Mabel Trunnelle — Sans Grease Paint and Wig (1913) 🇺🇸
It was four o’clock and the One Hundred and Eightieth street entrance to the Bronx park; it should have been three fifty-five and the Two Hundred and Thirty-fifth street exit. That would have given me time to get to the Edison studio and Mabel Trunnelle at exactly four.
by Mabel Condon
Instead, I had to walk over a suddy floor, around a scrub-pail and energetic scrubber, in a combination restaurant and dance-hall, and when I did find the telephone, my nick1e stuck and the operator refused to answer for five minutes.
When the Edison operator was finally given a chance, she told me to come right over, that Miss Trunnelle was waiting and I replied that I was lost at One Hundred and Eightieth street and the Bronx park and where would I go from there?
Half an hour later, I had transferred twice, located the entrance to the Edison studio after a rigid search, between and under scaffoldings, and found Mabel Trunnelle in front of her dressing-table with a book and a box of chocolates.
“But whoever told you the subway ran out this far?” she inquired and I took the blame for having guessed wrongly, together with a maple-filled chocolate, and Miss Trunnell chose a walnut-topped one saying that she eats entirely too much candy and buys it without her husband knowing anything about it.
“You know, don’t you, that Herbert Prior is my husband?” Something in her voice intimated that if I didn’t, she wanted me to. But I knew it; most everybody does who has seen the tall Mr. Prior, either in comedy or drama, and the slender Miss Trunnelle, for nearly always they play together.
Miss Trunnelle’s eyes would never let you forget her; they bring her instant attention, always, and when you’ve decided that they’re quite the darkest and starriest that you ever saw, you turn your attention to her smile which is ever so sweet and has in it something of pathos. Her hair is black, her skin colorful and her voice happy — in fact, happiness is the note that seems to dominate her whole being.
“And I am happy,” she confessed with a smile that showed her very white and very pretty teeth. “I like my work, I like the Edison people, and my husband and I have the best times in the world. We live just across the street here from the studio, we don’t keep house, a dear lady we know does that for us and a few more of the Edison players, and it’s home for all of us.
“Since we got our car last summer — well, I couldn’t begin to tell you the good times it has meant to us and as many more as it will seat. Nearly everybody here owns a car, though. Elsie McCoy and Bessie Learn each come to the studio in their own cars and they crank them and drive them themselves. I can’t do anything daring like that, though. To begin with, my husband wouldn’t let me and I’m quite satisfied that he won’t, for I’d be scared to death to try. The other day we were driving and I though we were going to have a collision so I demonstrated my bravery by jumping out. ‘See!’ said Herbert, when nothing had happened and I had climbed back. ‘So that’s the way it would be!’“ Mrs. Herbert soothed the memory with a candied violet and crossed the room in answer to a knock.
“Why it’s Herbert — come in!” she invited the tall man in the gray suit who filled the doorway. After introductions and a few “passing remarks” Mrs. Herbert suggested that Mr. Herbert bring the car around and we could talk on our way down-town. As this arrangement eliminated disquieting visions of both the subway and the Fourth avenue “L” it was most acceptable, and Mrs. Herbert began getting coats and furs together as though in anticipation of an antarctic expedition.
“You’d better take this,” thrusting a heavy blanket coat upon me, “and this.” The second “this” was a fur neck-piece. “And I guess I’d better wear this,” slipping into a glossy fur coat. “Mr. Prior thinks this is the funniest hat, but it stays on well, so I’ll wear it.” The hat, a round little patent-leather one with a green band, sat snugly and becomingly down over Mrs. Herbert’s eyebrows; over it she tied a green veil, equipped me with a red one and we started.
“Over Riverside Drive or through Central Park?” Mr. Prior asked, and we decided on Central Park. For the first mile we did nothing but adjust veils and rejoice in the possession of heavy coats. Then, from the depths of the neck-piece, I reminded Mrs. Prior that she hadn’t told me anything about her work as yet, and she responded with the information that only for meeting Mr. Prior, she probably would never have gone into pictures.
“I was playing in ‘The Blue Mouse’ and Mr. Prior was with the Edison Company,” she explained, “when all of a sudden, the Edison Company decided to send him to Cuba. He wanted me to go too, so I came over to see Mr. Plimpton about working with the company and he engaged me. Then Herbert and I got married.”
“Romance?” I asked in the face of a mighty wind, and Mrs. Prior said, “Yes, we had a nice little romance. But I guess I just fell in love with your ‘handsome face and manly form’ at first sight, didn’t I, Herbert?”
Silence, vast and deep, from the front seat and Herbert. Evidently, Herbert knew when he was being teased.
‘So we were married and went to Cuba,” she continued. “I liked the work right from the start. After returning from Cuba, we worked here for a while, then left and went with the Majestic company. A year ago, we came back to the Edison studio and have had a wonderful variety of work.”
“And what do you like best?” I asked believing drama to be her forte.
Unhesitatingly, she answered, “Comedy.”
We swung into Central Park with the lighting of the park lamps, followed the curves and turns of the smooth road past rocky hills, and a clear little lake, then, as far as Cleopatra’s Needle, to the east sweep of the road which relented and became a southerly one letting us out onto Fifth avenue and into the whirl and rush of vehicles at Fifty-ninth street.
