eleven
IT was a wrench leaving Kystone, for I had grown fond of Sennett and everyone there. I never said goodbye to anyone, I couldn’t. It all happened in a ruthlessly simple way. I finished cutting my film on Saturday night and left with Mr Anderson the following Monday for San Francisco, where we were met by his new green Mercedes car. We paused only for lunch at the St Francis Hotel, then went on to Niles, where Anderson had his own small studio in which he made his Bronco Billy Westerns for the Essanay Company (Essanay, a corruption, standing for the initials of Spoor and Anderson).
Niles was an hour’s drive outside San Francisco, situated along the railroad track. It was a small town with a population of four hundred and its precoccupation was alfalfa and cattle-raising. The studio was situated in the centre of a field, about four miles outside. When I saw it my heart sank, for nothing could have been less inspiring. It had a glassed-in roof, which made it extremely hot when working in the summer. Anderson said that I would find the studios in Chicago more to my liking and better equipped for making comedies. I stayed only an hour in Niles while Anderson transacted some business with his staff. Then we both left for San Franciso again, where we embarked for Chicago.
I liked Anderson; he had a special kind of charm. On the train he tended me like a brother, and at the different stops would buy magazines and candy. He was shy and uncommunicative, a man about forty, and when business was discussed would magnanimously remark: ‘Don’t worry about that. It’ll be O.K.’ He had little conversation and was very much preoccupied. Yet I felt underneath he was shrewd.
The journey was interesting. On the train were three men. We first noticed them in the dining-car. Two looked quite prosperous, but the third looked out of place, a common, rough-looking fellow. It was strange to see them dining together. We speculated that the two might be engineers and the derelict-looking one a labourer to do the rough work. When we left the dining-car, one of them came to our compartment and introduced himself. He said he was sheriff of St Louis and had recognized Bronco Billy. They were transferring a criminal from San Quentin prison back to St Louis to be hanged, but, since they could not leave the prisoner alone, would we mind coming to their compartment to meet the district attorney?
‘Thought you might like to know the circumstances,’ said the sheriff confidentially. ‘This fellow had quite a criminal record. When the officer arrested him in St Louis, he asked to be allowed to go to his room and take some clothes from his trunk; and while he was going through his trunk he suddenly whipped round with a gun and shot the officer dead, then escaped to California, where he was caught burglaring and was sentenced to three years. When he came out the district attorney and I were waiting for him. It’s a cut-and-dried case – we’ll hang him,’ he said complacently.
Anderson and I went to their compartment. The sheriff was a jovial, thickset man, with a perpetual smile and a twinkle in his eye. The district attorney was more serious.
‘Sit down,’ said the sheriff, after introducing us to his friend. Then he turned to the prisoner. ‘And this is Hank,’ he said. ‘We’re taking him back to St Louis, where he’s in a bit of a jam.’
Hank laughed ironically, but made no comment. He was a man six feet tall, in his late forties. He shook hands with Anderson, saying: ‘I seen you many times, Bronco Billy, and by God, the way you handle them guns and them stick-ups is the best I’ve ever seen.’ Hank knew little about me, he said; he had been in San Quentin for three years – ‘and a lot goes on on the outside that you don’t get to know about.’
Although we were all convivial there was an underlying tension which was difficult to cope with. I was at a loss what to say, so I just grinned at the sheriff’s remarks.
‘It’s a tough world,’ said Bronco Billy.
‘Well,’ said the sheriff, ‘we want to make it less tough. Hank knows that.’
‘Sure,’ said Hank, brusquely.
The sheriff began moralizing: ‘That’s what I told Hank when he stepped out of San Quentin. I said if he’ll play square with us, we’ll play square with him. We don’t want to use handcuffs or make a fuss; all he’s got on is a leg-iron.’
‘A leg-iron! What’s that?’ I asked.
‘Haven’t you ever seen one?’ said the sheriff. ‘Lift up your trouser, Hank.’
Hank lifted his trouser-leg and there it was, a nickel-plated cuff about five inches in length and three inches thick, fitting snugly around his ankle, weighing forty pounds. This led to commenting on the latest type of leg-irons. The sheriff explained that this particular one had rubber insulation on the inside so as to make it easier for the prisoner.
