Beatrice Burnham — The Rise of Beatrice (1920) 🇺🇸
It might have been a poem; but. alas, it was only the beginning of an interview — and in the conventional surroundings of the Ince studio.
Beatrice Burnham is either a great artist or a very little girl. It should have been easy to decide which... if her shyness had not been so confoundedly bewitching! I wanted to believe and yet that soft catch in her breath... It was done so perfectly. Almost too perfectly!
While I yet held her hand, she indicated the path that stretched away before us and disappeared into a maze of sets and stages and great swimming pools.
She barely breathed the words: "Perhaps a little walk... Then I shall not be so nervous."
I watched her out of the corner of my eye. In scarlet hat and coat she made a vivid figure. The only vagueness was the blue veil that covered her face, that accentuated the whiteness of her skin and the sloe-black of her eyes. And her grace was not confined to her shyness. She walked beautifully — with the balance and sway of a reed in the wind.
I thought of the ragged mountain girl in "Bullet Proof." It was hard to realize that this was she. I remember talking with Harry Carey during the production and I recall his good-natured admission: "She's stealing the picture."
I had often wondered what had become of her; and now I found her playing opposite Douglas MacLean. But I am running away with my story.
Beatrice is a southern girt. Texas is responsible for the sibilant drawl of her voice, the vibrant black of her eyes, the tiny suggestion of bravado that smolders constantly beneath her appearance of timidity.
A convent and a college are the two milestones that mark her pursuit of knowledge.
Beatrice is one of those girls who never tell you things. They always confide them. It is very agreeable.
"It is ten months since I had my first part — with Eddie Polo in an episode of his Cyclone Smith series. It all happened in the most wonderful way. I was on the Universal lot as a visitor. I had no intention then of ever attempting to get into pictures. But Jacques Jaccard saw me and dared me to take a screen test. I did, of course, and was a little bewildered by the result."
She sighed retrospectively, leaving my imagination hanging limply in the air. That is what makes me doubt... her trick of always choosing the correct moment — just when you are waiting breathless upon her next word — for a sigh and a pause.
A great artist... a little girl...?
"What was the result," I demanded.
"Oh, everyone got terribly excited. You see, I had had to cry and I cried so hard that they couldn't believe it was acting. But when they saw that it was, I guess they thought they had discovered a second Bernhardt — for a moment. Eddie Polo — he seemed such a wonderfully famous man in those days! — declared that he wanted me for one of his episodes. He got me without much persuasion!"
We had talked ourselves around the circuit of the studio grounds and back to the long row of dressing-rooms. I noticed on a nearby door, in bright, fresh letters the name Beatrice Burnham. A glimpse of the room past the half-open door made it seem cool and inviting. She murmured a suggestion that we go in.
Once in, her confidence seemed to be restored, tho she sat erectly graceful, her hands still nervous, while she told me — no, confided — the story of her brief ten months in pictures. It was that test at Universal City that she regards as the start of her career. Two years ago she did one or two "bits" for different companies, but they were merely the summer larks of a school girl.
Universal realized that they had unearthed a discovery worth while and were determined to keep it for themselves, on their own terms. But they had reckoned without that bravado smoldering beneath, that bravado which, after all, proved to be an unquenchable courage.
"They were lovely," she sighed. "They took me to dinners and sent me boxes of candy and even took me to the theater now and then. I wanted it to go on forever. I forgot all about the contract."
She ventured a naive little smile and glance.
"But it seems that they hadn't. They were even a little exasperated when I at last said 'No' to them."
There was an actual wonderment in her eyes!
It was my turn to sigh. I did.
Her career with Universal was as busy as it was brief. From the Polo pictures she went to wild animal comedies and thence to five-reel westerns. There is a hint of a playful destiny in the fact that tho she came unharmed thru the animal comedies with their inevitable lions and chimpanzees, her arm was badly lacerated by the treacherous teeth of a grouchy bruin in "Bullet Proof.” She will carry the scars all her life.
In "Hitchin' Post" with Frank Mayo she did the work that brought the offer of a five-year contract from Universal. the contract which she refused — after many dinners and a theater or two.
She went to Edgar Lewis and won a good part in Lahoma.
It was her first taste of "real direction."
Her shyness stood her in good stead when she was seeking for something else. It was with more of a forlorn hope than aught else that she went to see Mr. Ince. When after a two hours' wait she finally reached the lair of the great man, she found that there were five other great men there too, all of whom began to stare at her intensely.
"It was perfectly awful," declare — er — confided Beatrice, rather breathless at the remembrance. "I just begged them not to look at me, and finally Mr. Ince made them all face the wall while he talked to me. Once Douglas MacLean, who was one of the five, turned around and hissed: 'Just the girl for me,' or something like that. I didn't hear him. They told me afterward that I was busy untangling my fingers just then.
"There are only two things I remember clearly. One is Mr. lnce's constantly repeated question, 'But why didn't you come to see me before?' It seems to me that that was all he said.
"The other is the question of Douglas MacLean. After they had all filed solemnly out to decide whether they wanted me or not and then filed back again, he came over beside me and said, 'We want you. May I look at you now?'
"I answered: 'I guess so; but look quick!'"
She sighed.
"I don't guess I can tell you any more," she said softly.
I was loath to go. I hadn't decided her in my mind yet. It seemed to me that she was unique in a profession where sophistication has become a dogma. I was fascinated.
I loitered, and in loitering discovered that for seven years she had studied under Madame Rasche, ballerina of the Metropolitan Opera House... the secret of her undulant grace.
I had to go, but I went lingeringly. A great artist... a little girl...? The question recurred in my mind thruout the day; and the phrase "soft eyes and a sigh."
Beatrice Burnham is either a great artist or a very little girl. That is the impression the interviewer received. She is a daughter of the South, and Texas is responsible for the sibilant drawl of her voice, the vibrant black of her eyes, the tiny suggestion of bravado that smolders constantly beneath her appearance of timidity.
Photos by: Roman Freulich (1898–1974)
Miss Burnham has been on the screen for about ten months; her first part was with Eddie Polo in one of his Cyclone Smith series. Her career with Universal was brief. Then she called on Mr. Ince, and he immediately engaged her to play opposite Douglas MacLean.
Photo by: Roman Freulich (1898–1974)
Collection: Motion Picture Classic Magazine, November 1920