Hazel Dawn — Shot at Dawn (1919) 🇺🇸

There are two things that strike you the minute you meet Hazel Dawn. One is that she is pretty and dainty. The other that she has so much common sense, along with decided opinions of her own. Somehow you dont quite expect it of an ash blonde. It’s the unwritten law of the Medes and — blondes.

by Aileen St. John-Brenon

Hazel Dawn is the type of blonde who knows what she wants when she wants it, and she believes in sticking to a thing until she gets it. Not that she makes a fuss if she has to wait or if things go wrong. She does not believe in getting temperamental and she is not over-fond of people who do, but she does believe in carrying out a principle, even if force has to be used to get it.

And she has been known on more than one occasion to do it. There is the story, for instance, of how she treated the young Harvard undergraduate whose attentions became annoying when she was playing in a musical comedy up in Boston.

She was coming out of the theater one evening, when a youth, who was very much smitten with her charms over the footlights, stepped up and murmured, “Oh, you sweet thing!” Miss Dawn did not appear to notice his observation. Whereat the young man, thinking he had been too reserved, advanced somewhat closer.

“You for me,” he chuckled.

Miss Dawn hurried towards her car, while the youth, fearing he might thus lose sight of her forever, took her by the arm, and said, “Dont be so stingy with yourself!”

Miss Dawn decided to follow his advice. Biff! Bang! He fell the impact of her sinewy right arm, and the first thing he knew he was staggering away in the arms of his much discomfited companions.

It is useless, after that, to remark that Miss Dawn is fond of outdoor life and that she is very athletic. You dont go around registering uppercuts unless you are pretty sure that your muscles are in very fine shape.

You will admit, too, that you must have the courage of your convictions to confess that you are a Mormon. Well, Hazel Dawn is a Mormon, and she admits it. In fact, she fails to understand why any one should be surprised when she says that she goes to the Mormon church here regularly.

Of course, she does not practice polygamy. She has not even gone so far as to adopt even one husband.

Well, to begin with, it must be explained how Miss Dawn came to be a Mormon. She was born in Utah — Ogden, to be explicit — and her parents were members of the Mormon church. Miss Dawn and her sister used to sing in the choir and go on concert tours in between services.

It seems a far cry from a church choir to a risqué farce or a motion picture studio. But Miss Dawn is one of five talented sisters and, in the natural course of events, they all went to Europe to have their gifts perfected. One studied the violin, (that was Miss Dawn), another the ‘cello, and so on, and they all learnt to sing. And now they have a home-grown orchestra, with soloists and everything.

One day Miss Dawn’s teacher asked her why she didn’t invade musical comedy. She made her first appearance in London.

That was the beginning of it all. Then The Pink Lady came along, and Miss Dawn had all the qualifications, violin and all, and she was imported right back to her native country.

Some hawk-eyed motion picture man saw her and she was snapped right up for the screen, making her debut in One of Our Girls, a Famous Players production. And then, after a while, life for Miss Dawn was just one picture after another.

Perhaps you have been wondering why you have not seen Miss Dawn lately on the screen. Well, you will soon, if all goes well. That “if all goes well” is entirely up to Miss Dawn.

She explained it all in her dressing-room the other day at the Eltinge Theater, where she has the leading role in the farce Up in Mabel’s Room.

“The sort of work I love best of all is certain phases of picture work. There is nothing that appeals to me so much as working in the open, or exteriors, as they are colloquially known. I love to get up on a brisk, bright morning, tramp miles across the woods or drive way out into the country, and there begin while the day is still fresh.”

Now it is up to some enterprising young literary genius to supply Miss Dawn with the right kind of a story. Otherwise Miss Dawn wont be able to begin her days exactly right.

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It is an unwritten law that brains do not go with blond prettiness. Hazel Dawn is the exception that proves the rule. Above, Miss Dawn as she appears in the stage success, Up in Mabel’s Room

© Ira L. Hill

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Collection: Motion Picture Classic Magazine, June 1919