Pearl White — Sans Grease Paint and Wig (1914) 🇺🇸

If it hadn’t been for her thumb-ring, Pearl White would have had the afternoon off and probably a drive in a hansom cab in Central Park. Though the last occasion on which she hansomed in Central Park, she was thrown out on her lace and bruised it and her arms, and tore a gown that she had never worn before and certainly would never be able to wear again.

by Mabel Condon

“Never,” I marveled when Miss White described to me the happening on that almost-off day in her partly-dismantled dressing room (partly dismantled because its use is seldom, as not many of the The Perils of Pauline pictures are made near the Pathé studio). “Never,” I expressed my wonder, “have I seen a hansom-cab horse that might be guilty of so energetic an act!”

“Well,” Miss White explained, “this horse tripped at the top of a hill and when he fell, I was thrown out.” So after all, it seems, the horse had been innocent of any ambition to depart from the pace traveled only by hansom-cab horses.

“But that’s the way,” went on Miss White flurishing the hand that wore the thumb-ring. “I take risks, big risks, every day of my life, being the perilous Pauline. But the minute I’m out of danger and attempt to do so gentle a thing as take myself a ride in a hansom-cab, I hurt my bones and shed real blood. See that mark, and that one, and the one on this other arm?” I saw. “Well,” they’re just a few of the ones that are left. I have several on my knees.”

For no reason at all, I’ll remark right here that Miss White is from Missouri; Sedalia was the town and doubtless there are many people there who remember her, as White is her real name.

“And I’m not even mentioning my ruined gown!” Miss White was saying.

“Certainly not!” I obliged. “I merely guessed that you had one on and that it got torn.”

“It was nothing,” generously conceded Miss White, and continued: “It was Sunday afternoon and I was taking myself a ride in a hansom-cab; I was minding my own business — my own business — and I was feeling nice because it was Sunday afternoon and I knew my new hat to be becoming. And look what happened!”

“Immediately I stop risking my life and act like an ordinary human being, I’m tossed on my face and attract a crowd!” Miss White’s clear, decisive and pleasing voice was indignant; Miss White’s red-brown green eyes were not. One might almost have suspected Miss White of enjoying the remembrance of her tumble from the hansom-cab.

“But that’s the way, as I said before; I can do the most daring things and not get a scratch, but the minute I try something easy I nearly lose my life. That’s a funny kind of a jinx to have, isn’t it?”

“Most unusual,” I replied.

“In the Perils of Pauline, resumed she of the Perils, “the most risky things I’ve had to do have been the most successful. But do you remember that picture where I was being carried up the stairs with my hands bound? That picture should have been the most harmless of any. Yet, when the man who was carrying me got as far as the seventh step — only the seventh! — he stubbed his toe and I was thrown to the floor on my head. As my arms were tied, I couldn’t break the fall so my head and spine got the full force of it. I couldn’t do a thing for weeks afterward. And had the fall been from the top of the stairs it wouldn’t have seemed so bad — but only the seventh step!

“Then another instance of my ‘small time’ jinx happened in the Chinese picture when Owen and the Chinamen hid me in a secret room of the Chinese restaurant. The door through which they took me was a low one and the Chinaman carrying me neglected to lower me sufficiently, when we were going through, and it nearly took the top of my head right off.

“But anything as really dangerous as that run-away balloon — and it was the most dangerous peril of any, so far — or being chased down the hill by a big boulder, or coming down from Execution lighthouse in a breeches-buoy — and that was not at all easy though it looked to be — all these were safe ventures compared to the risk I’d run if I attempted to walk around the block.”

Miss White sighed, knocked wood and turned her thumb-ring around twice.

“Did you know,” I asked — and I wonder how many people have wondered the same thing — “Did you know what you would be called upon to do when you undertook to be Pauline?”

“No, entirely and absolutely ‘No.’ I knew there was to be a series of pictures and I realized the series would be a big thing. I said to the three men representing the Pathé company —

“‘Why did you choose me?’ And they replied — the three of them — ‘Because the part calls for an Actress!’

“Of course, that settled it! My life’s ambition has been to be called a real actress — and these three men told me I was it; so immediately I signed. And,” she added, “there hasn’t been a chance for acting yet. What those three men meant was Athlete, not actress! Well, I am an athlete so it seems I’m in the right place after all. But to be told I was an Actress!”

The red-brown-green eyes sought the ceiling, rather their glance did, and the White hands found each other in an ecstatic clasp, the thumb-ring on top and showing to advantage.

“Comedy or drama?” I asked half-expecting that because Miss White is talented as a comedienne her ambitions would wander drama-ward.

“Comedy,” she answered as the thumb-ring was lost to sight among the folds of her dress. “I did comedy for the Powers company, which was the one I started in; I was there about a year, then came to the Pathé company and stayed a year. The Crystal company was formed and I was invited to play leads so I went. I was there for a year and a half, though six months of this time, really, was a vacation-trip through Europe.

“I spent months of that time in Italy. Wonderful Italy! Vive Italia! I am an Italian, you know!” I had known but had forgotten.

