OCR Text |
Show How I Broke Into The Movies Cop?Lby ' ' " Herman BY JOHN GILBERT MY MOTHER, Ida Clair Gilbert, was a noted stage star at the time of my birth at Logan, Utah. My early education was obtained in various cities because of my mother's travels. To complete my high school studies, I attended Hitchcock Military Mili-tary academy, at San Rafael, Calif. My stage career began early to be exact, when I was one year of age, Eddie Foy using me in a show he produced. But when I was graduated grad-uated from military school, I decided decid-ed not to follow my mother's career. I obtained a position with the Goodrich Good-rich Rubber company in San Francisco Fran-cisco and started out to be a business busi-ness man. I went through the various stages nf r-lprV hnnkkeenpr nnd salesman. traveling out of San Francisco and later out of Portland, finally becoming becom-ing a sales executive. But the love of the theatrical word was grained in me after all, heredity does shape destinies. It was in 1015 that I first looked toward motion pictures. As an extra ex-tra I made my first appearance before be-fore the camera In one of the late Thomas H. Ince productions at Ince-ville. Ince-ville. Following this I achieved some notice as principal and later was engaged as leading man for Mary Pickford in "Heart of the Hills." After several lesser features I was signed by Maurice Tourneur. My engagement with Tourneur was as an actor, but my Interest gravitated to scenario writing, and I took up this branch, having the good fortune of producing some of 1 if "--x i , I ' . " - :i :...- ' I r S - 1 John Gilbert. Tourneur's most successful scripts. This In turn led to directing, and finally I decided to give up acting for good and become a megaphone wielder permanently. Later, I had the ambition to make my own productions, and engaged a studio in New York. The experience experi-ence I had gained with Tourneur proved most valuable, and I directed direct-ed and acted in my own pictures for several months. Returning to California, Cali-fornia, I signed with the Fox studios and starred for three years In oil manner nf nlflVS. "MOUte Cristo," "Cameo Kirby" and "The Wolf Man" are among the outstanding outstand-ing features of that period. Following this engagement I was signed by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. There Is an Interesting Incident In connection with this. When I arrived ar-rived at the big studio I ws assigned as-signed to a dressing room I had occupied oc-cupied seven years before as an extra, ex-tra, when the studio was the old Triangle plant. At that time I shared the dressing room with Tom Buckingham, then an obscure actor, later to be a well-known well-known director. Since joining M-G-M I have appeared In "Desert Nights," "Redemption," "Flesh and the Devil," "A Woman of Affairs," "The Cossacks," "The Big Tarade," and many others. The reception accorded these pictures pic-tures by the public has been most gratifying. His latest engagement Is as leading lead-ing man for Greta Garho. WN'U Service |