What Kind of a Fellow Is — Clarke? (1918) 🇺🇸
Being a glance at the real human side of the men of the picture game caught in action
Clarke, Jim Clarke or James B. Clarke is the greatest silent partner in motion pictures as Richard A. Rowland will tell you any fine day you ask him. He is the Clarke of the Rowland and Clarke Theatres, the Clarke of the Pittsburg Calcium Light and Film Company, the Clarke of the Columbia and the Pennsylvania Film Companies and the Clarke who is vice-president of Metro. But more than all that he is the Clarke who is R. A. Rowland’s brother-in-law and it was wise picking either way you look at it.
Indiana, Pa., is best known to fame as a town, metropolis or centre from the fact that Jim Clarke picked it out as a birthplace and Pittsburg, now that Charlie Schwab has been adopted by Bethlehem and Washington, points to Jim as its greatest little first citizen from bankroll to ballyhoo.
It was in the year 1906 when the waves of the Atlantic had ceased to beat against McKee’s Rocks and the smoke was thick across the downs, that R. A. Rowland stretched forth his hand through the Pittsburg murk and invited Jim forth from the marts of the wholesale grocery trade and planted him firmly in the film business. He inveigled him into becoming a partner in the Pittsburg Calcium Light and Film Company, a pioneer concern that tore up the turf from Buffalo, Wilkesbarre, Omaha, Des Moines and Cincinnati as well as Pittsburg, and began to contract the habit of making money.
Jim was a great man with the pencil and through this medium he made most of his conversation. He was also a conservative and a good judge of money whether in bales, kits or stacks. To these necessary qualifications he added a long distance capacity for silence and a genius for listening to the other man’s story and was right on the very spot when the Columbia and Pennsylvania Film Companies went into competition in the field, each blessed with the same ownership — Rowland and Clarke.
Jim likewise was very present when the partnership with associates opened the Mutual, Universal and Paramount Exchanges in their territory and was exceedingly there also when these valuables were sold to the several companies that bear their names, just as he had been in the immediate neighborhood when in 1910 the partners sold their business to the General Film Company and took a rest from their labors to take account of stock and open a couple of theatres in Braddock, Pa. These latter ventures also made money so that now there are more than fifteen Rowland and Clarke theatres, all successful and in the prime of life.
It was three years ago last March that Jim Clarke followed Rowland into the organization of Metro and he’s had nothing but silent partnering, pencil work and investing to do ever since.
They call Jim a quiet man and they’re right and he has a lot of money which his brother-in-law, Rowland, takes advantage of. In fact, it may be said that Clarke thinks Rowland can do anything with his money, and does.
In stature he splits it fifty fifty with the late Napoleon but lacks Napoleon’s mean disposition. When he laughs, he’s quiet about it, when he plans he’s long-headed about it and there’s nobody who will deny he’s one of the best fellows in the world.
He’s a fisherman who fishes for the fishing’s sake and never has occasioned any considerable mortality among the fish. He golfs and motors and films, all with good judgment. He’s reliable, he’s trustworthy, and his favorite sport is to be let alone. His one fear in life is the long distance telephone with his brother-in-law at the other end.
As a patriot — he’s one of us. The word Liberty stands forth prominently in his vocabulary — and on his theatres.
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Illustration by: Harry Palmer (Harry Samuel Palmer) (1882–1955)
Collection: Motion Picture News, 7 September 1918