BearManor Media, 2009
Reprinted by permission
Within an hour of his arrival in Chicago, Bushman made his first appearance before a motion picture camera. This came about on a sunny April morning in 1911 as he was walking toward the large Essanay building at 1333 Argyle Street. Approaching the studio, he observed a commotion in front of a house across the way. In the middle of this mob, his former stage director — Richard Foster “Daddy” Baker — was preparing a camera shot. Motioning for him to come over, Baker insisted that his protégé take part in the scene so he could say that he was the first to photograph Francis X. Bushman. After the filming, Baker dismissed the other actors and introduced Bushman to the head of the studio.
George Kirke Spoor was a pioneer in the motion picture industry, having entered the field in 1894. He purchased a slightly damaged Kinetoscope film from the manager of a nickelodeon and asked Edward H. Amet, a mechanical engineer, to devise a projector. The result was the Amet Magniscope. Spoor and Amet supplied traveling exhibitors with this equipment and installed their machines in vaudeville houses around the country. When Amet sold the patent rights of his invention, Spoor started over with his Kinodrome Service; by 1905 he had the service in 122 Orpheum theaters. So he wouldn’t have to continue buying expensive pre-made films, Spoor and actor G.M. Anderson formed the Essanay Film Manufacturing Company in 1907. Its logo was an Indian head, designed by George K. Spoor’s sister, Mary. Essanay stood for “S” and “A”; “S” for Spoor and “A” for Anderson. Anderson (born Max H. Aronson) was a player in The Great Train Robbery in 1903 and from that time on had a passion for cowboy dramas. He later starred in many Essanay productions in Niles, California, under the name of “Broncho Billy.” While Anderson was concerned primarily with acting and directing, Spoor contributed the capital and overall supervision.
Bushman took to Spoor right off. The producer was a heavyset man who, despite his unsmiling countenance, exuded an air of hospitality. While Spoor and Bushman were chatting, Harry McRae Webster entered the office. The studio’s head director, who had had been assigned to Bushman’s first film, wasted little time with amenities. “Be on the floor ready to work at nine sharp tomorrow morning,” he instructed. “You’ll play an artist who falls in love with his model. Here, I’ll jot down the address of a costume house, and you ride downtown and get yourself a velvet coat and beret.”
Bushman showed up for work the following day well before the appointed hour. He was surprised by his eagerness to participate in what he once called an “illegitimate offspring of the theatrical art.” This, he thought excitedly, was going to be quite an experience.
“Experience is right!” he exclaimed. “Just imagine a madhouse with all the inmates turned loose. Add to that a boiler factory going full swing. Plus a temperature of at least one hundred and twenty degrees from the blinding lights. Well, my God, I was accustomed to the courtesy and quiet of the theater—I’d never seen or heard anything like it!
“I gritted my teeth and swore I’d remember what to do in the next scene,” Bushman later recalled. “But then in the middle of everything, Webster starts improvising ideas and screams them at me. He screamed until his voice gave out and then stamped on the floor and hurled his megaphone.”
In the middle of Webster’s tantrum the lights went out. It was five o’clock, the time Essanay halted production for the day. A noisy mob in every conceivable makeup and costume headed for the dressing rooms in the cellar. Dorothy Phillips, Bushman’s leading lady, walked over to the bewildered actor. “You’re lucky,” she said. “Usually we finish the thing in one day. But on this one, they’re postponing the exteriors until tomorrow morning.”
Harry Cashman, the villain in the photoplay, led Bushman to their dressing room. The room, which the two shared with another actor, was about the size of a clothes closet. Each man was assigned a mirror, a chair, a shelf—and a nail for wardrobe.
That evening Daddy Baker and his wife prepared a dinner to celebrate the new star’s first day on the job. Bushman was less than gracious: “No sooner had I stepped into the Baker home when I cut loose. I was through—finished. I told them I wouldn’t stay on if Spoor got down on his knees and begged me. I had come to Chicago for a rest, but after one week of this I’d be a stark-raving lunatic! And as for Harry McRae Webster—in all my years on the stage, never once had a director so much as raised his voice to me …”
Daddy listened patiently and did his best to soothe Bushman. It was this understanding (along with a bottle of rye) that prompted him to agree to finish the picture.
Bushman’s first photoplay (the favored term at the time) was entitled His Friend’s Wife; it ran approximately twelve minutes, the average length for a one-reeler. But when he viewed the print in Essanay’s screening room, he was horrified. A thing like that could ruin him if it ever got out. Perhaps if he paid for it, he could burn it …
“Burn it?” Spoor said incredulously. “Why, that’s the best picture Essanay has ever made.”
Now it was Bushman’s turn to be incredulous.
After assuaging the actor’s ego about the quality of his moving picture debut, Spoor assigned Daddy Baker to the next film. That was more like it. As he had been under Baker’s direction in several stage plays, Bushman was quite comfortable working with Daddy. One of the early Baker/Bushman collaborations was released in September 1911 as Lost Years. The premise fascinated its star: A young dockhand gets into an argument with the foreman. During the quarrel the foreman inadvertently loses his footing and falls from the pier. Alarmed, the dockhand runs for help, but when he returns with some crew members, no body can be found. The foreman is assumed to have drowned, whereupon the dockhand is arrested, convicted, and sent to prison. In actuality, the foreman had been picked up by a passing ship and shanghaied. Thirty years pass and the aging dockhand still hopes, in vain, for clemency. Moved by the man’s constant pleas of innocence, a reporter writes a touching story that is carried by newspapers across the country. The foreman, now a family man, reads the story of the dockhand’s long imprisonment. He rushes to the jail and clears the prisoner’s name. The grateful dockhand is free at last.
