Doug’s Peacock Walk
BY RICHMOND
What are the personal peculiarities of film people? In view of the fact that it is our bounden duty to torment, dilate and comment upon ye people of the screen, it behooves us to stop now and then to observe what they are and how they become that way, aside from being good looking, drawing big money and getting divorced.
Let’s get right down to business. Take Allan Dwan, a well known director. Dwan doesn’t hate himself any more than the law provides for. In fact, there is no reason Dwan should despise himself. He was a good electrical engineer; became interested in pictures and makes various flurries of coin according to the Angels who can be dug up to back his ventures.
Dwan formerly was a good athlete. He is powerfully constructed but noticeably short. About the studios it is well understood that one of the few faults Dwan finds with himself is that he isn’t just up to his own personal idea of tallness. If he has a tender spot, it hinges upon this item of feet up and down. Someone conceived the idea that in order to tab him “Napoleon.” But that line of bull has been overdone and so another gag had to be hatched up. “The Big Little Man,” that is what those in close touch with Dwan call him when they desire to make a favorable impression. “The Big Little Man,” that’s a good title—better than some of the ones that appear on Dwan’s pictures and a lot of other pictures.
Thus we dispose of Mr. Dwan, a cocky, brainy, peppy little fellow whose only regret is that he should be a little longer. Next we will consider Mr. Fairbanks, Mary’s present husband, barring every state in the Union but Nevada—and Nevada isn’t quite certain that Mary is still married to Owen Moore. Doug likes to tread about with his gang of retainers at his heels. Fairbanks cottons to the custom, styles and bequeathments of the English sporting gentlemen who stalked abroad with a company of idol worshippers.
Doug is not always the most distinguished looking of his company. At any event, he frequently is not the most noticeable. It was Fairbanks that discovered the now famous Bull Montana, who doubles for monkeys when one is required in the cast and whose ability to take punishment one time resulted in nine fire hoses being turned on him at once as he was swept down the gutter.
When Doug Fairbanks and Bull Montana walk down the street together the Bull “takes it away from him,” as they say in the pictures when a subservient character grabs the best of the scene from the star. Bull has a face, at once fearsome and fascinating. He is so ugly that crowds follow him around. It is a frequent spectacle in Los Angeles to see Fairbanks, Bull Montana, Spike Robinson, Crooked Nosed Murphy, Benny Zeidmann, the press agent de luxe, and Mark Larkin, Fairbanks’ special representative, beating it down the broad. Of course, Doug always struts in front, while the others in platoon formation tread proudly in the rear. The only place where Doug falls down is that some of his gang look funnier than Doug acts on the screen and the big star stands a chance of being overlooked in the “what the h—is coming here” attitude that rends the atmosphere as the Fairbanks battalion bears down upon the multitude. Yes, Doug likes to lead his gang into the big hotel corridors, where his cohorts then fade gracefully into the oblivion necessary to leave Doug alone in his solitude for the yokels to admire and wonder at. You gotta hand it to Doug for rushing in with his gang and then giving them the fade away sign at the psychological moment.
Lottie Pickford—we have thought out loud a time or two before in these columns about Lottie. Unlike the demure Mary, Lottie likes the jazz stuff, the bright lights and some good looking young dude hanging around her. We never saw Lottie chew tobacco, but she can stow away a lot of the “grape.”