Rosa Gore — Sans Grease Paint and Wig (1913) 🇺🇸

The Pathé studio and Rosa Gore beckoned me toward Jersey City Heights, so early one bright morning, I started. And right there, I made a great mistake; I should have started the night before.

by Mabel Condon

But, in my beautiful ignorance of the now and then — mostly then — schedule enjoyed by the White-Line cars, I set out in the morning with the expectation of being back in New York sometime in the middle of the afternoon. One of the lessons the day taught me was never to expect to be anywhere until you get there.

The tube was in its usual perfect working order and we shot into Hoboken at a toll of seven cents and fifteen minutes. I gave the ticket agent a shiny Buffalo nickel in exchange for the promise of a ride to the Heights on a White-Line car and then I started in to wait for the car to make an appearance. At the end of half an hour, I was still waiting. Others were waiting too, but they had brought their lunch and didn’t seem to mind so much. Mothers put their children to sleep on the station’s benches and the few men on the waiting list read the day’s news in all of three or four different papers.

The recollection of my shiny nickel smote me and I approached the ticket agent with the query: “Did you say the White-Line car comes in here?” He replied that he had, added that the car would be in, now, in just a few minutes and with much rejoicing, I returned to my post near the gum-slot machine. It wasn’t until after fifteen minutes had slow-footed by, that I began to lose hope of getting any further that day, and by the time another quarter of an hour had passed, I was glad of the gum-slot machine as a support and didn’t care who saw me. The air began to turn cold and I realized that the fall of the year was approaching. My thoughts traveled back to Chicago and Jackson Park and I pictured the trees shedding their red and brown leaves, the golfists making the short course in 35 and sweater coats and the beach’s most seasoned fishermen, shivering away from the half-mile pier with a single catch.

Was red to be the fashionable winter shade and would the hats be large or small? Men would wear the bow in the back, again, of course, as that style had swelled the hatters’ bank accounts and satisfied the masculine fancy. Besides —

There was a commotion in the vicinity of the benches; mothers were waking drowsy children and the men with the newspapers came from behind them with a growth of beard and eyes that told of a stolen nap. A car was actually approaching and all who had waited read, thereupon, “White-Line.” I forsook the gum-slot machine for a seat that groaned and wabbled and the car started. Sometimes it went and more times it didn’t. I hoped I’d get there before Miss Gore left for the night and would the conductor please tell me when I did get there? The conductor would; also, he did, hours afterward, and in frantic haste I inquired of Mr. Hoagland if Miss Gore had gone yet. “Not yet” he returned and, with the assistance of a guide, I found Miss Gore.

“Oh, here you are,” I exclaimed in a relieved voice.

“Why — yes! So I am!” answered the tall thin lady seated in front of a mirror putting her long brown hair into biscuits. I explained I had travelled all day for the purpose of having her tell me things and she made me at home in the softest chair the pink and white room boasted and asked if I weren’t from the West.

“Chicago,” I answered and she said that the last time she was in Chicago, she received a gift of a bottle of something from the firm of Chapin and Gore, just because her name happened to match one of theirs-.

“It’s several years since I was in Chicago,” went on the tall, thin lady whose comedy roles in Pathé pictures make the whole world laugh. “I played in vaudeville there, many times — ‘Crimmons and Gore,’ we were booked, my husband and I, and we played all through Europe and Australia in a number of sketches, all comedies,” she added, making a little ring of her combings and tucking it away in a little silk bag.

“I had never done comedy until I met Crimmons; originally, I was a dancer.” She put her comb and brush in place and found her powder-puff while I tried to reconcile the five-foot nine lady with a dancing career.

“I really was too tall for a dancer,” she continued, “so when Crimmons and I got married, I gave up my act to become part of his, though I had never before attempted comedy. But the difference in our height helped make comedy — Crimmons is about as tall as you.”

“That less? — for goodness’ sake!”

“Yes, so you see we always got a laugh to start with. I worked up a lot of eccentric business and being limber could fold my arms across my back, like this” — business of demonstrating — “and do ever so many little odd things that have fitted into this business just fine. I’ve been here for almost a year. Crimmons still works in vaudeville and does picture work, at times, too. We both like it and have moved over into Jersey, so I can be convenient to the studio.

