Thomas Commerford (1916) 🇺🇸
Showing surprising vitality for his years Thomas Commerford, Essanay character actor, is a subject for wonder at those studios. Although 61 years of age and more than 40 years an actor, he is still a boy at heart and is as active as the youngest member of the stock company. As the grandfather in The Little Samaritan, featuring Joyce Fair, Essanay’s 11 year-old star, he proves his prolonged youth by romping with the child as her pet dog.
Mr. Commerford attributes his good physical condition to the fad that he takes a walk of not less than three miles every morning before appearing at the studio. The shore of Lake Michigan, in warm weather or cold, is his favorite path.
He was born in New York, Aug. 1, 1855 and began his theatrical career in the “Old Drury” theater. Later he became stage manager on the road for Edwin Arden and Dore Davidson. A full quarter of a century he spent with Lincoln J. Carter’s productions. As Steven Thorne in Dora Thorne he made a decided success. He also appeared in The Lion and the Mouse, The House of a Thousand Candles, Nobody’s Claim, and The Flaming Arrow.
Mr. Commerford joined Essanay in 1913. Graustark, In the Palace of the King and The White Sister were some of the plays in which he carried big parts. His more recent work was as the judge in The Strange Case of Mary Page.
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Horsley Roasts Promoters
Favors measures to drive them from field of motion pictures.
The activities of unscrupulous wild cat motion picture promoters, whose vivid tales of the vast fortunes to be made in the film industry have been the means of mulching a gullible public of considerable money, is a matter David Horsley believes warrants the immediate attention of serious-minded producers.
“There are a great many would-be promoters throughout the United States who combine a talking knowledge of the business with fairy stories of the immense fortunes that have been made in the business, and prey upon the outside public for the purpose of making money out of the investor instead of making it out of the business,” says Mr. Horsley, “and not only the outside public suffers in consequence but the whole industry as well.
“Promoters of this type — men of no standing in the film business — have been known to approach outsiders with propositions to produce pictures at costs as high as a half million dollars and to promise in return profits up to a half million dollars. On the face of this it is apparent that the feat is impossible. Yet the public is cajoled into putting up its money, only to find later on the folly of the act
“I have been asked before for advice in such cases and I have told my inquirers to avoid motion picture investments except in the stock of established companies who are active producers and who have marketing facilities and who can demonstrate the likelihood of their being money-makers by their past performances in that respect.
“The history of the business shows that the successful motion picture manufacturers have acted in the same manner as a farmer with good land. They have worked it themselves with their own capital and for their own benefit.
“The practices of wild cat promoters are injurious to producers doing business legitimately and to prevent the practices of such promoters I am in favor of a concerted effort on the part of the picture interests to eliminate him from the field.”
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World-Equitable Program in April
Great number of dual star pictures booked for April releases.
Fifteen stars of the first rank, all more than popular and all established screen players, either developed through long association with film plays or weaned from the spoken stage, characterize the releasing units of the World-Equitable program during the forthcoming month.
April 3, Alice Brady and a Frohman cast, headed by Jack Sherrill, will be seen in Then I’ll Come Back to You, while John Mason and Clara Whipple will appear at the same time in The Reapers.
Robert Warwick and Frances Nelson, each noted stars, will appear jointly in Human Driftwood, as the regular April 10 release, while Equitable will offer Carlyle Blackwell in The Shadow of Doubt, in which the stage has afforded an excellent leading woman in the person of Jean Shelby.
April 17 brings Kitty Gordon and her famous wardrobe, her illustrious personality and widely advertised back in her second World Film production, Her Maternal Right, and Equitable, on the same date, will release its first three-star picture, By Whose Hand, in which Edna Wallace Hopper will make her camera debut and in which are costarring Charles J. Ross and Muriel Ostriche.
April 24, Equitable will offer Bruce McRae, the distinguished Broadway star, and Gerda Holmes in Richard Le Gallienne’s The Chain Invisible. During the same week the World Film Corporation will offer Edwin August as star and director of and in The Social Highwayman, in which Ormi Hawley, the noted screen player, will handle the principal feminine role opposite him.
Jane Grey in “The Surrender” will characterize the program of the Equitable concern on May 1 with The Feast of Life as the World Film contribution on the same date The Feast of Life was produced by Paragon with Clara Kimball Young, Doris Kenyon and a typical Paragon cast of stars.
The proper diversifying and distribution has been attended to in the case of this series, which contains every type of player known to the screen. The types and style of plays are admirably different in theme, plots and scenic environment.
Collection: Moving Picture World, April 1916
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see also Louise Owen (1916)