About seven or eight years ago a wealthy married man in Virginia was shot by his wife (or was it by a girl in the case?)—Beulah Binford—because he had trifled with her affections. The courts proved the man a rotter, and because Beulah was a very young girl, she was released without a prison sentence. Beulah’s heart and life were broken and she wanted to bury herself in her little home town and try to start over again, but she needed money. An unscrupulous promoter from New York who thought he could profit by the notoriety caused by the crime, made her an offer to be starred in pictures. Beulah went to New York. The picture was taken but the police closed Madison Square Garden when it was scheduled to show there. Even in those early days of picturedom, movie companies of any standing were bitterly incensed against promoters who wanted to make money by exploiting crime.
The tragic figure in this case was Beulah Binford herself. When the picture failed to bring in receipts she was left alone and penniless in a strange city. She went from studio to studio asking for work, but despite the fact that she was beautiful, no one wanted to take a chance with her. Finally the Republic Film Company, of New York, gave her a job sorting papers in their office. She went through countless hardships in the city. What has become of her, we do not know.
A few years later, in Wisconsin, a boy student killed his sweetheart in a lonely wooded section not far from the state university buildings. The case was never proved to have been premeditated murder and he was not given a prison sentence. A well known New York syndicate writer, a woman went out to Wisconsin and tied up the boy’s services for pictures. She then hastened back to New York to sell the contract for a profit. Every picture company in New York turned down her proposition to star the boy!
After Marie Edwards shot Senator Lyons a year or so ago in California, she visited all the studios in Los Angeles in an attempt to get into the movies. Not a single position was offered her.
Mrs. Louise Peete, who was recently sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder of J. C. Denton at his home in Los Angeles, made overtures to the picture companies during the time she thought she was going to be freed. Not a single studio executive paid the slightest attention to her attempts to be exploited on the screen.
The “son” of Senator New, who brutally killed his sweetheart in Topanga Canyon near Los Angeles about a year ago, also thought he might follow a picture career, but this was cut short when he was sentenced to twenty years in the penitentiary.
Mrs. Marie Bailey, who shot her sweetheart, Clarence Hogan, in Pasadena last December, told all reporters that she was going to be featured in pictures as soon as she was released. Mrs. Bailey had previously played in pictures, but when she was arrested, picture studios all made the notation that she would never again be hired even as an “extra.” Marie has gone “up” for ten years.
The Clara Hamon picture, “Fate,” although already produced, has not been exhibited in the theatres. In the light of the history of past cases has it a chance?
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Burning kisses always go with sparks.