Wayne Arey, Thanhouser Star (1916) 🇺🇸
Wayne Arey, who has just been promoted to stardom by Edwin Thanhouser, is one of the few actors who was not born in New York nor reared on Broadway. Rock Falls, Ill., is the town in which Wayne Arey first opened his eyes and it was there that he grew up. Mr. Arey’s first theatrical experience was with small repertoire companies and he still remembers with some pride that he thrilled some of the largest town halls in the middle west with his virile impersonation of Cole Younger in The Younger Brothers, Bank Robbers.
Early in his theatrical life Mr. Arey gave up his part as a bandit and went into stock. His stock career was a long and honorable one and he played in companies in Minneapolis, Brooklyn, Atlanta, Toronto and Lawrence. Mass.
He attacked Broadway and was immediately successful, playing important parts in productions of David Belasco and Charles Frohman. He was a leading man in the Princess theater plays and when the Princess playlets came to an end he went into motion pictures.
Mr. Arey had his first motion picture experience with the Thanhouser company, and, particularly adapted to the work, his rise was rapid. After successful portrayals of the Judge with Gladys Hulette in The Shine Girl, and of Dr. Deane, supporting Florence La Badie in Saint, Devil and Woman, Mr. Arey was made a co-star with Doris Grey, the Boston beauty, who has shown such talent under the tutelage of Edwin Thanhouser.
Mr. Arey will appear with Doris Grey in Her Beloved Enemy, directed by Ernest Warde, which will be released through the Pathé exchanges.
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Goings On at Mutual Studios
A multiplicity of subjects are now on the skids for an early launching.
Reports from the studios of the Mutual’s releasing companies indicate that history is being made in rapid strides these busy autumn days. News comes that Mary Miles Minter, Richard Bennett, and the inimitable comedians Kolb and Dill (Clarence Kolb | Max Dill) are giving the finishing touches to Mutual Star Productions of five-part length at the studios of the American Film Co., Inc., at Santa Barbara, and that a five-part western with Frank Borzage and Anna Little in the leading roles, is rapidly nearing completion. At the same time Orral Humphrey, the eccentric comedian, is turning out “Beauty” comedies at a dizzy rate.
The picture which is absorbing the time and attention of that dainty idol of the screen, Mary Miles Minter, is Faith, the feature which will constitute the fourteen-year-old star’s third release as a Mutual player.
Before Richard Bennett left New York City for his engagement at the American studios, he sat with Warden Thomas Mott Osborne of Sing Sing prison, at several conferences, planning the detail of the stirring drama on which he is now at work. The Law Makers is a preachment against capital punishment. Mr. Bennett is giving the best that is in him to this drama, which utters a visualized cry against the barbaric methods of punishment still persisted in at many prisons.
The western picture on which Anna Little and Frank Borzage, supported by a large cast, are working, is entitled Immediate Lee. The story is by Kenneth Clarke, the short story writer, and this drama in which a gunman, quick on the trigger, plays the lead, is of the same virile character which distinguishes his work. It is a sweeping picture of cowboy life, of cattle rustlers, dance hall girls, chases and fights, and holds the spell of frontier life at the height of its picturesque existence.
At the Vogue Studios, Paddy McQuire, Rube Miller, and Ben Turpin are more than doing things with a decidedly original turn for funny pictures. Paddy’s Pot Pup is the present Paddy McQuire picture in the making. While Paddy has the leading role, the pup will no doubt share the honors with him. The dog is one of the most clever ever used for screen work, and in the story he is the main instrument in aiding Paddy avert a robbery.
A second two-reel funny picture is being produced by Rube Miller and Ben Turpin with the aid of Lillian Hamilton and a large and competent company. Its title is Revenge is Sweet, and the plot develops backward in a most astonishing manner. The setting is western, and the situations are unique.
George Ovey, the Cub comedian, is still at work turning out funny pictures showing the adventures of Jerry, at the Horsley studios in Los Angeles. Booking reports show a steadily increasing demand for this young actor with his style of playing all his own.
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World Man Enjoying the Simple Life.
A letter from beyond the Delaware, in the heart of the Pocono Mountains, reveals the fact that one of our staff has fallen among friends. Before we recount his fall we shall have to make a scenario of his temptation.
The scene is at a famous summer hotel, and he writes: “Up among the Quakers. In this house one is not permitted to dance, to play cards — neither of which am I able to do — nor is any music allowed.” One can’t smoke there either, it seems, except in rooms duly appointed and set aside for the unregenerate. He likes those rooms. He says there is enough wood in the fire place to supply a poor scribe all winter. He adds: “If in one corner, now, there was a bar!” But there isn’t. He has been there a whole week and has had only one of ‘em.
Two things made him want to write, and thus we know how the fall came. He simply had to write; it was in him. The men in the big room were talking golf. He knows a lot about golf — all that Briggs of the Tribune teaches he knows, and nothing more. He likes Briggs so much that he didn’t want other teachers butting in. He had also purchased a cigar in the barber shop — “kept out of sight in a drawer” — and it was going. He was too much afraid of the Quakers to light his pipe and English Curve Cut, and had to start the cigar. So he writes:
“Yesterday afternoon I took a long jaunt in the rain” — Just think of it, it was raining. “I passed a graveyard” — the pint thickens — “two churches and two saloons. I entered none of them.” He got by both or shall we say the four?
“Along came the third gin mill — and I fell. I entered the bar room. Across the bar was a big horseshoe. (That always was a sign of good luck) I remarked to the custodian of the refectory: ‘I haven’t seen one of those in a week.’
“‘What’s that,’ he inquired very patronizingly, ‘the horseshoe?’
“‘Naw.’ I said, ‘the bar.’
“Can you beat that? Come to think of it, I know why he was deceived. I wore puttees, and he must have thought I was the coachman.”
Chorus of the Staff: “What would George give for a ‘Fireman’?”
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Lillian Walker Meets with Serious Accident.
The popular Vitagraph star, Lillian Walker, who is affectionately known as “Dimples” throughout the motion picture world, is lying at the Mineola Hospital suffering from a general shaking up and contusions as a result of an automobile accident on the Jericho Turnpike, about three miles from Mineola. where the company were going to film some scenes in a forthcoming Blue Ribbon release.
The accident occurred when the chauffeur, Al Reinhard, swerved Miss Walker’s machine in order to get out of the way of a Ford. The wheels skidded and the car turned turtle, pinning the chauffeur, Miss Walker, Wilfrid North, her director, and Bob Gaillord, who was also in the machine, beneath its weight. The players were unable to free themselves until assistance came, after which they were rushed to the Mineola Hospital. where they are now under the best of care. Director North is believed to be suffering from fractured ribs, while Miss Walker and Mr. Gaillord are generally bruised and shaken up.
Collection: Moving Picture World, October 1916