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.
—
Collection: Reel Life Magazine, November 1914
—
Richard Stanton of the New York Motion Picture studios, was one of the men selected by Thomas H. Ince, production-chief, for abilities which he knew were bound to expand and achieve big things in pictures. To-day Mr. Ince’s judgment is vindicated. For several years Stanton has been carrying off many leading rôles in Domino productions, notably Irish parts, for which he was cast, because of his type and his extraordinary punching ability. Mr. Ince had to import from San Francisco two pugilists to go on in scenes with Stanton, as none of the regular members of the company could survive his pommelling.
About four months ago he was promoted to a directorship, and has been making a name for himself in the profession by his masterly handling of the Shorty series [Transcriber’s Note: a 1912–1917 series of more than 30 two-reel Western comedies, featuring Shorty Hamilton and his smart horse, Beauty].
Stanton’s appreciation of a humorous situation on the screen is unrivalled, and he knows how to get the fun over. He will go to any amount of pains to take a different scene with all the realism possible. In one of his recent pictures, In the Clutches of the Gang, the scenario required that the hero meet his sweetheart at the corner of Forty-second street and Broadway, New York. [Transcriber’s Note: In the Clutches of the Gang (1914) is a Keystone Kops movie. Richard Stanton actually directed In the Clutches of the Gangsters (1914)].
Stanton chose one of the busiest corners in Los Angeles, and there he calmly set up his machine containing the camera, regardless of the fact that he was blocking the thoroughfare. This attracted a crowd, which was what he wanted, and the scene went over in great style.
Stanton was arrested, however, for blockading the traffic and causing a riot. When the magistrate had heard his story, he confessed that he could not bring himself to fine a man who had the nerve to try to make Los Angeles look like New York.
—
A new picture of Richard Stanton
Collection: Reel Life Magazine, October 1914
—
see all entries of the Real Tales About Reel Folk series