios, but she is not one of the fortunate authors who claim that wonderful ideas come drifting into their brains. She sometimes spends days wrestling with her plots — untangling some complications and creating others — and thinks this a hard way to earn a living, and, being the author of four hundred photoplays, her judgment should be good.

With all her work, this busy actress finds time for other things. Of reading she is fond. Her favorite authors are Dumas and Kipling, and the library in her artistic chalet in Hollywood, California, where she makes her home with her mother and sister, contains all the works of these writers. From them she gets many references for her plays.

When her work and reading are finished for the day, and she is not busy designing her gowns, her greatest delight is to get into her big car, thoroly relax, and race along the country roads. A 50-mile clip is her bracer after a hard day’s work.

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Collection: Motion Picture Classic Magazine, January 1916