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Charlie Ray, spats, cane, trick overcoat with its fur collar, et al., has been making his first visit to New York and not creating a ripple of interest. Of course, friend wife was along. We saw Ray strolling up Fifth Avenue the other day—and nobody knew the ornate pedestrian as the simple country boy of the films. They tell me that Ray takes himself very seriously and left the cynical New York reporters dizzy with his confessions about his “mission in life.”
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Jack Pickford continues to loiter about New York. There are all sorts of rumors linking Jack up with pretty Marilyn Miller o’ the Follies. Marilyn lost her husband, Frank Carter, in an auto accident some time ago and is as pleasant a little widow as the White Lights possess. Maybe Marilyn has an eye towards the screen. By the way, those reports of an impending family event in the Fairbanks family still persists. What could be nicer?
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Poor Eric von Stroheim! We sympathize with him despite his Junker physiognomy. He is telling sad tales of his treatment at the hands of Universal. After finishing “Foolish Wives,” they took the negative away from him, hired somebody or other to cut it—and Eric came on to New York to find out where he stood.
At last reports he is still trying to find out. Overheard him in a hotel recently telling his troubles. Now and then a tear splashed in the soup. You see, they have taken his brain child—his masterpiece—away and are letting some cruel inartistic outsider cut it any old way. It seems that Carl Laemmle, prexy of Universal, became irate over the way “Foolish Wives” cost money and never seemed to finish. Eric says they put all sorts of obstructions in his way. They locked cutting room doors, held up his pet plans, and all that, according to Eric. Finally—whisper, for it may only be a pipe dream—Eric organized and armed his army of extras after the fashion of Mr. William Hohenzollern and presented an ultimatum. He got what he wanted. Pause to consider the news story that nearly came out of Universal. Suppose Eric had cut the communication wires, tried military gas on the officials and made the studio into an armed camp. It sounds fishy, of course, but have you ever met the tense Mr. Von Stroheim?
At that we feel awfully sorry for him. He has unusual directorial ability and he is—or was—the one able person at Universal. And now, after making “Foolish Wives,” which, if it doesn’t get barred by the censors, ought to be a whirlwind, he seems to be getting the gate.
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Aren’t those morality clauses the high minded movie producers are inserting into their actor contracts the bunk? Imagine the nerve. Will Rogers gave the best summary when he declared, “Say, if any one hands me a contract with one of them clauses, I’ll say, you sign it first.” He is in New York doing a turn on the Ziegfeld roof. The best line of his act is: “I’m the only guy who ever went to California and came back with the same wife.”