Joyce Fair (1916) 🇺🇸

Joyce Fair is happy. She’s been a real honest-to-goodness leading lady — has taken a “growed-up” part which required far more than merely playing with dolls and just being cute. Essanay’s twelve-year-old star has been given an opportunity in a full-fledged ingénue role and the cleverness with which she handled it has multiplied her possibilities on the screen. She appeared as a girl of eighteen years in The Chimney Sweep, a two-act Essanay just completed.

The play is a delightful story of “puppy love,” starting with two children of perhaps twelve or thirteen years of age and ending with their real love affair at a grown age. The homeless little chimney sweep falls in love with the little lady of the mansion and tells her about it, only to be chased away by her irate governess. Some years later, as the adopted son of her father’s best friend, he is one of her suitors.

He reveals himself as the former little chimney sweep and she accepts him.

Joyce’s performance in the part of the grown girl was a surprise to all persons at the Essanay studio. However, her several years of stage and picture experience have developed her talent beyond her years and enabled her to delightfully interpret an ingénue role.

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First of Selig’s Sport Films

Release of June 26th gives remarkably satisfactory illustration of boxing, billiards and wrestling.

by Lynde Denig.

The Athletic Feature Film Series, being produced by the Selig Company in twelve single reels, was launched on June 26 with a picture bound to interest the general public as well as sporting enthusiasts who make a study of boxing, wrestling, or billiards. Subsequent reels, to be released at weekly intervals, will introduce the foremost exponents of every variety of sport that at all lends itself to pictorial treatment.

Mike Gibbons, until recently champion middleweight boxer; Koji Yamanda and Albert Cutler, the billiard experts, and Dr. B. F. Roller and Frank Dalkus, wrestlers, are introduced in the initial release, which is unquestionably one of the most satisfactory athletic pictures ever made. Photographically it is flawless and the scenes are so arranged that an audience gains an intelligent idea of what proficiency means in the sports illustrated.

Opening the reel are scenes showing Mike Gibbons in training, followed by a spirited bout revealing the speed the science that have made him one of the marvels of the ring. More remarkable, because more unusual and difficult to picture, is the exhibition of billiards given by Yamada, the Japanese champion, and Cutler of Boston, long ranked among the leading players of the world. The camera was placed close to the table so that with each shot the movement of the balls might be readily followed. After each man has been given an opportunity to present his style of game there is a startling display of trick shots that appear quite impossible to the novice. The match between Dr. Roller and Frank Dalkus is exciting in itself and instructive in giving close views of the great variety of holds used by trained wrestlers.

In connection with the release of the Selig Athletic Feature Film series the Selig company announces that simultaneously with each film issue there also will be released to the newspapers of the United States a signed feature article in either proofs, plates, or mats. These feature articles will not exceed three quarters of a column in length and will be copyrighted and will bear the author’s signature. Joe Stecher, the wrestling marvel, writes the first installment. Hundreds of newspapers have asked for exclusive service. But one newspaper in each city will be served. J. H. Herman, Selig Company, Chicago, is handling the details.

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Regularly Soused in Corcoran Tanks.

With the bathing season at hand A. J. Corcoran, New York City, is deriving considerable satisfaction from the fact that such prominent players in motion pictures as Billie Burke, Edmund Breese, Anita Stewart, William S. Hart, Marie Doro, Mary Pickford, Lillian Gish, “Fatty” Arbuckle, Lew Fields and Joe Weber are being quite regularly soused in film form in the developing tanks which he makes. He says they always come up smiling for the screen and in no way seem to mind the duckings which they are given.

The Corcoran line is becoming popular and is being used in the trade by such firms as the Universal, Pathé, Thomas A. Edison, Inc., and also by the United States Government at Washington.

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Pathé Club to Have Outing.

The Pathé Club, under the presidency of J. A. Berst, vice-president and general manager of Pathé, has become active. It has a membership of about one hundred and twenty-five, which includes well known men in and out of the industry. A steamer has been chartered for July 23 and an all-days outing will be enjoyed at some point up the Hudson or on the Sound. Athletic contests and various games have been arranged and a number of attractive prizes put up.

The officers of the club are J. A. Berst, president; P. Brunet, vice-president; P. A. Parsons, secretary, and G. Bardet, treasurer. The board of governors include the above and M. Ramirez-Torres, F. H. Knocke, G. A. Smith, A. Rousseau and F. C. Davidson.

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Triangle Issues House Organ.

The first issue of Selling and Management, the official house organ of the Triangle Film Corporation, has just come from the press. “Selling and Management” is an attractive eight-page magazine and is devoted exclusively to matters of interest to all those engaged in any capacity with the Triangle company.

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Figman–Robertson Comedies for Metro

Two well-known players will produce comedies for weekly release.

Max Figman, foremost comedian, and wife, Lolita Robertson, who has proved an excellent foil for him in so many notable screen productions, have been engaged by Rolma Film to make a weekly one-reel comedy feature which will be released on the Metro program. Mr. Figman and Miss Robertson have already begun work on the first comedy of this series called Love Me, Love My Dog. The scenario is by C. Doty Hobart. The Figman–Robertson comedies will be a worthy addition to the popular one-reel subjects which Metro recently added to its program of big features. These new features include the Metro–Drew comedies, starring Mr. [Sidney Drew] and Mrs. Sidney Drew (1890–1925), and the weekly Metro Travelogue. Other one-reel weekly features will be added in the near future, but Metro is not prepared to make a definite announcement as to their characters and the stars who will appear in them.

Mr. Figman enjoyed a successful career upon the speaking stage before he went into motion pictures. He was playing in the all-star cast of Fine Feathers when Jesse L. Lasky induced him to sign a contract for the starring role in The Man on the Box, which marked his debut in the silent drama. He has appeared in many big features since that time. Mr. Figman was born in Vienna, and comes from a family of artists. His first public appearance was in amateur performances at the Philadelphia Drawing Room, in company of the famous Drew, Barrymore and Davenport families. Augustin Daly saw him act at one of these performances and engaged him professionally to appear with his famous company in New York.

He was successful from the start and later was associated with A. H. Palmer, Charles Frohman, Harrison Grey Fiske, and other noted managers of that day. He was later starred for seven years under the management of John Cort.

Miss Robertson hails from California and her first stage experience was with the Alcazar stock company in San Francisco. Later she played with Henry Miller (1859–1926) in The Great Divide, in Brown, of Harvard, and had the leading feminine role in Margaret Mayo’s Commencement Days, produced by Max Figman and John Cort. She also played with Mr. Figman in The Substitute, and then became Mrs. Figman. She has made a decided success since she went into motion pictures. Mr. Figman directs his own pictures, and is assisted by C. P. Huntington.

Collection: Moving Picture World, July 1916