Marguerite Clark's Own Story (1918) 🇺🇸

Can you tell me where I will find Marguerite Clark?”

The studio was dusky-dim, except where the Klieg lights made splashes of vivid yellow, and I had almost stumbled over a little figure coming around a corner.

“You’ll find her right here,” came the half-laughing answer — and sure enough, as my eyes became accustomed to the rather dim light, I realized that I had indeed come upon the very object of my search.

by Dorothy B. Knutting

This was in the long ago days when I first knew Miss Clark, but I have always remembered the talk we had that day at the studio. A friend of mine, an unusually pretty girl, with curls and huge questioning eyes, had begged me to get Miss Clark to tell me how she got into the movies and perhaps some idea as to the quickest road to success. I succeeded to this extent:

“There are so many thrilling and dramatic stories of how various screen players first entered upon their new profession,” she began, “that it is very doubtful whether or not my story will prove very interesting. It is very commonplace in contrast to those which relate how the player was picked from among a hundred ‘extras’ by the director, whom she had entranced by her beauty and very evident talent, or that of the daring little miss, who volunteered to do some hazardous deed when the courage of the leading lady had failed.

“Truth, which is in my case less interesting than fiction, compels me to confess that I went into the motion pictures largely as a matter of business. After several years on the musical comedy stage and in light comedy, I was completing my season in Prunella, when several offers were made to me to appear in motion pictures. But I had been studying the situation very carefully in my spare moments, and had decided that the majority of photoplays were not worth one’s while. It seemed to me some of the best players, who had been successful on the stage, had made miserable failures of their work before the camera, and I determined that I would not rush into the newer field until the time seemed really ripe — and until I could find the most favorable circumstances under which to launch my little film craft.

“It so happened that Adolph Zukor came behind the scenes with Daniel Frohman one night, and we had a very delightful chat. I thought nothing more of it until I received a letter from Mr. Zukor, saying that the Famous Players-Lasky Film Co., of which he is president, had what he believed to be just the right script for me, and that after his chat at the theatre, he was more than ever convinced that I would like the photoplay if I would read it.

“So I agreed to study the script just as I would study a play and I was captivated by it. Here, it seemed to me, was just the kind of a character I would love to play more than anything else. Moreover, the reputation which the company had already built up by its previous introduction of so many stage celebrities, assured me of the proper handling of the script and the backing of a pioneer concern. So it was that I made my debut on the screen in the Famous Players picture, ‘Wildflower,’ a role that I have always adored.

“It seems to me that the greatest mistake which has been made by many of the stage folk, who went into motion picture work, was the complete indifference which they displayed to the technicalities involved in acting before the camera. I once heard from a very reliable source the story of the first day which a popular musical comedy star spent in a motion picture studio. After she had done several ill-timed scenes before the camera, the director stopped her and explained that she ought to do something quite different.

“‘Don’t tell me how to act. I am So-and-So!’ she told him loftily, in a tone that told more plainly than words the fact that she, a great star, resented any suggestions from a mere motion picture director. Her attitude was entirely wrong, as her subsequent failure showed. If the motion picture is worth acting in at all, it is worth serious study by everyone who attempts to essay the art. There are a great many little mannerisms and tricks which will be effective before the footlights that will be totally lost before the camera. There are actions which will even blur on the screen and spoil the picture from a photographic standpoint. These are things which must be observed by the beginner, or taught by some one with experience in these matters, instead of being learned during the course of — and the ruination of — the player’s debut.

“Though I had spent considerable time in motion picture theatres before I agreed to make my debut, I began studying the situation all over again after signing my contract, and spent every bit of spare time available either in the movie theatre or at the Famous Players studio, watching everything that was being done. So by the time that I was ready to actually begin work before the camera, I was pretty clear in my own mind concerning that which could, and could not, be done.

“But the mere studying of some of the complexities which were involved in screen work did not prove the final solution of my problems. No sooner had I settled into the swing of things, than the company decided to star me in an adaptation of Mark Twain’s ‘The Prince and the Pauper.’ To my dismay, I learned that that involved playing two roles on the screen at the same time! Here was something to be learned from start to finish, as it is entirely different from any other form of acting. The great point of the dual role is, of course, that each half of the picture is taken separately whenever the same player appears on the screen in two different characters at the same time. In other words, the person who is playing the double role is alone on the screen, acting to a blank wall.

“Being a successful screen actress is a matter of using one’s imagination entirely, picturing the action as it will ultimately appear on the screen and trying to fit one’s self into the scene so that the finished picture, as it is seen in the theatre, will be a logical episode in the action of the story. Sometimes it involves timing one’s action mathematically to fit that of the other half of the scene. The slightest slip in the action of these scenes means disaster to the whole episode and may cost a great deal of money, as some of the settings are very costly and elaborate. This is the most difficult phase of motion picture acting, to my mind, and it involves a great deal of serious study and thought.

“But one must love the work to succeed. It is inconceivable to me that anyone could be a successful comedian, or comedienne, on the motion picture screen unless he or she sincerely enjoys the humor of the situations or possesses a naturally happy disposition. I have been called upon to play in a great many comic scenes since making my screen debut, and I am perfectly confident that not one person in the millions who have watched those scenes would have so much as smiled if I had approached the action half-heartedly, or had failed to enter with all my heart into the spirit of the scenes myself.

“Of course, I am not referring to slapstick scenes, in which people are nearly killed by falls and beatings. No one expects them to enjoy the incidents and nobody laughs with them. I am speaking only of scenes in which the spectators laugh not at, but with the players. Most of us would laugh at a very dignified man if he slipped on a banana peel and fell, but I do not contend that he must enjoy the situation in order to make it funny. On the contrary, it is his supreme disgust which makes the incident so amusing.

“But in the case of light comedy — and I might even say polite comedy — it is imperative that the player be in tune with the scene. Approach a comic situation in a bad temper, and you will ruin it. You would do yourself and the world at large a great service by refusing to act the scene at all if you cannot really play the role with a light heart.”

Just then the director’s voice was heard calling Miss Clark, and I noticed that a whole hour had slipped by while I had been listening to her delightful “voice with the smile.” As she left me, I had the queer sensation that the whole studio had grown grey again at her departure.

Miss Clark made her professional bow to Baltimore as a member of the famous Aborn Opera Company. After appearing in several musical plays, she became De Wolf Hopper’s leading lady in several memorable successes. Then she became co-star with Jefferson de Angelis in The Beauty Spot. Her first stellar role was the lead in The King of Cadonia. She next played in the all-star revival of Jim the Penman, which was followed by Baby Mine. Miss Clark then appeared at the Little Theatre, New York, in The Affairs of Anatole. Next came Snow White, and then the delightful Prunella, in each of which she was starred.

Collection: Photoplay Magazine, December 1918