‘Does he sleep with that thing?’ I asked.
‘Well, that depends,’ said the sheriff, looking coyly at Hank.
Hank’s smile was grim and cryptic.
We sat with them till dinner-time and as the day wore on the conversation turned to the manner in which Hank had been re-arrested. From the interchange of prison information, the sheriff explained, they had received photographs and fingerprints and decided that Hank was their man. So they had arrived outside the prison gates of San Quentin the day Hank was to be released.
‘Yes,’ said the sheriff, his small eyes twinkling and looking at Hank, ‘we waited for him on the opposite side of the road. Very soon Hank came out of the side door of the prison gate.’ The sheriff slid his index finger along the side of his nose and slyly pointed in the direction of Hank and with a diabolical grin said slowly: ‘I – think – that’s – our man!’
Anderson and I sat fascinated as he continued. ‘So we made a deal,’ said the sheriff, ‘that if he’d play square with us, we’d treat him right. We took him to breakfast and gave him hot cakes and bacon and eggs. And here he is, travelling first class. That’s better than going the hard way in handcuffs and chains.’
Hank smiled and mumbled: ‘I could have fought you on extradition if I’d wanted to.’
The sheriff eyed him coldly. ‘That wouldn’t have done you much good, Hank,’ he said slowly. ‘It would just have meant a little delay. Isn’t it better to go first class in comfort?’
‘I guess so,’ said Hank, jerkily.
As we neared Hank’s destination, he began to talk about the jail in St Louis almost with affection. He rather enjoyed the anticipation of his trial by the other prisoners: ‘I’m just thinking what those gorillas will do to me when I get before the Kangaroo Court! Guess they’ll take all my tobacco and cigarettes away from me.’
The sheriff’s and the attorney’s relationship with Hank was like a matador’s fondness for the bull he is about to kill. When they left the train, it was the last day of December, and as we parted the sheriff and the attorney wished us a happy New Year. Hank also shook hands, saying grimly that all good things must come to an end. It was difficult to know how to bid him goodbye. His crime had been a ruthless and cowardly one, yet I found myself wishing him good luck as he limped from the train with his heavy leg-iron. Eventually we heard that he was hanged.
*
When we arrived in Chicago, we were greeted by the studio manager, but no Mr Spoor. Mr Spoor, he said, was away on business and would not return until after the New Year holiday. I did not think Spoor’s absence had any significance then, because nothing would happen at the studio until after the first of the year. Meanwhile I spent New Year’s Eve with Anderson, his wife and family. On New Year’s Day Anderson left for California, assuring me that as soon as Spoor returned he would attend to everything, including the ten-thousand-dollar bonus. The studio was in the industrial district, and, at one time, had evidently been a warehouse. The morning I showed up there, no Spoor had yet arrived, nor were there any instructions left about my business arrangements. Immediately I sensed that something was fishy and that the office knew more than they cared to divulge. But it didn’t worry me; I was confident that a good picture would solve all my problems. So I asked the manager if he knew that I was to get the full cooperation of the studio staff and carte blan
che for all their facilities. ‘Of course,’ he replied. ‘Mr Anderson has left instructions about that.’
‘Then I would like to start work immediately,’ I said.
‘Very well,’ he answered. ‘On the first floor you will find the head of the scenario department, Miss Louella Parsons, who will give you a script.’
‘I don’t use other people’s scripts, I write my own,’ I snapped.
I was belligerent because they seemed so vague about everything and because of Spoor’s absence; besides, the studio personnel were stuffy and went around like bank clerks, carrying requisition papers as though they were members of the Guaranty Trust Company – the business end of it was very impressive, but not their films. In the upstairs office the different departments were partitioned like tellers’ grilles. It was anything but conducive to creative work. At six o’clock, no matter whether a director was in the middle of a scene or not, the lights were turned off and everybody went home.
The next morning I went to the casting grille. ‘I would like a cast of some sort,’ I said dryly, ‘so will you kindly send me members of your company who are unoccupied?’
