Harry A. Pollard — The Personal Side of the Pictures (1914) 🇺🇸

Harry Pollard, leading man and director of the famous Beauty playlets, which hold an unique place in the photoplay world, is one of the best all-round men in pictures. He has tremendous determination and keen critical faculties, with a great deal of artistic ability. Within the last few months he has received an astonishing number of letters from exhibitors all over this country and in England, congratulating him on his wholesome, interesting productions which never fail to “get over”.

Mr. Pollard is a native of Republic City, Kansas. His father was a rancher, and the family migrated to Arkansas, and then to California, where they had a large cattle farm in Fresno. Harry grew up on horseback, and his active life in the open laid the foundations of a splendid physique. No doubt also it is back of his unusually vigorous mentality, the resolution and enterprise which have brought him success.

As a child he went to school in San Jose, and it was here, at the age of twelve, that he first got the idea of going on the stage. A lecturer of considerable fame in the West, offered a prize to the San Jose school boy who should win a declamatory contest. The boys competing were in their teens, and some even older, but when one of them fell sick, Harry begged to take his place. The story of his triumph in prose recitation over youths of eighteen and twenty, is legend to-day in San Jose, as is also the remark of Miss Clara Hogg, the teacher who said; “That boy is destined for the stage.”

Harry overheard her, of course — and decided then and there that he would be a famous actor. He studied the plays of Shakespeare until he had them by heart. And as he rode about the ranch, he acted many a classic scene to the cows and steers, who must have marvelled at this new species of herdsman. When he was eighteen he went to San Francisco, with very little money but no lack of determination. He applied at the Alcazar Theater, and was fortunate enough to engage the interest of Charles Bryant, who put a spear in his hand and told him to go on that same night in Bonnie Prince Charlie.

It is typical of Pollard that having got his foot in, he knew how to make the most of his opportunity. Mr. Bryant allowed him the use of his dramatic library. He obtained a list of the plays which the management was planning to produce, and studied them. He also committed to memory most of the parts then being played by the leading man of the Alcazar, and on the first occasion that one of the stars fell ill, there being no time to secure a substitute, he offered himself.

The play was The School for Scandal, and the manager let the newcomer, who had been taking only minor parts, go on as understudy — with considerable apprehension. Pollard’s performance astonished everybody, and from that night he was advanced to first rank in the company. The next decisive event which moulded Pollard’s fortunes was his meeting with Margarita Fischer. The occasion was a dramatic sketch, in which they were engaged to play opposite each other, oddly enough entitled, When Hearts Are Trumps. In Miss Fischer he found a leading woman of rare sympathy, whose ideals for the elevation of the stage were identical with his own. When they appeared together — afterwards in their own company — they immediately became great favorites all through the West. Mr. Pollard’s initial experience in pictures was with the Selig Polyscope in Chicago, with Miss Fischer opposite. Engagements with the Imp and the Universal followed, and for many months, at the Hollywood studios of the latter, Pollard was both leading man and producer of successful and artistic photoplays.

When the American Company decided to add another brand to their output, it was agreed that the man for the positions of producer and star in “Beauty” films, was Mr. Pollard. The American aimed to make the new playlets exceptional, in point of superior subjects, artistic production and public appeal. Their choice of leading man and director has made this practicable.

Mr. Pollard’s ideal for the photoplay is that it shall develop away from melodrama and extreme sensationalism. “We can always be improving,” he says — “especially in the direction of natural stories and acting.”

The young “American-Beauty” producer has bought a bungalow at Santa Barbara, and in his small leisure; he tours the beautiful California country in his new car. He and Margarita Fischer (who is now Mrs. Harry Pollard) are great social favorites. Recently they were invited to take scenes in the grounds of some of the most exclusive estates, and The Dream Ship was photographed near the Gillespie mansion in Montecito.

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• A “Close-up” of Harry Pollard
• Harry Pollard and Margarita Fischer as they appeared in The Dream Ship, a Popular Beauty Production

Collection: Reel Life Magazine, October 1914

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see also

• Harry Pollard — Biographical Sketch (1927)
• other entries of The Personal Side of the Pictures series