“Yes, my mother was from Italy and my father was from Ireland. But I feel Italian and sometime I intend to live in Italy. I would like to be over there now; it would be thrilling, with the war on!”

“It would be a Peril, no doubt of that,” I agreed and she replied she’d like nothing better than to go over and make pictures on the border. The border! There must be millions of borders over there.

“Of course —” Miss White turned the thumb-ring first one direction then the other. What she then said had nothing to do with the “Of course.”

“This ring was given to me by an Italian nobleman. It’s a crest ring and an heirloom. There’s a crown sunken in the center of the blood-stone — See? That’s my birth-stone. March fourth was the date and the last one made my twenty-five. And almost fifteen of those years have been theatrical. I started as ‘Little Eva’ when I was five, was in a circus doing trapeze stunts for two years, and went to school only about every other year and that in various cities. My last engagement before pictures, was at the Casino at Asbury Park. But the salt water affected my voice and I had to do something to rest it, so I turned to pictures.”

“And what after the Perils?” I asked and she told me.

“Big time vaudeville. I have a splendid offer and I think the publicity Pauline’s perils have brought me will make it worth while. After that, I undoubtedly will go into pictures again. Meanwhile, I’m buying a farm; my father’s going to run it for me and when I want a real rest, I’ll go up there just any time. It’s in upper New York state. But there are going to be twenty-six releases of the Perils of Pauline instead of thirteen as was originally planned, so there are many adventures before me yet.

“I think,” Pearl White decided as we went up and then down two long halls that eventually led us out to the door and the lawn, “I think that I’ll miss the exciting adventures of Pauline when the series is completed though really, doing them isn’t any fun!”

The girl who impersonates the daring Pauline is one whose face is wondrously pretty, whose hair is a wonderful red and whose manner is wonderfully frank; so frank that nobody could have a doubt as to her always meaning exactly what she said and always saying exactly what she means.

“There,” said Miss White indicating a chair, a newspaper and a tripod which decorated the lawn in front of the studio. “There is the setting for the one ‘close-up’ I had to do today. I simply have to sit down and hold that newspaper in front of my face. And nobody else could have been substituted because my thumb-ring is a part of the ‘close-up.’”

So that’s the explanation of why the thumb-ring was responsible for the day that should have been “off,” but wasn’t.

—

Viewing the “Pics”

Censorship day at the Essanay studio means not a crowd, but the assemblage of a select few. Just how select you have reason to know.

Remember that first day you tore madly down Dearborn street, not caring who bumped who, and arrived at room 521 all out of breath but feeling pleased that you made it at nine-thirty? And who greeted you? Nobody. But you greeted a calm-looking man with the remark that you came to see pictures. The calm-looking man continued to remain so. You changed to the other foot, asked if this wasn’t Essanay’s, and the calm individual enunciated “Yes” quite clearly, while you repeated the object of your mission — remember?

When you had swallowed twice and had indelibly imprinted the features of G. M. Anderson [Gilbert M. “Broncho Billy” Anderson], which gazed at you from the wall, upon your mind, you tried to again tell the mountain of calmness why you were there; but you had lost your voice. Finally, the calm gentleman requested to know who had sent you and you managed to put the blame on the goat man, the editor and the advertising man, not to mention your detailed account of the day — before visit of V. R. Day and his suggestion that you view the “pics” the next day in company with the censorship board.

Then, but not until then, were you waved to a seat on the side-lines to await the tardy arrival of the “board” and the picture machine operator. A tall, young lady with pretty, dark hair and eyes arrived and everybody — the stenographer and the calm gentleman — duoed “Good morning, Miss Kauffman.” Miss Kauffman returned a sweet “Good-morning” and addressed the calm person as Mr. Lynch. Then she made herself at home at the big desk in the middle of the outer office and you picked up a newspaper which, after ten minutes of perusal, you noticed bore the date of the day before.

Mr. Lynch signaled you that all was ready, donned a hat as proof against hall draughts, and showed you the way to the little blue theater on the fourth floor. En route, he informed you that he had been away for several weeks and that was why he didn’t know you. You knew the “why” was that you had never been to the Essanay office before, but wisely kept the knowledge to yourself, took your choice of the theater’s ninety-eight seats and concluded that the “board” was the big man to whom Mr. Lynch presented the fat, black cigar. Miss Kauffman swelled the attendance to four, and the operator began the pictures.

At the end of the fifth reel all four of you had aired your views as regards scenery, players and photography; Mr. Lynch had forgotten his calmness and you had done likewise. And when you buttoned your coat and were ready to depart, Mr. Lynch told you to come again and he’d show you some more good ones — remember?

Meanwhile, the “board” makes notes on the paper with the film titles on, which is given him by Mr. Lynch, the while he blows smoke-rings and enjoys the films. ‘Tis a gay life and a pleasant one, that of the “board,” and you register the wish, on successive Fridays, that it were yours. Between Fridays, you never think about it.

So you realize now, don’t you, how perfectly select, the Friday assemblage at nine-thirty is? And if anybody should ask you how you happen to get in on censorship day, refer him to Mr. Lynch.

Collection: Motography Magazine, August 1914