by Ellen Dawson
(Kalem ad, New York Dramatic Mirror, 8 March 1911, 31; “Shea Theater,”
Fitchburg Daily Sentinel, 10 July 1911, 7). That fall, in Gettysburg, the Pastime Theatre began placing her name above the title of Kalem films such as The Branded Shoulder (August 1911); in Coshocton, Ohio, the Luna warned Joyce’s “hundreds of admirers in the city” not to miss For Her Brother’s Sake (October 1911); and that winter an eleven-year-old girl ended her doggerel tribute with the line “the fascinating, captivating, charming Alice Joyce”
(Pastime Theatre ad, Gettysburg Times, 7 October 1911, 1; “Costello at Luna,”
Coshocton Daily Age, 15 November 1911, 5; “The Popular Player Contest,”
Motion Picture Story Magazine, March 1912, 164).
When, in July 1912, Motion Picture Story Magazine began inserting a free color portrait in each issue, the first star chosen was Joyce. Also that summer, in an unusual ad, the manager of the Bijou Theatre in Benton Harbor noted that Joyce was “among the first to win fame as a portrayer of the silent drama. . . . We have seen her in all sorts of parts and whether dressed in the rags of a mountain maid or in a spangled gown at a ball, her charming ways and sweet face always win the heart of her audience” (“The Theatre,” News-Palladium, 16 August 1912, 2). In one of her more intriguing films, “Rube”
Marquard Wins (September 1912), Joyce plays a fan of the New York Giants; before a crucial game, the team’s leading pitcher, Marquard, is lured away from the Polo Grounds and locked in a nearby high-rise building; in the stands, Joyce uses her binoculars to spot him yelling out a window and then races in her automobile to his rescue—so he can win the game (“‘Rube’ Marquard Great Twirler, at the Fairy To-Day,” Fort Wayne Journal-Gazette, 4 September 1912, 8; City Opera House ad, The News, 27 September 1912, 1). She also was one of the few “picture personalities” before Anderson to have a newspaper photo story in print, and, when the City Opera House in Frederick, Maryland, advertised a special Christmas program in late 1912, she was first on the list of six “all star players” (City Opera House ad, The News, 24
December 1912, 1).5 Yet, unlike most early female stars, Joyce also remained popular with audiences well into the decade, as evidenced in Kalem’s Alice Joyce series of two-reel films (1914–1915).
Although Mary Pickford, the third “Biograph Girl,” is the subject of the next essay in this volume, she too, upon leaving Biograph for IMP, quickly
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RICHARD ABEL
Alice Joyce,
Motion Picture Story Magazine,
August 1911.
became one of the first major “picture personalities” (“Mary Pickford,” Billboard, 24 December 1910, 11). The sobriquet “Little Mary” that IMP pinned on Pickford was circulating by late 1910 (“The Lyric,” Fort Wayne Daily News, 23 January 1911, 4); three months later in Greenville, Mississippi, David Crocket Himier took his “picture fan” brother to task with a bit of doggerel that included only two names—Florence Lawrence and “Little Mary Pickford . . . his greatest joy in life” (“Hard on Henry,” Daily Democrat, 19 May 1911, 9). When she left IMP that fall for a new independent company, Majestic, the Cleveland Leader printed an unusual photo story of the “blonde and petite” eighteen-year-old “star” (“Moving Picture Star Tells of the Thrill of Her Art,” 22 October 1911, S:5), and stories of her new affiliation reached rural areas like Humeston, Iowa, where “Little Mary” was described as “a great favorite of the patrons of the Princess” (“Princess Notes,” Humeston New Era, 25 October 1911, 1). Majestic mounted an
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37
extensive ad campaign for Pickford, whose film characters often shared her first name, and the Mirror even consented, in early December, to make her the first motion picture actor to grace its front cover (Majestic ad, New York Dramatic Mirror, 29 November 1911, 27; “Mary Pickford—Little Mary,” New York Dramatic Mirror, 6 December 1911, 29). Pickford soon returned to Biograph, where she remained (uncredited) throughout 1912, but exhibitors across the country continued to promote her appearances because she was such a familiar attraction for audiences. In Oelwein, Iowa, for instance, the Dreamland placed her name above its featured film title, The Mender of Nets (February 1912) ( Oelwein Daily Register, 26 April 1912, 8). That fall, in Fresno, a photo of Pickford accompanied an unusual, highly favorable review of A Pueblo Legend (August 1912) (“Aztec Portrayal Pleasantly Greeted,” Fresno Morning Republican, 19 September 1912, 13). When, in December, David Belasco hired Pickford to perform a leading role in A Good Little Devil on Broadway, the threat of her disappearance from picture screens prompted much newspaper comment. In Waterloo, Iowa, a large photo story tried to claim her for “‘movie’ enthusiasts” as the “charming little ‘movie’ actress who has captured the hearts of thousands who do not even know her name” (“Happy Christmastide for Popular Little Heroine of Moving Pictures,” Waterloo Reporter, 28 December 1912, 8). Pickford would return to motion pictures the following year, but as a crucial star for Famous Players feature films.
