William Farnum — How I Became a Photoplayer (1916) 🇺🇸

I have just completed acting in “Fires of Conscience,” my seventeenth film production. Allowing three “takes” to each scene, this would make approximately 225,000 feet of celluloid, or nearly forty-five miles, in the two years in which I have been in the photoplay.

by William Farnum

These statistics mean work, and they answer two questions: Why I went into moving pictures and how I became a photoplay star. I left the stage because I thrive on work, and I’ve certainly had my share of it in the silent drama, but I like it. I was tired, but never happier than during the recent weeks in the California mountains when I had to go before the camera shortly after seven in the morning, and be ready for work up to midnight, because night scenes were imperative.

The nation and I celebrate our birthdays together, and I’m proud of the doubleheader. Whistles were blowing, bells ringing and people cheering when I was born, July 4, 1876. People were rejoicing throughout the length and breadth of the United States — and all because I had been fortunate enough to pick the natal day of the country for my own.

The celebration was particularly glorious in the city of my birthplace. It was almost in the shadow of Bunker Hill Monument that I came into the world, and my eyes, opened for first time, gazed on my father, “Dusty” Farnum, a famous player of the day, and a city draped in American flags.

After a few years in the Hub, my parents moved to Buckport, Maine. There I acquired two things — the usual education accorded to children and the ability to operate on a cornet. My musical achievements brought me my first taste for fame. I have tried to live it down, but I must confess that my proudest moment in youth was when I was appointed to the coveted position of leading cornetist in the Buckport Silver Cornet Band.

Then we returned to Boston. My father had a stock company in the Academy there, and as a birthday present on my fourteenth anniversary, he presented me with the role of Lucius. My theatrical education was begun. It was continued through more than a hundred minor roles in all the plays of Shakespeare.

My father’s company disbanded eventually, and for the next five or six years I was busy playing with various actors in classical repertoire. I got along quite well, so I grew a little bold and organized my own company, and we commenced road work. In Cleveland and Buffalo I established the William Farnum Stock Company. In the latter city I had a theatre built myself, and we played there for thirty weeks. During the run we put on twenty classical dramas.

The part which made the biggest appeal to me in my histrionic career, and apparently to the public, too, was my role in Ben Hur, that stupendous piece which refuses to die. Thereafter, I played Virginius, The Littlest Rebel, The Prince of India, and a dozen less important dramas.

My first motion picture work came with the Selig Company, which starred me in “The Spoilers” and “The Redemption of David Corson.” I had one other photoplay before I joined Mr. Fox [William Fox]. This was the lead in “The Sign of the Cross,” for the Famous Players.

Mr. Fox had seen my acting on the screen, and after a few minutes’ talk with the noted producer, I was one of his staff, I feel that acting for the photoplay is fully as great an art as that on the “legitimate,” and I have never regretted the change.

The pictures which I have made for Mr. Fox are:

“A Soldier’s Oath,” “Fighting Blood,” “The Bondman,” “A Man of Sorrow,” “The Broken Law,” “The Wonderful Adventure,” “The Plunderer,” “The Nigger,” “The Man from Bitter Roots,” “The End of the Trail,” “Battle of Hearts,” “A Gilded Fool,” “Samson,” and Fires of Conscience.

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Collection: Photoplay Magazine, October 1916
(The Photo-Play Journal for October, 1916)