“I declare I don’t know,” replied he; “all the time I was looking at him in ‘The Four Horsemen’ I kept asking myself, ‘Is this fellow really acting or is he so perfectly the type that he doesn’t need to act?’”
The existing impression that this famous novel afforded Valentino his first part in pictures is erroneous. Not only had the young Latin worked with Holubar, as Ingram mentioned, but he had been cast with Mae Murray by Bobby Leonard. And, of course, he had rounded out his experience as an extra. Had it not been, however, for Rex Ingram and for the materialisation of a story so exactly adapted to his type, Valentino might still be standing around in the lobby of some Hollywood hotel—one of the thousands of young men and women whose hearts are suffocating with that one cry, “The chance! If only they’d give me the chance!”
“Hail, Czar of Hollywood!”—thus some woman addressed Charlie Chaplin not long ago.
“Oh, no,” smiled Charlie, “that no longer. Valentino is the present ruler.” And then he went on to say, “I like the fellow, you know. He’s got a lot of colour and charm. I went around to see him the other day and it just delighted me to see him stepping about on his thick beautiful rugs among his gorgeous bric-à-brac and his incense-burners. They seemed to suit him, you know, and he was so pleased with all his new splendour—just like a child.”
There is Chaplin for you—always delighted with the colourful, the pictorial, the thing which sets his imagination going.
In line with Charlie’s approval come the words of another man I know, a man well-read, cultured, and charming. “Any one who thinks Valentino is an illiterate young foreigner with a handsome face and a talent for dancing is mistaken”—so protests this witness. “I know him well and I am always interested in his comments on life and work. You’ve got to remember that ‘Rudy’ doesn’t come from the lower classes in Italy. His father was a scientist and his family connections are with professional people.”
“The Four Horsemen” carried not only Valentino high into the ether of popular success. Although Rex Ingram had made successful pictures before this, he had never so thoroughly demonstrated his capacity for that difficult union of finely knit narrative and sweep of vision as did he in Ibañez’s masterpiece. To my mind the skill with which the personal element is presented against the background of great epic disaster places Ingram in the very foremost rank of screen directors. As for Alice Terry, her rôle of the wife in the story afforded her the first satisfactory avenue for that exquisite something which differentiates her.
The story of Alice Terry has the same fairy-tale quality as Valentino’s own. Like him, she had worked hard as an extra for many years, and the hard work had resulted in little recognition. However, discouraging as had been her experience, it was not without results. For Rex Ingram happened to see her in New York when, as a girl still in her mid-teens, she played with Bessie Barriscale in “Not My Little Sister.” The promise which she gave impressed the young director almost immediately. When, indeed, he moved from New York to the Coast he welcomed the fact that she, too, had shifted from East to West. Had it not been for the War, in fact, Alice Terry would probably have been his leading lady some years before.
When Ingram on his return from overseas service finally located the job which put a roof once more over his head and civilian clothes again upon his back, he was to resume his slight acquaintance with Miss Terry. For she came to his office then and applied for a position as script girl, the functionary who, working on the set, chalks off the scenes as they are made and notes the new ones extemporised.