In February 1911, a Moving Picture World article on acting noted that
“feminine stars, of the Florence Lawrence caliber, seem[ed] much more numerous than their male vis-à-vis” (C. H. Claudy, “Too Much Acting,” 11
February 1911, 289). That observation generally seemed to hold, not only in the trade press but also in newspaper ads and photo stories. A number of male “picture personalities” other than Anderson did emerge during the early 1910s, however—that is, John Bunny (the Vitagraph comic), King Baggot (IMP’s “leading man”), Francis X. Bushman (the main lead in Essanay’s Chicago production unit), and Arthur Johnson (often paired at Lubin with Lawrence). The earliest and most prominent of these most likely was Maurice Costello at Vitagraph. In October 1910, the New York Dramatic Mirror began to print a series of photo stories about Vitagraph actors, and the first (after Turner) was devoted to Costello (“Maurice Costello,” 5 October 1910). Motion Picture Story Magazine also included his portrait—along with those of Lawrence, Turner, and Joyce—in its initial set of “personalities of the picture players” photos. So attractive for audiences was he that, in May 1911, in Warren, Pennsylvania, the Theatorium announced that it would give away, with each admission to His Mother
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RICHARD ABEL
(May 1911), “a beautiful photo of Maurice Costello” (“A Vitagraph Feature,” Warren Evening Mirror, 26 May 1911, 2). That fall, in Coshocton, the Luna highlighted Costello as “the most popular player” in A Western Heroine (September 1911) (“Costello at Luna,” Coshocton Daily Age, 15 November 1911, 5); a month later, in Oakland, the Camera topped that praise with this claim: “no photoplay actor has reached or will reach the height of popularity and the hearts of the picture lovers as Maurice Costello has”
(“Costello Seen in Photo-Play at Camera,” Oakland Tribune, 14 December 1911, 4). In late January 1912, in Greenville, Mississippi, the Princess Theatre chose to make Costello rather than his film, An Innocent Burglar (November 1911), “the feature tonight” ( Daily Democrat, 25 January 1912, 9). When, in March, Vitagraph placed an ad in Motion Picture Story Magazine for “Souvenir Postal Cards of the Vitagraph Players,” only one card needed to be shown—Costello’s (March 1912, 151). The relatively easy winner of the Magazine’s first “popular player contest” that summer, Costello also incited fans to outdo one another with doggerel tributes: one hailed Costello as “the king of the Photoplay, / Handsome and manly, our hero and friend”; another, linking actors’ names with alphabetical letters, wrote
“C for Costello, with his dimples and smile, / He’s really an actor, the girls think, worth while” (“The Popular Player Contest,” Motion Picture Story Magazine, March 1912, 160, and April 1912, 134; “Winners of the Popular Players Contest,” Motion Picture Story Magazine, July 1912, 34).