“I love Fifth avenue,” Mrs. Herbert sighed contentedly from under the droop of her green veil and the rise of her fur collar. “I’m satisfied just to be here. Mr. Prior prefers a smaller city than New York; he likes Detroit, but nothing but New York would satisfy me; I was born in a small town, — Dwight, Ill., — but my parents live in Chicago, now. I get ever so many letters from Chicago and further west from people who say they like me and really, you can’t imagine how encouraging such letters are to a photo-player; they take the place of an audience, almost.
“Here’s St. Thomas’ church — if you like good sermons you can get them here; and St. Patrick’s — I never get tired visiting St. Patrick’s.”
We were stopped by the traffic policeman in front of Delmonico’s and, after a three-minute wait, turned into Forty-fourth street. Broadway’s lights were all ablaze as we brought up at the Forty-second street entrance to the Longacre building. I relinquished possession of the blanket-coat, fur neck-piece and the three yards or more of red veiling and Mr. and Mrs. Herbert began their return trip to the Bronx.
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Zukor Talks of European Situation
That the European film market is intensely interesting, also that it is problematical, is the opinion of Adolph Zukor, president of the Famous Players’ Film Company, who has but just returned from a visit to European film centers.
That the market is intensely interesting, Mr. Zukor admitted with a smile and the fact that his stay was meant for but two weeks and developed into seven; and that it is problematical, he inferred with the fact that a big per cent of American films sent over there never see an exhibition room.
That is because, unless the brand is known and liked or unless the film has had wide enough publicity to arouse the interest of the exhibitors, they never ask for it. They do not have time to see every film the market offers and, the market being an open one, they take only films they see and like.
“Whose is it?” and “What’s in it?” they ask and then say, “Let’s see it” or “Don’t show it to me.”
“A person would have to have ten pairs of eyes and then he wouldn’t see all the films that are shown to the exhibitor in one day,” declared Mr. Zukor. “And the exhibitor is not partial to American-made films; he’s loyal to the brands of his own continent and there are ever so many of them. So American-made films, unless the brand is a favored one, are second in preference to those of European companies.”
According to Mr. Zukor, a motion picture exhibitor is about the busiest person in London, the seat of European picture sales; all the exhibitor has to do with a twenty-four hour day. over there, is to make an early report at the projection centers, look at films until he has picked from them an entire program, or maybe programs, and then walk up and down the lobby of his theater all evening saying “How-do-you-do” to everybody going in and hearing what they think of the show, as they go out.
“You know, people in the provinces over there haven’t got the craze as they have here,” said Mr. Zukor. “There, people live in the same house for generations and everybody knows everybody else, so it is quite the thing for the people to stop and tell the theater owner what they like or don’t like about the films, and in that way, the exhibitor knows what programs best please his patrons and if they’re obtainable, he gets them.
“That’s the advantage of an open market; the exhibitor doesn’t have pictures crammed down his throat that he has never seen and that neither he nor his patrons care for; in that respect, he is independent. The price of single and several reel films is about the same; sometimes there’s a difference, but it’s very little.
“In being able to choose his program weeks ahead, the exhibitor has an individual musical program to accompany each picture. The director of the orchestra arranges this program in advance of the picture’s showing, not just as he goes along, as is done over here, and in that way the patrons get the benefit of really good music. The musical program, to the Europeans, is considered almost as important as the pictures.
“And because time and thought are given to the choosing of both programs, the same set of pictures run on an average of one week. Sometimes they are changed twice a week, but seldom every night.”
Mr. Zukor’s object in going to Europe, aside from the general desire to see how they do things in the film industry there, was to establish a studio on the out-skirts of London and to get a European opinion on the output of the Famous Players’ studio in New York. He took five prints with him, announcd to the film men what he had and why he wanted to show them, and they looked at the whole five. They were free in their comments, which were altogether favorable, and Mr. Zukor believes that a European studio is going to add much to the name of Famous Players. There, actors and actresses of renown, throughout Europe, will be contracted to play, though it is to be the policy of the company, hereafter, not to announce the name of a star until after the picture is made; that is to guard against any slipup in arrangements.
“The big subjects shape the future of the industry; in this we put our faith and our money, and sometimes we ate only once a day on account of it,” Mr. Zukor laughed. “A pioneer, we opened the way for others, but we are now getting back some returns and see the way to bigger films and bigger prospects, both for our company and for those who believe as we do.”
Then Mr. Zukor found his gray-green hat, with the bow almost-but-not-quite at the back, and left the film situation in the hands of “Benny” Schulberg while he went forth to find some lunch.
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Filming Auto Tour
Motion pictures of the new all-Southern transcontinental route from Los Angeles to New York are being taken for the American Automobile Association and United States government office of public highways. The motion-picture outfit is carried in the pathfinder car and was picked up at Los Angeles. Keels of all the historic places encountered are being made. Particular attention will be paid to road construction and the methods used in different sections of the country will he portrayed on the films.
Attractive scenery will be photographed from the tonneau of the car while it is in motion. All large cities on the route will be photographed to show commercial development in the South.
Collection: Motography Magazine, November 1913