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Show How I Broke Into The IVIovies ? 1 Copyright by Mai C. Herman By WILLIAM HAINES TRUTHFULLY, I broke Into tb.8 movies with a boil on my nose but more of that later. Let's start at the beginning. If you ever hope to stay out of pictures pic-tures never have your photograph taken. It gets to be a habit, like dope, and once you've started it you can't stop. I was in New York, "just a young man trying to get along" by selling bonds. I rend all the books on salesmanship sales-manship and attended all the meetings and hoped some day to be president of the firm. Then, I had my photograph photo-graph taken. The trouble with that is you don't have just one picture, you have another an-other and another. I had so many that I decided that I should, to save my conscience, make this terrible habit pay, so I began posing for what the well-dressed man will wear. I posed in suits and hats and overcoats, over-coats, when I wasn't selling bonds and that was most of the time, be- ) cause I was a rotten salesman. It was during the time when Gold- j wyn Picture corporation was scouting the country for new faces. I heard 1 about this search and as I had all the photographs taken that could possibly be taken, I felt that the moving picture field was the place to unload theiu. I called at the office and as my face despite my years, still seemed very j new, I was given a test the next day. I gave up the bond business at once and waited to hear the outcome of the test I waited three ami a half weeks i Sr ; 4 -;-. v: a i - f i " i s I h J u i jiu..:)iun:.-.i;tli;,'-iiL,j,l,-William Haines. and was, at the end of that time, seriously seri-ously contemplating going back into the bond business, when I had a call to come to the office at once. Shall I ever forget going into that office and being told that I was to start for California at once to make pictures! A girl had been chosen to be given a contract, too. She was In the office signing up and getting her Instructions. I remember that she wore a fur coat and a little fur hat and pretty flat-heeled flat-heeled slippers. Her hair was light what I could see of It under her hat and her eyes were a blue-gray. This other new discovery was Eleanor Boardman. I arrived at the studio in a big way, with the boil on my 'nose. Hut it passed away with time and I began getting the habit of motion pictures. "That's how I broke into the movies." Perhaps those who rejoiced most at my entrance into the cinema world were my former employers In the bond house and those New York photographers, photog-raphers, who really started me on my downward path. W.S't; Service |