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Show WHY THEY ARE ACTORS WAS it Doug. Fairbanks who said after the banquet: "Geo, fellers, I can't talk! As a speechmaker I'm a real good acrobat. Lemme climb up the front of the building instead, will yer?" But Doug.'s versatility does not stop there. Like a lot of other stage folk he has several understudy occupations which would keep him out of the poor house if the footlights and the cinema flash were quenched. He was trained at the Boulder, Colorado, School of Mines for another sort of gold mining than the on he has struck. But they do say that he is making out well in the movies and probably has enough saved to get him back to the land of lodes and ledges if he had to find a new Job. Zelda Sears, comedienne, sees Mr. Fairbanks and goes him one better. Miss Sears has three trades, and works at them all successfully. She startd out as a reporter for the Port Huron Times and did nice sob-stories. One of these was based on the experiences experi-ences of a seven dollar a week "super" "su-per" in Sarah Bernhardt's production of Camille. The suplng somehow got into the Sear's blood and newspaper work seemed tame. A few small "bits" came her way, but after all, she figured, fig-ured, New York's the place, and to Now York she came .expecting that managers would be forming in line to engage her. They were not. And possessing pos-sessing a lusty appetite, Miss Sears opened a stenographic office in the heart of the theatre district, having picked up shorthand and typing in her newspaper days. Came Clyde Fitch with a fearsome- Kj ( ly scribbled manuscript. Miss Scars sat up nights deciphering and getting H' it into readable shape. fl I "Any girl," said Mr. Fitch, receiving Hfl his neatly written typewritten copy, H "with imagination enough to make out 1 ' my handwriting has imagination enough to be an actress." "Why, please, kind Sir; I am an B actress," or words to that effect, said R ' Miss Sears. "I'm only typing and H stenoging because I cannot get a pari." m "I'll give, you one in this play.' H And for eight years Zelda Sear's W namo appeared regularly upon pro- H , grams which sot forth Clyde Fitch as R ' author. At rehearsals she would take 1 down his corrections in shorthand m and re-type the parts for the company. M , Her three arts dovetailed beautifully H, and whenever the acting market got V dull or a production flivvered Zelda H would dust off her typewriter and B dash off a yarn. Her stories sell now- H adays like flags at a peace celebration. l t A western syndicate is on record as B ready to buy every story that comes M from her woll-oiled machine. So half B the time she acts and half the time 1 she writes, and there's still stenog- Ht raphy left to keep her from starva- Hl tion. Zoe Beckley in Theatre Maga- |