They presented people whom they thought might be suitable. There was a chap with cross eyes named Ben Turpin, who seemed to know the ropes and was not doing much with Essanay at the time. Immediately I took a liking to him, so he was chosen. But I had no leading lady. After I had had several interviews, one applicant seemed a possibility, a rather pretty young girl whom the company had just signed up. But oh, God! I could not get a reaction out of her. She was so unsatisfactory that I gave up and dismissed her. Gloria Swanson years later told me that she was the girl and that, having dramatic aspirations and hating slapstick comedy, she had been deliberately uncooperative.
Francis X. Bushman, then a great star with Essanay, sensed my dislike of the place. ‘Whatever you think about the studio,’ he said, ‘it is just the ‘antithesis’: but it wasn’t; I didn’t like the studio and I didn’t like the word ‘antithesis’. Circumstances went from bad to worse. When I wanted to see my rushes, they ran the original negative to save the expense of a positive print. This horrified me. And when I demanded that they should make a positive print, they reacted as though I wanted to bankrupt them. They were smug and self-satisfied. Having been one of the first to enter the film business, and being protected by patent rights which gave them a monopoly, their last consideration was the making of good pictures. And although other companies were challenging their patent rights and making better films, Essanay still went smugly on, dealing out scenarios like playing cards every Monday morning.
I had almost finished my first picture, which was called His New Job, and two weeks had elapsed and still no Mr Spoor had shown up. Having received neither the bonus nor my salary, I was contemptuous. ‘Where is this Mr Spoor?’ I demanded at the front office. They were embarrassed and could give no satisfactory explanation. I made no effort to hide my contempt and asked if he always conducted his business affairs in this way.
Years later I heard from Spoor himself what had happened. It appears that when Spoor, who had never heard of me at that time, learned that Anderson had signed me up for a year at twelve hundred dollars a week with a ten-thousand-dollar bonus, he sent Anderson a frantic wire, wanting to know if he had done mad. And when Spoor heard that Anderson had signed me purely as a gamble, on the recommendation of Jess Robbins, his anxiety was twofold. He had comics who were getting only seventy-five dollars a week, the best of them, and their comedies barely paid for themselves. Hence Spoor’s absence from Chicago.
When he returned, however, he lunched at one of the big Chicago hotels with several friends who, to his surprise, complimented him about my joining his company. Also, more than the usual publicity began piling up in the studio office about Charlie Chaplin. So he thought he would try an experiment. He gave a page-boy a quarter and had me paged throughout the hotel. As the boy went through the lobby shouting: ‘Call for Mr Charlie Chaplin,’ people began to congregate until it was packed with stir and excitement. This was his first indication of my popularity. The second was what had happened at the film exchange while he was away: he discovered that even before I had started the picture there was an advance sale of sixty-five copies, something unprecedented, and by the time I had finished the film a hundred and thirty prints were sold and orders were still pouring in. Immediately they raised the price from thirteen cents to twenty-five cents a foot.
When Spoor eventually showed up, I confronted him about my salary and bonus. He was profuse with apologies, explaining that he had told the front office to take care of all business arrangements. He had not seen the contract, but assumed that the front office knew all about it. This cock-and-bull story infuriated me. ‘What were you scared about?’ I said, laconically. ‘You can still get out of your contract if you wish – in fact I think you’ve already broken it.’
Spoor was a tall, portly individual, soft-spoken and almost good-looking but for a pale flabbiness of face and an acquisitive top lip that sat over the lower one.
‘I’m sorry you feel this way,’ he said, ‘but, as you must know, Charlie, we are a reputable firm and always live up to our contract.’
‘Well, you haven’t lived up to this one,’ I interposed.
‘We’ll take care of that matter right now,’ he said.
‘I’m in no hurry,’ I answered sarcastically.
*
During my short stay in Chicago, Spoor did everything to placate me, but I could never really warm up to him. I told him I was unhappy working in Chicago and that if he wanted results he should arrange for me to work in California. ‘We’ll do everything we can to make you happy,’ he said. ‘How would you like to go to Niles?’
