The Old-Time Actor in Moving Picturedom (1915) 🇺🇸

It is a remarkable fact that while not a few men and women have acquired fame in picturedom without stage experience, the majority of the permanent members of the various stock companies in the studios are, after all, time-tried players, some of whom have enjoyed prosperity in the newer field for the first time in their long careers.

by Robert Grau

Van Dyke Brooke, of the Vitagraph Company, has been a star, and he has played every type of role. If he has never played prima donna roles, it is about the only achievement he may not be credited with. Thirty years ago the writer saw Mr. Brooke play Armand Duval in Camille.

Robert Brower, of the Edison Company, tho appearing on the stage constantly for more than thirty-five years, refound himself in the film studio, where his realistic portrayals have made him one of the pillars of the Edison organization.

Dan Mason, also of the Edisons, has played in opera, drama and vaudeville. He has been a star of musical comedy, and his name was one to conjure with as far back as one can recall. Yet Mason never scored in all his career a bigger hit than the one he “put over” in the Edison film production, Why Girls Leave Home. Here was a character drawing in which the effort to “play up” to the ensemble was the basic cause for the sensational vogue of a production that will have many revivals in the future.

Harry Eytinge [Harry B. Eytinge], of the Edisons, comes down from a notable theatrical ancestry. He is the exact image of his father, with whom the writer was affiliated in Dayton, Ohio, two generations ago. It is not to be wondered at that such photoplayers as I have already named remain in one organization for years, for they know what flitting about means in the precarious field from whence they came.

Russell Bassett, of Famous Players Company, can boast of a half-century as an entertainer. On the stage his greatest hits were as the Jew in The World and in the Black Flag.

Charles Kent (Vitagraph) has been with that organization longer than any of his colleagues. He was one of the first of the stage calling to direct for the screen. The writer paid Mr. Kent and Eleanor Barry $500 a week jointly in vaudeville a decade and a half ago.

The name of William Humphrey, now a Vitagraph leading player and director, was known to the stage a few years ago even better than it is known on the screen today.

Donald Hall also had a successful stage career.

Edgar L. Davenport, who has been with many film companies, is the son of one of the greatest actors of the nineteenth century, whom he greatly resembles. The father was also E. L. Davenport. Yet Edgar has not seemingly benefited thru his heritage of the name and personality of his distinguished sire. Edgar is a brother of the great Fanny Davenport, and also of Harry Davenport, who plays in Vitagraph productions directed by Sydney Drew. Harry Davenport and Sydney Drew married the two daughters of Mr. and Mrs. McKee Rankin, thus interlocking three famous stage families. The Barrymores are also related to the Drews; the mother of Ethel, Jack [Ethel Barrymore | John Barrymore] and Lionel Barrymore was a sister of John and Sydney Drew.

Louise Beaudet (Vitagraph) was a comic opera queen in the ‘80s. Louise created the role of The Little Duke in French and English. Later she appeared with the tragedian, Daniel Bandmann, achieving fame in roles like Ophelia, Lady Macbeth, Desdemona and Juliet. Still later, the versatile Miss Beaudet drew all New York to see her play Madame Fifi, in which she gave a portrayal so daring that many critics stated that in any other hands the performance would have been impossible.

William Hermann West (Kalem) in his stage career of more than thirty years never indicated that he would score as he has in Western and even in Indian characters on the screen. Mr. West was for a quarter of a century one of the best baritones of comic opera. In the Gilbert and Sullivan repertoire he was without a peer.

Paul Panzer (Pathé) was also identified with light opera and musical comedy thruout his stage career. For a long period he was in the musical section of Augustin Daly’s stock company, and he has this schooling to thank for the naturalness that he brought to his film portrayals.

Thomas Ricketts [Tom Ricketts], tho always a splendid stage director, never was regarded as a distinctly dramatic figure. For more than twenty years Ricketts played the comedy leads in light opera. He had his own operatic organization for a long period, yet almost from the instant that he entered the film studio he revealed creative talent of no mean order. Today Mr. Ricketts is the artistic head of the American Film Company, and in this capacity he has lifted the quality and nature of that brand of films to a high standard, completely eliminating its Western character. Few indeed of the directors for the screen have introduced more innovations, among which the production of a 1,000-foot release without a change of scene is not the least important.

Herbert Brenon, who has just left the Universal to produce for himself and two associates, is a striking illustration of what the infant art of the photoplay will do for those who go to the work seriously. I recall Brenon when he came hither from England, his native land. For a period he held a clerical position in the offices of a vaudeville agent by the name of Joseph F. Vion. At night he was an usher in Weber and Fields’ Bijou playhouse, when these two comedians had all New York at their feet.

Frank Couvier (Vitagraph) was for more than a quarter of a century associated with the highest grade stage stars. No matter how disastrous the conditions were, this actor, noted for his clear-cut character drawings and for his unfailing reliability, was always in some important cast. Much of his career was spent with Julia Marlowe, and, if I am not mistaken, Mr. Couvier is related to her.

Every patron of the photoplay house knows Arthur Mackley — if not by name at least by sight. The historian who undertakes to recite the amazing story of Motion Pictures in the twentieth century will not ignore the influence of Mackley, who surely did immortalize “The Sheriff” on the screen. I recall Mackley as a modest, earnest and virile player whose forte just forty years ago was the portrayal of “villains,” but there is not a trace of the Mackley of the early ‘80s in the typical “sheriff” of today.

An old-timer indeed is “Master” Martin, long with the Imp brand of films; yet on the screen he does not look a day older than when he was really “Master” Martin and one of the original “Big Four,” of which quartet he is the sole survivor. There are not a few old-time minstrels in filmdom, and still more performers of the ancient “variety show” era. Sam J. Ryan, who scored a hit in “The Stain,” never in all his stage career had such an opportunity as in this Pathé-Eclectic production. Ryan was wont to do monologs in the “two a day” until he joined Tom Lewis in a sketch. Ryan’s best work on the stage was in George Cohan’s “Little Johnny Jones.”

N. S. Wood (Thanhouser) is still called “the boy actor”; moreover, he can yet present the illusion of youth when the role requires it. “Wood began his career under the writer’s management forty-one years ago. Strangely enough, “Hamlet” was his first effort. Advertised as “the boy Hamlet,” Wood gave a remarkable performance. What his career would have been had he not capitulated to the lure of melodrama one may only conjecture.

But of all the old-time actors who have found a new vogue in filmdom, the name of George Middleton stands out prominently. Here we have one of the real patriarchs of the stage who, in the evening of life, found a new outlet for his artistry in the film studio. If Middleton would himself recite the story of his amazing career, theatrical history would indeed be enriched. In all picturedom one may not gaze upon a more inspiring spectacle than that which these survivors of a precarious stage era present in the drama of silence.

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Collection: Motion Picture Magazine, June 1915