Early Days as a Movie "Extra"

Radio Record, Volume VIII, Issue 17, 2 November 1934, Page 64

Early Days as a Movie "Extra"

The Life of Norma Shearer

(Special to the "Radio Record." )

he didn’t know where she would find a place in the theatrical world. She couldn’t sing. She couldn't dance. And she wasn’t tall enough to be a show girl. "That discouraged me terribly," Norma said. "Then it made me mad. [| determined to show everyone that there was some place for me on the stage. I remember a photographer saying to me shortly after we reached New York, "You're not bad looking when you smile.’ So I always tried to smile whenever pos sible, and my grin got Athole and me our first job as ‘extras’ in pictures. We had © registered at every agency in town and received a call to come to one of the offices. The place was filled with giris and women. The director was trying to pick out eight or ten. I stood on my tiptoes and smiled my hardest when I caught his eye. He mationed for me to come up to the desk and gave Athole and me two of the bit parts." That first job lasted intermittently for several’ weeks. The girls received five dollars a day-when they worked. But. when the sun did not shine, there was no work. The company was "shooting" in a suburb, in an old, cold, draughty studio. The girls scrambled out of bed in the darkness of the early. winter mornings, grabbed a hasty breakfast and caught a train at six-thirty. "Those were terrible days," Norma I T was Ziegfield who told Norma that

continued. "We borrowed make-up from the other girls and we must have looked like clowns when we had our faces fixed. We knew nothing about putting on make-up, and everyone was too coid and too busy to teach us. We all dressed in a long room with cracks around the windows, so that the cold wind howled in across us. Sometimes we sat all day shivering, waiting for the leading man and woman to show up. It was usually almost midnight before we returned to our little room." But Norma wasn’t discouraged by this first taste of pictures, and the money which she and Athole brought home each night was.waitth the suffering of the days. When she was called for a bit in "The Flapper," with Olive Thomas, Norma took her courage in her hands and informed the assistant director that she would furnish her own wardrobe and that she wanted a much better salary. Strangely enough, she got it. No one was more surprised than Norma herself. In one of the scenes of the picture, which was being made on location, the girls had to slide down a long hill on bob-sleds. There were several sleds and almost a hundred girls. They started at the same time from the top of the hill and landed in a scrambled mess at the foot. Several girls were badly hurt. Athole was one of them. For days Norma hovered over her, scared to death. The entire conipany had to stay at an inn until the girls were better. Norma still remembers the kindness and consideration of Olive Thomas during those worried days when Athole was so sick. For a time after their return to New York, things went smoothly for the Shearer girls. One small part followed another, and thete was always money in the family purse. They were able to pay their landlady all the back rent they owed her, and to buy a few muchneeded clothes. Then this good luck stopped and they couldn’t find any kind of a job anywhere. Finally they were down to almost their last sou. . . "But I enjoyed it," Norma said. "The harder the struggle, th greater the fun. My aunt encouraged me. She was playing in a stock company and once in a while she’d come over after the show to spend the night with us. Her words of advice and encouragement. kept our spirits high. Every night I’d press my clothes-I always had one best suit to wear when I went job-hunting. I’d curl my hair and shine my shoes, putting pasteboard in the soles, which were pretty well worn from the miles I had trudged up and down Broadway... During those hard times we ate egg plant; I had never eaten it before, and [ thought it was meat. It seemed the cheapest kind of meat in the restaurants, so we practically lived on it. for weeks, until we discovered that it was a vegetable and not some new kind of meat." Then the girls began to find an occasional job, just enough to keep food in their mouths and a roof over their heads. During this time Norma played a small part in "Way Down East." One day in the studio restaurant, she met D: W. Griffith: the ‘director of the picture; she told him that her ambition was to be a film star and asked him to take a test of her. He.said that:he would, but that he was afraid she would not photograph well. A few days later he advised her to give up all thoughts of a. picture career and go back home, where she belonged. Griffith’s words, like the words of Ziegfield, served only to make Norma more determined, "I loved that studio," Norma said. "I met Marion Davies there

Norma Talmadge and Lillian Gish, . It, was all so friendly and informal, and those successful girls were awfully kind to the ‘extras.’ It was after that picture that I had my first real chance. I was playing a small part, that of a bridesmaid in a Constance Talmadge'picture in New York, when an agent called to tell me that a test which I had taken at the Old Victor Studio a few days before was successful, and that they wanted me for the picture "The Stealers.’ When I told the assistant director that I had to leave and that my sister would take my place, he stormed at me, "You can’t do this.to us. I’ll have Joe Schenck put you out of the business.’ Believe me, that made me feel important. But I left, and Athole took my place and I guess that Joe Schenck never heard about it!" Tt was Norma’s role in "The Stealers" which first attracted the attention of a young man named Irving Thalberg, who was then production manager of the Universal Studios in far-off Hollywood. He wrote to Norma’s agent, offering Norma a contract. But nothing ever happened. The agent asked for more money. Thalberg refused to pvav it. So Norma lost her first chance

ta go to Hollywood. For the same reason she lost many good jobs in New York. "After ‘The Stealers,’ I thought that I would be established for life, but no other jobs were forthcoming. I didn’t know about the salary my agent was asking, so I didn’t understand the reason, Our money disappeared, and, for the first time, mother and I became desperately discouraged. We wrote to dad for money to take us home, but he did not have it to send us. Finally, when we were down to our last sou, we received a letter from Douglas with.a money order for three hundred dollars-his entire savings. That paid our railroad expenses back home to Montreal. "Going back to Montreal was the most humiliating experience of my life. It was an admission of failure after all our high hopes. It gave me a terribly lowdown feeling. I hated to go on the streets, meet people, and answer their questions about our return. Then, one day I received a wire from the agent, saying that

he had obtained a job for me to take Gladys Walton’s place in a picture. Miss Walton was ill and I could have the job if I came at once. Mother and I left that night and, because we were sure of a good job, we went to an hotel instead of back .to the place where we had lived before. But the job fell through; Miss Walton recovered, and mother and I found ourselves with an hotel bill and no money. "Then we were really up against it. We couldn't go home. I remember we tried everything we knew to find a job. One rainy afternoon we walked from picture show to picture show, trying to find a job as a piano player. But they wouldn’t hire me because I didn’t belong to the Musicians’ Union. Then someone suggested that I pose for commercial photographers. I registered at every. studio and agency in town and -began to get occasional work. Mother found a job as a clerk in a departmental store, After

standing all day on ner feet Mh tiie whOLes she used to hurry home to get dinner at night. Believe me, if ever a-mother was a good sport, my mother was." Norma posed for everything-hats, shoes, coats, jewellery-even for tire advertisements. Her picture, smiling through a huge tire with the words "Time to Retire" under it, hung. for years in one of New York’s busy thoroughfares, and Norma used to stop to look at it every time her job-hunting carried her to that neighbourhood, Norma still kept up her contacts with pictures, and varied her posing with an occasional bit of work in films. She worked as "extra" in several pictures directed by Robert Z. Leonard, the man who later directed one of her greatest starring pictures, ""The Divorcee," Norma had given up all idea of ever becoming a star, she just hoped that she would be able to make a. comfortable living by her work for the rest of her life, Then out of the blue came two offers of contracts from, Hollywood. Read in next week's "Radio Record" how Norma: Shearer: xose from playing small parts to . \staxdom,,