Janet Gaynor — One of the Favored Few (1926) 🇺🇸

They call her the “little Quaker girl” — Janet Gaynor.

A wee sprite, with big brown eyes and auburn hair. Weighs ninety-six pounds and is just five feet tall. Afraid of the crowds of men who haunt the casting offices. Took her a long time to make up her mind to walk right in among them, push her chin over the edge of the sill at the casting window, and ask for something to do.

But, after less than a year of endeavor, she was selected as a Wampas star for 1926! Not bad, is it?

Fate and circumstance have a lot to do with guiding the destinies of girls who seek fame in Hollywood. Talented, bright, energetic, one girl may move into the realm of pictures and bravely, heroically spend months and even years seeking the opening which will let her come into the glare of the Cooper-Hewitts and the Kleigs. Another, probably with no greater charm, drifts in, is caught in some magic whirl, and glides smoothly, swiftly into the hallowed circle where shine the celebrated cinematic stars. Something in her manner, her poise, her personality, attracts the eye of a casting director, and the gates swing ajar.

Janet Gaynor is one of those favored few. Not that she doesn’t possess talent and charm and unmeasured ability, but from the very first, every one seemed to want to extend a hand to this little maid from Quakerland — and did. But it took a tack — the sharp-pointed end of a common carpet tack — to give her a chance to gain attention. Here is how it happened:

Janet arrived in Hollywood in December. 1924. She had been born in Philadelphia, but had early moved with her family to Chicago, thence to Melbourne, Florida, and eventually to San Francisco, there to graduate from Polytechnic High School at the age of sixteen. And there it was that she and her mother first began to talk of the movies as a career for her.

“I know you can do it!” her mother said.

“I don’t know,” Janet replied.

But she decided to try. When she reached Hollywood, though, and saw crowds of young men and women applying to casting directors and being turned away, she weakened. Time and again, she walked nearly up to one of these directors, then turned and walked away. And she is such a wee bit of a thing that no one noticed her. Finally, however, she was introduced at the Hal Roach studio, and got two days of extra work. Imagine her surprise when F. B. O. then sent for her, to come over and do a bit in “The Pace Makers” with Alberta Vaughn!

“Nothing very big,” the casting office said. “You will sit on a tack.”

Janet looked somewhat startled. That wasn’t exactly her idea of being a screen actress. She didn’t mind doing emotional parts, but she did not want such an urge as the pointed end of a tack to assist in “registering” surprise or annoyance or pain, or whatever it is one registers when sitting on a tack. But she took the job. And was careful.

Then Universal sent for her, and she played in six comedies, after which her great chance came. James Ryan, casting director for Fox Films, wanted some one who could do an emotional part in “The Johnstown Flood,” and Janet was one of six girls he presented to Irving Cummings to be considered for the rôle of Ann Burger. The minute Director Cummings laid eyes on her, he believed that she was the one he was seeking. He put her through a dozen screen tests, made her run the gamut of emotions, made her weep copious tears — the kind he wanted to have wept in the film. And it wasn’t hard for her to do. She would have wept if he had barked at her. Or scolded her. Or jumped at her. So, she was not only cast for the rôle, but Fox officials saw in her what they thought was the making of a talented actress, and placed her under contract for a period of five years.

And she is still a little bit dazed by the rapidity with which it has all happened.

“I’m very ambitious,” she said. “I do not know just what kind of rôles I shall like best. But I believe I’d rather play the slavey type!”

And that is exactly Janet Gaynor’s attitude toward pictures. She is marveling at all she has seen. She wants direction, training, schooling in screen technique, and she is willing to work hard to get it. Her timidity is still apparent. But she’ll get over that. Unless some one barks at her. For, then the “little Quaker girl” is apt to run home.

—

—

Collection: Picture Play Magazine, October 1926