“I take great joy in my work and so far have never used my hair the same way twice. I always dress it to emphasize my height, put a freak bow on the end of a psyche and sometimes wire it.”

“Don’t you ever have a desire to dress up in pretty things, for a picture?” some pretty dresses suspended from nails on the back of the door prompted me to ask.

“No; don’t care about dress at all. I was horribly embarrassed, though, the first picture I was ever in. It was an outside ‘chase’ scene and I had to run down the street in a night-gown. I had never seen an outside scene taken and was unprepared for the sight of the crowds that lined either side of the street to watch the picture being made. I had a coat on over my gown, very little under it and the weather was cold.

“‘Now, when I give the signal, throw your coat to that man,’ said the director, ‘and run as hard as you can.’ ‘I can’t,’ I told him. ‘You can,’ he told me and gave the signal. I threw my coat at somebody and ran down the middle of that howling crowd. But the worst of it was, that when I got to the other end, the man who had my coat was supposed to be there before me and wasn’t and I had to go back to the studio with somebody’s little short coat on and my gown trailing along the side-walk.”

Miss Gore donned a white voile waist and buttoned five round pearl buttons before continuing: “I’m an ‘old maid’ the most of my time and I enjoy making up for the part, for I know it’s sure to take; audiences all have a weakness for old maids, on the screen or the stage, But —” she paused to breathe herself into a black street skirt, “there’s really no one role I like better than another, for I love them all.”

I guessed I’d better say good-bye and let Miss Gore go home, though she said she was in no hurry as “Crimmons” was going to call for her. I was though, rather, and remarked that I’d like to get back to New York that night, if the White-Line car system had no objection and Miss Gore said:

“The White-Line car! Why, nobody uses that!”

“One or two,” I amended.

“Why don’t you take a Union Hill? You’ll have to walk two blocks for one, but you’ll get there quicker.”

“The shades of night were falling fast

As through a Jersey village past —”

Anyway, I found a Union Hill car and was in New York in thirty-five minutes.

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“Sapho” a Clean Film

Probably no good woman ever lived who did not wonder how a bad woman could possibly fascinate any self-respecting man. The terms “good” and “bad” in this relation, are merely comparative. No “good” woman ever existed who was perfect — no “bad” woman has ever been utterly unworthy of some consideration.

The book, Sapho, as Alphonse Daudet wrote it, portrays a woman by no means altogether bad, and his portraiture of such a woman is artistic to the last degree. The Nethersole play, dramatized from this book. lost much of Daudet’s delicacy and gave the impression of a woman whose thread of life we would prefer not having touch our own. The film adaption however, as acted in six reels by Florence Roberts and presented on the states-rights plan by the Sapho Feature Film Company, may be described as thoroughly human. One gets the underlying reasons which made the life of Fanny Legrand — or Sapho — what it was, and the supporting cast strengthens the impression. As those who read the book will remember. Fanny Legrand — or Sapho — was picked out of the gutter by Caoudel, the sculptor — who used her as a model for his famous statue — Sapho — the creation which made him, as a sculptor. For some months, or years, — the time does not matter, she was faithful to him — their life was idyllic. Then Caoudel left her and she was taken up by LaGournerie. the rhymester — who abused her until endurance ceased to be a virtue. The famous Dechlette, engineer, explorer and statesman, honored her with the shelter of his roof for one night; the most any woman could ever say of him, and made her as celebrated as himself by this attention. Then came Flamaht, the engraver, who spent his all, and eventually forged for her. Always the fascination for men of brains! Always the mental and physical stimulus to original creation which made each of them famous in his own line. Finally after many years, came Jean Gaussin, the young provencial destined for a consular career, and with their first meeting at Dechlette’s masque ball the story begins.

There are some things in the story to be sure which are unpleasant, but no more so than in life itself. Sapho is true to life, there can be little question as to that. And in her story there is both lesson and warning to every “good” wife against taking her supposedly established position too much as a matter-of-course. As a play, it holds the interest from start to finish. There is no dull moment in the entire production.

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• Scene from Majestic feature production of Sapho.
• Florence Roberts as Sapho in Majestic feature production of that title.

Collection: Motography Magazine, October 1913