Richard Stanton — Real Tales About Reel Folk (1914) 🇺🇸

Richard Stanton, ever resourceful actor–director of the New York Motion Picture Corporation, came plump up against a serious problem recently in producing Shorty’s Secret. The script said, “Get a fat man for this part” — referring to an important character in the story — and Stanton was up a tree. It happened just then that Inceville hadn’t any fat men — and Roscoe Arbuckle, of the Keystone, couldn’t make it convenient to lend his services. Stanton lay awake nights — then determined to scout for an individual of suitable proportions. A day or two later he was whizzing through the streets of Venice in his automobile when he glimpsed the ponderous form of “Bill” Cavanaugh, former chief of the Venice police force, on a downtown corner.

“That’s my type,” he told himself; “wonder who he is.”

A moment later the director was at Cavanaugh’s side, engaging him in a friendly chat about motion pictures. “Bill” confided to him that he always had wanted to be an actor, and Stanton offered him the chance on the spot. They piled into the machine, rushed to the Inceville studios — and half an hour from the time that “Bill” first mentioned his ambition, he was making everybody laugh at his antics before the camera.

Owing to the great European War the American Film Manufacturing Company are still in doubt as to the probability of their losing the English leading man of the Flying A forces, the popular Edward Coxen. At Great Britain’s declaration of war the Flying A star offered his services to his country, but at that time there were more than enough regulars to supply the demand. Now, however, there is a possibility that may be called.

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Collection: Reel Life Magazine, November 1914