Lucille Carlisle — An Average Girl (1922) 🇺🇸

Herbert Howe is to blame for this. Of course, you all know Herb, thru the pages of Motion Picture Magazine. I ran into Herb in the lobby of the Astor Hotel, one night. (To tell the truth, I had an engagement with him, but I’ll put that part in parentheses, as it will cause many heart pangs among our younger film set, even to the gnashing of teeth.) Said Herb to me: “Let’s go over to the Claridge.” That is his favorite slogan when in New York.

by Helen Carlisle

Who interviews her sister Lucille Carlisle

I, having been in the city but forty-eight hours at the time, was in no mood for argument. Grasping me firmly by the gloved hand, he dragged me forth into the maelstrom of Times Square, thru it and into the peaceful shelter of the Claridge, across the street — the underwear, automobile and cloak-and-suit signs losing a wink or two, in watching our headlong progress thru and under all sorts of traffic. Then he popped the question. No — not the one you mean. Another one.

“By-the-way,” he observed, diving for a shockproof maraschino cherry that floated lazily on top of his lemonade. You know how those things are! “By-the-way, aren’t you related to Larry Semon’s leading woman, Lucille Carlisle?” “Slightly,” I replied, wondering if he’d finally get the cherry. “We’re related by marriage — have the same father and mother, y’know, Herb —” suddenly I had a brilliant inspiration, “if you’d grab for it, with you’re fingers, instead of using that straw —”

Herb grabbed. “Why don’t you interview her, for the Magazine?” he asked, attacking the cherry, fore and aft.

“I know her too well — let’s dance.”

But he was not to be thus thwarted. We danced — and later we interviewed! The latter event took place when My Sister and I were homeward-bound — the train making sixty miles per hour, and nothing in sight but Kansas.

“Tell me, Miss Carlisle,” said I, glancing admiringly at my new silk négligée, which she had donned for the occasion, “do you think comedy training is valuable to a girl who desires to become a dramatic actress?”

“Oh, yes,” she replied, fixing me with her lovely eyes, in which there is just a hint of the mysterious. (No one quite knows what that means, but it always gets over nicely in an interview.) “Certainly, comedy training is valuable. In my work with Mr. Semon, of course, I play straight parts always — I am not a comedienne — but, whatever the role, I must express quickly and definitely the thing I wish to express. Comedy is, not infrequently, simply an exaggeration of tragedy.”

“Very pretty,” I agreed. “You said that exactly as tho we were strangers. What,” I added, “is your opinion of the European films?”

Miss Carlisle gazed thoughtfully at a contented Kansas cow that happened to speed by, quite helplessly, with the rest of the scenery. “Good, bad and indifferent,” she announced brightly, “and, whichever they are, we can beat ‘em.”

“Do you think there might be a market for European comedies in this country?”

“I saw one of their features, just before leaving New York, that struck me as being something of a comedy — a comedy of errors,” reflected My Sister. “Frankly, old dear, I think the importance of the European films has been exaggerated, here. But there is a market for good, clean comedy, everywhere, of course. That is what Mr. Semon endeavors to give the public, always.”

“Call him Larry,” I protested, “so I’ll know whom you’re talking about.”

“I thought you wanted me to be dignified,” she turned upon me bitterly.

“Pardon, social error on my part,” I said soothingly. “Now, do you think, Miss Carlisle, that it is advisable for the average girl to cherish ambitions toward the screen?”

The young actress flattened her nose against the sooty window-pane and studied the Kansas horizon for the next fifteen and one-half miles. No marked change being visible at the end of that time, she returned to me.

“Show me an American girl who will admit that she is ‘an average girl,’ and I’ll answer your question,” she announced. “Whether you find her in a New York subway jam, on this deadly prairie — thank Heaven, we’ll be on the desert tomorrow, where, at least, there is some cactus to look at — or on the fringes of moviedom, in Los Angeles, she’ll never consent to being called ‘an average girl.’ I don’t blame her. I wouldn’t consent to it, either.”

“It’s a good thing that no one but your own sister can see you, with that soot on your face,” I edged in. “They would never believe that Lillian Russell once called you the most beautiful —”

“Let’s get dressed and go in to dinner,” snapped the interviewed one, vigorously applying cold cream to her classic features, and rubbing briskly with a Santa Fe towel. “The interview is closed. I’m hungry.”

In the diner, the lights were glowing brightly on the so-called linen and silver. We were propelled by superior force to a table at which a well known film man (no names mentioned) and a blonde ingénue from Illinois, were already seated.

“And do you really think, Mr. Blank, that there is a chance for me in the movies?” the Blonde One was inquiring hopefully.

“My dear, if you were an average girl, I should say not,” he replied, attacking the Regular Dinner. “But with your beauty —”

My Sister speared an olive. I thought of Herb and the maraschino cherry. The fireman added another ton of coal and the engineer threw ‘er in high.

Outside, in the night, the Kansas prairie reeled by. The Blonde One saw it not. She was viewing castles in Spain! She was not an Average Girl! But My Sister leaned toward me presently and smiled in quite her nicest manner. I knew then that she wanted me to do something for her.

“What is it?” I asked patiently.

“Will you let me title that interview?” she begged. “I’ve just changed my mind on an important subject.”

“What do you wish to title it?” I asked cautiously. No use being too reckless with one’s relatives, is there?

“‘An Average Girl,’” she replied, demurely, gazing at the California poppies that decorate all Santa Fe dinnerware.

“All right,” I agreed. “You can afford to make the admission. So would I — with a nose like yours.”

Which last was good business on my part, for she bought me a Navajo rug in Albuquerque next day.

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“Tell me, Miss Carlisle,” said I, glancing admiringly at my new silk négligée, which she had donned for the occasion, “do you think comedy training is valuable to a girl who desires to become a dramatic actress?” and she answered, “Oh, yes. Comedy is, not infrequently, simply an exaggeration of tragedy.”

Above and at the left, two new portraits of Lucille Carlisle.

All photographs by Evans, L. A.

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Collection: Motion Picture Magazine, April 1922

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Photoplay always had a kindly interest in pretty Lucille Carlisle, fair film foil for Larry Semon. Lucille was one of the winners of photoplay’s Brains and Beauty contest of 1915 — and has been doing very well ever since

Photo by: Edwin Bower Hesser

Collection: Photoplay Magazine, September 1922