Bushman would go on to make dozens and dozens of short films for Essanay, and yet, the only one he could ever seem to recall by name was Lost Years.
“A prophetic title,” he would say.
BACK TO LON DAVIS BOOK PAGE
© 2009
Niles Silent Film Museum All rights reserved
Web Services provided by
NESFM
Reprinted by permission
George Kirke Spoor was a pioneer in the motion picture industry, having entered the field in 1894. He purchased a slightly damaged Kinetoscope film from the manager of a nickelodeon and asked Edward H. Amet, a mechanical engineer, to devise a projector. The result was the Amet Magniscope. Spoor and Amet supplied traveling exhibitors with this equipment and installed their machines in vaudeville houses around the country. When Amet sold the patent rights of his invention, Spoor started over with his Kinodrome Service; by 1905 he had the service in 122 Orpheum theaters. So he wouldn’t have to continue buying expensive pre-made films, Spoor and actor G.M. Anderson formed the Essanay Film Manufacturing Company in 1907. Its logo was an Indian head, designed by George K. Spoor’s sister, Mary. Essanay stood for “S” and “A”; “S” for Spoor and “A” for Anderson. Anderson (born Max H. Aronson) was a player in The Great Train Robbery in 1903 and from that time on had a passion for cowboy dramas. He later starred in many Essanay productions in Niles, California, under the name of “Broncho Billy.” While Anderson was concerned primarily with acting and directing, Spoor contributed the capital and overall supervision.
Bushman took to Spoor right off. The producer was a heavyset man who, despite his unsmiling countenance, exuded an air of hospitality. While Spoor and Bushman were chatting, Harry McRae Webster entered the office. The studio’s head director, who had had been assigned to Bushman’s first film, wasted little time with amenities. “Be on the floor ready to work at nine sharp tomorrow morning,” he instructed. “You’ll play an artist who falls in love with his model. Here, I’ll jot down the address of a costume house, and you ride downtown and get yourself a velvet coat and beret.”
Bushman showed up for work the following day well before the appointed hour. He was surprised by his eagerness to participate in what he once called an “illegitimate offspring of the theatrical art.” This, he thought excitedly, was going to be quite an experience.
“Experience is right!” he exclaimed. “Just imagine a madhouse with all the inmates turned loose. Add to that a boiler factory going full swing. Plus a temperature of at least one hundred and twenty degrees from the blinding lights. Well, my God, I was accustomed to the courtesy and quiet of the theater—I’d never seen or heard anything like it!
“I gritted my teeth and swore I’d remember what to do in the next scene,” Bushman later recalled. “But then in the middle of everything, Webster starts improvising ideas and screams them at me. He screamed until his voice gave out and then stamped on the floor and hurled his megaphone.”
In the middle of Webster’s tantrum the lights went out. It was five o’clock, the time Essanay halted production for the day. A noisy mob in every conceivable makeup and costume headed for the dressing rooms in the cellar. Dorothy Phillips, Bushman’s leading lady, walked over to the bewildered actor. “You’re lucky,” she said. “Usually we finish the thing in one day. But on this one, they’re postponing the exteriors until tomorrow morning.”
Harry Cashman, the villain in the photoplay, led Bushman to their dressing room. The room, which the two shared with another actor, was about the size of a clothes closet. Each man was assigned a mirror, a chair, a shelf—and a nail for wardrobe.
That evening Daddy Baker and his wife prepared a dinner to celebrate the new star’s first day on the job. Bushman was less than gracious: “No sooner had I stepped into the Baker home when I cut loose. I was through—finished. I told them I wouldn’t stay on if Spoor got down on his knees and begged me. I had come to Chicago for a rest, but after one week of this I’d be a stark-raving lunatic! And as for Harry McRae Webster—in all my years on the stage, never once had a director so much as raised his voice to me …”
Daddy listened patiently and did his best to soothe Bushman. It was this understanding (along with a bottle of rye) that prompted him to agree to finish the picture.
Bushman’s first photoplay (the favored term at the time) was entitled His Friend’s Wife; it ran approximately twelve minutes, the average length for a one-reeler. But when he viewed the print in Essanay’s screening room, he was horrified. A thing like that could ruin him if it ever got out. Perhaps if he paid for it, he could burn it …
“Burn it?” Spoor said incredulously. “Why, that’s the best picture Essanay has ever made.”
Now it was Bushman’s turn to be incredulous.
After assuaging the actor’s ego about the quality of his moving picture debut, Spoor assigned Daddy Baker to the next film. That was more like it. As he had been under Baker’s direction in several stage plays, Bushman was quite comfortable working with Daddy. One of the early Baker/Bushman collaborations was released in September 1911 as Lost Years. The premise fascinated its star: A young dockhand gets into an argument with the foreman. During the quarrel the foreman inadvertently loses his footing and falls from the pier. Alarmed, the dockhand runs for help, but when he returns with some crew members, no body can be found. The foreman is assumed to have drowned, whereupon the dockhand is arrested, convicted, and sent to prison. In actuality, the foreman had been picked up by a passing ship and shanghaied. Thirty years pass and the aging dockhand still hopes, in vain, for clemency. Moved by the man’s constant pleas of innocence, a reporter writes a touching story that is carried by newspapers across the country. The foreman, now a family man, reads the story of the dockhand’s long imprisonment. He rushes to the jail and clears the prisoner’s name. The grateful dockhand is free at last.
Bushman would go on to make dozens and dozens of short films for Essanay, and yet, the only one he could ever seem to recall by name was Lost Years.
“A prophetic title,” he would say.
BACK TO LON DAVIS BOOK PAGE
| © 2009
Niles Silent Film Museum All rights reserved
Web Services provided by NESFM |