✩★
✩★
✩★
✩★
✩ Movie Stars and Their Audiences:
A
t Home and Abroad
Evidence of the emerging star system’s success as a marketing strategy is hard to miss by the end of 1912. Early that year Motion Picture Story Magazine instituted a gossip column, “Chats with the Players,” that interviewed three or four “picture personalities” each month.6 That fall Motography introduced “Sans Grease Paint and Wig,” an interview column written by Mabel Condon that profiled a single “picture personality” in each issue, and the subject in late December was “‘Broncho Billy’ in Real Life”
(“Sans Grease Paint and Wig,” 12 October 1912, 287, and 21 December 1912, 481). Evidence in local newspapers is even more telling. In November 1912, for instance, the Anaconda Standard (Montana) printed a lengthy
“Theatrical” column, partly based on an article in Theater Magazine, arguing that “the astonishing success” of motion pictures was due in large part to each leading player’s “magnetic personality” (24 November 1912, 3). The column astutely observed that
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patrons of the “movies” . . . now watch for announcements of the photoplays in which their particular favorite appears and endeavor to see all of that player’s characterizations. There are matinee idols of the “movies” as well as of the legitimate stage. While admirers of a star of the real theater may have an opportunity to see their favorite once a season and in one part, the popular motion picture players may be seen every week in different roles, and during the course of a year they play many parts.
The column concluded with a list of “the most popular favorites,” in which each of those “picture personalities” already singled out is named, along with Mary Fuller and Marc McDermott of Edison.
That same month the Scripps-McRae newspaper chain proclaimed that its “moving picture expert,” Gertrude Price, would be entertaining readers with stories about the “MOVING PICTURE FOLKS” because “‘the movies’
[were] the biggest, most popular amusement in the world” (“The Movies,”
Des Moines News, 11 November 1912, 2). These stories soon turned into a syndicated series of “personality sketches” (illustrated with line drawings) that could appear up to several times a week, not only in Scripps-McRae newspapers located in the Midwest but also in many others that subscribed to the United Press Association. Consequently, they may have been more widely read, especially by moviegoers, than anything in the trade press and perhaps even in the new fan magazines. Price wrote exclusively about American “moving picture folks,” and her choices were striking. One out of four or five actors, for instance, was described as acting in westerns; indeed, Anderson was the subject of the fourth story printed (“Alkali Ike and Broncho Bill Tear Things Up Something Fierce,” Des Moines News, 16 November 1912, 3). At least two-thirds of Price’s stories, however, were devoted to women, from obvious stars such as Pickford and Joyce to lesser-known personalities, whether working for large or small production companies. The one on Pickford was quite characteristic in its colloquial language and sum-mary take on star power: “Stunning Mary Pickford—Only 19 Now—Quits $10,000 ‘Movies’ Career to Shake Her Golden Locks as a Belasco Star” ( Des Moines News, 9 January 1912, 7). The general readership of Scripps-McRae newspapers suggests that Price’s extensive “gallery of picture players” may well have assumed a gendered audience. The texts, with their elaborated, punchy titles, and the images of countless female stars certainly could have appealed to male readers, just as many “Broncho Billy” films could have appealed to mothers and girls. Yet overall, Price’s stories seemed to target working women. Most of the movie stars she promoted were described as
“athletic young women, carefree but committed to their work, frank and fearless in the face of physical risk. . . . [usually] unattached, and without
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children” (Abel, Americanizing 245). Such female “picture personalities,”
arguably, would have been especially appealing to young female movie fans as active, attractive, independent workers or professionals and, therefore, successful role models to emulate.7 Although never named as such, most could be considered “popular, influential figures of a specifically American
‘New Woman’ ” (Abel, Americanizing 246).
