Raymond B. West — Gas Meter to Megaphone (1918) 🇺🇸
“Learn the gas business and then go West” advises Raymond Ditto to the ambitious.
by E. V. Durling
“I want a job.”
“What can you do?”
“Anything.”
“All right — go into the property room and help carry out that piano for the set on stage two.”
So it was that Raymond B. West entered the motion picture business seven years ago. He started as a property boy. He became in turn assistant camera man, camera man, assistant director, and finally director. Strange to say, Mr. West is probably the only motion picture director who started at the very bottom of the ladder and worked his way up to the top. Which is probably why he gets $750 per week, some $40,000 a year. And there is no perhaps about it — he gets it every week.
The object of this essay is not to point out the many and varied abilities of Raymond B. West or to comment upon his personal habits. Whether he owns an automobile, plays golf, or beats his wife is neither here nor there. If such are his hobbies so be it. This story is written to assure the young men of the country who are gas collectors, expert accountants in grocery stores, night clerks or those engaged in any of the occupations which will produce after twenty or thirty years of continuous service the magnificent salary of $25 per week, that there is yet hope. For Raymond B. West, now a director, wearing twenty dollar puttees, was once a collector for a gas company in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
West did not come to Los Angeles to go into the picture business. He came to work for another gas company. While wandering along the main street of the city he encountered a friend from the old home town — a certain Chester Withey who is now a motion picture director of no little fame. At this time “Chet” was an actor, and strange to say he was proud of it. He told West about it and added as a final punch to his tale, “and I’m getting $75 a week.” At once the gas business lost one of the greatest collectors it ever had.
And the next day a solitary figure made its way to the New York M. P. Co. Fred Balshofer, who handles the destinies of Harold Lockwood at the present time, was directing a scene just outside the studio gates. West — for it was indeed our hero — stood gazing open-mouthed upon the actors and wondering what a man would do with seventy-five whole dollars coming in every week. With true cinema courtesy Mr. Balshofer suddenly ceased his work, turned toward Mr. West, and inquired: “What the hell are you doing here?”
Then followed the lines at the top of this story which serve to introduce the reader to the enterprising ex-collector.
Mr. West’s ideas on the subject of a young man’s opportunity in the picture business are interesting. He says: “The motion picture magnates are continually characterizing the film industry as fifth in importance in the United States. If this is really the case it is time they instituted big business methods. The Standard Oil Company, The Western Electric, The Bethlehem Steel Company and similar organizations do not wait for young men to choose their industry. They go out and get them and carefully develop them. They are then given an executive position.
“This does away with the chance of ability being buried. Now I believe this same system could be applied to the motion picture business. We have just as much to offer in a salary way as any other big industry.
“This system would do away with the argument as to whether or not a man needs stage experience to succeed in the picture business. What he needs is picture experience and there is only one way to get it and that is to work up from the bottom. Most certainly if I have my own organization, and I expect to some day, I will go out after the young men and develop them and not sit around sighing about the lack of directors, camera men or technical workers. The same system can be applied to the scenario department, the business office and the vast branch of the industry known as the exhibitors. I say seek the brains, the energy and the artistry of the country and they will make the plays and players.”
There is no doubt about it, Raymond B. West has the right idea, and when it is all over, over there, the young men and the film magnates should get together.
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As a director Raymond West not only finds life more enjoyable but his friendships have multiplied tremendously. After all, there are not many people wild about gas collectors — or collectors of any denomination for that matter.
Photos by Evans’ Studio
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Successful filmsters have been known to deny that they had families; but you can hardly expect an ex-meter reader to go back on his charming wife and son.
Evans’ Studio
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see also Raymond B. West — The Personal Side of the Pictures (1914)
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Ingénues
by Delight Evans
WHY are Ingénues?
I laugh at them.
These Pretty Babies
With curls,
And Starry Eyes,
And lips that Pout,
And — sometimes — Chins.
Usually they are
Alone in the World,
Except for a
Venerable Relative
Who hovers Vaguely
In the Back-ground
They are almost always
Wistful; and they see
Visions of Broadway
In every passing cloud.
They all have
Imaginations and a Trustful Smile
To help them along.
They are always
Afraid; and you can’t help wondering
Why Grandad never took Summer Boarders
Before.
They Dream.
We know they do —
For when one Dreams
One’s face is always a Blank —
Now isn’t one’s?
They are so Lovable
It’s darned hard to find
Anything they don’t Love.
They love
Artists, and the Cows and Chickens and
The Flowers and the
Blue Sky
And the Dear
Old Dinner-Bell — EVERYthing except
The Hired Boy
Who, as everyone knows,
Is Good and True,
Though Poor.
Usually
They go to
The City; —
And if it isn’t a
Cruel Landlady
It’s the Floor-Walker.
But The Hired Boy, who has Come to The City
Because the Country didn’t seem the Same
Without her Checkered Sunbunnit
To Confuse the Color-scheme, —
Stumbles in just in time.
And they Embrace,
Their Lips meeting in the Long, Long Kiss
Which is the Heart of the Silent Drama.
(Thank Heavens it’s Silent!)
WHY are Ingénues?
I laugh at them.
Collection: Photoplay Magazine, August 1918