I was not too pleased at the prospect, but I liked Anderson better than Spoor; so after completing of His New Job I went to Niles.
Bronco Billy made all his Western movies there; they were one-reelers that took him a day to make. He had seven plots which he repeated over and over again, and from which he made several million dollars. He would work sporadically. Sometimes he would turn out seven one-reel Westerns in a week, then go on holiday for six weeks.
Surrounding the studio at Niles were several small Californian bungalows which Bronco Billy had built for members of his company, and a large one which he occupied himself. He told me that if I desired I could live there with him. I was delighted at the prospect. Living with Bronco Billy, the millionaire cowboy who had entertained me in Chicago at his wife’s sumptuous apartment, would at least make life tolerable in Niles.
It was dark when we entered his bungalow, and when we switched on the light I was shocked. The place was empty and drab. In his room was an old iron bed with a light-bulb hanging over the head of it. A rickety old table and one chair were the other furnishings. Near the bed was a wooden box upon which was a brass ash-tray filled with cigarette-butts. The room allotted to me was almost the same, only it was minus a grocery box. Nothing worked. The bathroom was unspeakable. One had to take a jug and fill it from the bath tap and empty it down the flush to make the toilet work. This was the home of G. M. Anderson, the multi-millionaire cowboy.
I came to the conclusion that Anderson was an eccentric. Although a millionaire, he cared little for graceful living; his indulgences were flamboyant-coloured cars, promoting prizefighters, owning a theatre and producing musical shows. When he was not working in Niles, he spent most of his time in San Francisco, where he stayed in small moderate-priced hotels. He was an odd fellow, vague, erratic and restless, who sought a solitary life of pleasure; and although he had a charming wife and daughter in Chicago, he rarely saw them. They lived their lives separately and apart.
It was disturbing moving again from one studio to another. I had to organize another working unit, which meant selecting a satisfactory camera-man, an assistant director and a stock company, the latter being difficult because there was little to choose from in Niles. There was one other company at Niles besides Anderson�
��s cowboy outfit: this was a nondescript comedy company that kept things going and paid expenses when G. M. Anderson was not working. The stock company consisted of twelve people, and these were mostly cowboy actors. Again I had the problem of finding a pretty girl for a leading lady. Now I was anxious to get to work. Although I hadn’t a story, I ordered the crew to build an ornate café set. When I was lost for a gag or an idea a café would always supply one. While it was being built I went with G. M. Anderson to San Francisco to look for a leading lady among the chorus girls of his musical comedy, and, although it was nice work, none of them was photogenic. Carl Strauss, a handsome young German-American cowboy working with Anderson, said he knew of a girl who occasionally went to Tate’s Café on Hill Street. He did not know her personally, but she was pretty and the proprietor might know her address.
Mr Tate knew her quite well. She lived with her married sister, she was from Lovelock, Nevada, her name was Edna Purviance. Immediately we got in touch with her and made an appointment to meet her at the St Francis Hotel. She was more than pretty, she was beautiful. At the interview she seemed sad and serious. I learned afterwards that she was just getting over a love affair. She had been to college and had taken a business course. She was quiet and reserved, with beautiful large eyes, beautiful teeth and a sensitive mouth. I doubted whether she could act or had any humour, she looked so serious. Nevertheless, with these reservations we engaged her. She would at least be decorative to my comedies.
The next day we returned to Niles, but the café was not ready, and what they had built was crude and awful; the studio was certainly lacking technically. After giving orders for a few alterations, I began to think of an idea. I thought of a title: His Night Out – a drunk in pursuit of pleasure – that was enough to start with. I added a fountain to the night-club, feeling I could get some gags out of it, and I had Ben Turpin as a stooge. The day before we started the picture a member of Anderson’s company invited me to a supper party. It was a modest affair, with beer and sandwiches. There were about twenty of us, including Miss Purviance. After supper some played cards while others sat around and talked. We got on to the subject of hypnotism and I bragged about my hypnotic powers. I boasted that within sixty seconds I could hypnotize anyone in the room. I was so convincing that most of the company believed me, but Edna did not.
My Autobiography Page 19