Finally, although public interest in “picture personalities” such as Pickford and Lawrence soon extended beyond the United States (see Gledhill in this volume), it was through the “Broncho Billy” cowboy pictures that the American star system first really took hold in the motion picture markets of Europe and elsewhere. In Great Britain, according to Bioscope, “Indian stories, cowboy subjects, or Western dramas,” especially those of Essanay and Selig, already were very popular by late 1910 (“Topics of the Week: The Popularity of Western Films,” Bioscope, 18 August 1910, 4–5; “What the People Want,” Bioscope, 27 October 1910, 73). In its ads, Essanay quickly began distinguishing the films “‘Made in the West’ by Westerners” from its other releases there (Essanay ad, Bioscope, 16 February 1911, 37). By March 1911, Nickelodeon was taking note of what the British were calling a “welcome . . . invasion,” singling out in particular the success of Essanay’s “wild west dramas” in London (“London Likes Essanay Western Photoplays,”
Nickelodeon, 18 March 1911, 311). That summer Motography (formerly Nickelodeon) repeated what was then well known: throughout England, “phases of cowboy and Indian life are the most popular subjects for American films”
(“Moving Picture Business Abroad,” June 1911, 142). And the New York Times (which rarely noticed motion pictures) reprinted Motography’s article under a headline that neatly summed up the westerns’ commercial and ideological function: “Exporting an Imaginary America to Make Money” (30
July 1911, 5:4). At the same time, in Germany, where Essanay opened a sales office in Berlin, the “Broncho Billy” films, according to censorship records, were being distributed widely throughout Central Europe (Götkürk 96). By 1912, in its Bioscope ads, Essanay was extolling Anderson as “the ever popular ‘Broncho Billy,’ ” which soon became “the World Famous Role of Broncho Billy” (Essanay ads, Bioscope, 25 January 1912, xxii, and 6 June 1912, 734). In reviewing Broncho Billy and the Bandits (May 1912) and Broncho Billy’s Narrow Escape, Bioscope praised the character’s
“irresistible charm of personality and . . . breezy, easy, infectious humor”
and concluded, “He can be fierce and terrible too, when there is cause as the bandits find to their cost, but, in spite of his moments of stern menace, he is essentially the great, good-humoured ‘Billy,’ of whom we have all learned to grow fond. His overflowing geniality, the twinkle in his
G. M. ANDERSON
41
humourous eye, as well as his sure, sober strength in times of peril, are magnetic” (“The Pick of the Programmes: What We Think of Them,” 13
June 1912, 819, and 1 August 1912, 367). By July, as for exhibitors in the United States, so too in Great Britain: Essanay was taking orders for “photogravure portraits” and posters of Anderson to satisfy fans (Essanay ad, Bioscope, 18 July 1912, 1705). All this gave credence to Essanay’s boast, also taken up in U.S. newspaper ads, that “Broncho Billy” was the first American “world famous character-creation” (Essanay ads, Moving Picture World, 29 June 1912, 1187, and New York Dramatic Mirror, 4 September 1912, 31).8
At least two points are worth stressing by way of a conclusion. First, that G. M. Anderson was hailed as the country’s “most photographed man” in 1911 testifies to the importance of both “Broncho Billy” as a “good badman”
figure of moral redemption and social assimilation and the western as an emerging genre of imagined national origins and manly character. No less significant is this: the “Broncho Billy” films demonstrated that seriality in the single-reel fiction film, especially a series based on a recurring “picture personality” who embodied a more or less consistent character “type,” could successfully attract mass audiences to return again and again to picture theaters.
Moreover, the European fascination with Anderson’s “character-creation”
alerted the industry that American stardom could be profitably exported abroad. Second, that Anderson and other early picture personalities were promoted not only in the industry’s trade press and new fan magazines but also in hundreds of daily newspapers testifies to the latter’s significance in establishing the marketing viability of the emerging star system. Indeed, newspapers were unusually crucial because their broad, frequent circulation of images and stories about picture personalities in the public arena served as a recurring stimulus, luring more and more people into the growing fan culture for motion pictures. Perhaps most important, this newspaper discourse strongly suggests that, by the early 1910s, the marketing of movie stars already was becoming dependent on a synchronic, multimedia system that has proved especially persistent over the past century.
N OT E S
1. The trade press did not take note of Essanay’s publicity scheme until late 1911—see, for instance, “The Most Photographed Man,” New York Dramatic Mirror, 22 November 1911, 26.
2. As of this writing, surviving 35 mm prints of the Anderson films discussed in this essay can be found as follows: Under Western Skies, Broncho Billy’s Christmas Dinner, Broncho Billy’s Last Hold-Up, Broncho Billy’s Narrow Escape, and A Wife of the Hills at the Nederlands Filmmuseum, Amsterdam ( Under Western Skies is also at the National Film and Television Archive in London), and A Pal’s Oath at the Library of Congress (Washington, D.C.).
3. Moving Picture World, of course, had printed “picture personality” photo stories of Pearl White and Mary Pickford even earlier, in December 1910.