If we had our decision to make as regards Lottie’s chief peculiarity we would say that her idea is to be thoroughly known as Mary’s sister by doing things that Mary doesn’t. Lottie isn’t the first contrary girl, though, who can claim to be of famous family. There was Miss Roosevelt and later Mrs. Longworth. Didn’t the colonel himself call long and loudly for commodious families? And did you ever read that his daughter attained any particular fame aside from smoking cigarettes and not rearing children?
If you are a sort of a junior member of a family and fear that you will be overshadowed by some relative, cast for a famous mold, one way to attract attention is to copy the other one—backwards.
We come to Fatty—Roscoe Arbuckle. Roscoe’s peculiarity just now is to have people try and forget that his name is Fatty. Roscoe is getting dignified. He has half a dozen cars, just because people came to know him as “Fatty Arbuckle” and paid a lot of dough to see him. Just where Fatty expects to promote himself by being Roscoe passeth understanding. Surely he doesn’t think that he could act seriously without being thought funny. Perhaps Fatty is subtle. He may have tired of drawing laughs as a result of acting natural and figures he may get as many more by trying not to appear natural.
Now we are down to Mr. Griffith. Mr. Griffith, to our notion, is a great director. But Mr. Griffith is more or less deftly endeavoring to implant the idea in the public mind that he is a poet. That is Mr. Griffith’s peculiarity. He would not be seen much in public; rather he seeks to attract attention by remaining in seclusion. His well organized staff and his actors and actresses, who like him much, never pass up an opportunity to breathe it about that “Mr. Griffith is a poet.”
We never read any of David’s verses, but if he is a poet, it devoutly is to be desired that there were more poets and fewer directors operating in pictures.
After all, these little peculiarities or hobbies of the picture people are not harmful to any one in particular. We all like to strut and fluff and show our fine feathers. It’s human nature.
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We’ll Say So!
While Al. Jolson, the black-face comedian, was touring the Pacific Coast with his latest starring vehicle, “Sinbad,” he visited the California insane asylum, at Napa. Passing through one of the wards he noticed a rather neat chap and asked the attendant the nature of the fellow’s trouble.
The attendant told the comedian that it was a new case. Had only arrived the previous day.