WEBVTT

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...scale company. So we talked it over with him and the two of them together figured out

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this proposition. Amit was a mechanic and he knew how to make things and Mr. Spoor had

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the idea. Well finally they got a machine that worked and then they put in for a patent.

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Mr. Spoor put up the money but they hadn't consulted the patent lawyer so he didn't put

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his name in on the application so the patent was issued to Amit. The machines were at that time

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was acquainted with nearly all the water bill people in Chicago because... Let me interrupt

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there. Why was he... Because he had these road shows that he put on in the suburbs out in

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other places around northern Illinois so he naturally knew Cole... Martin Beck... Martin Beck

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are the two that I have heard him talk the most of. He originally started to import pictures from

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France. Little short strips. And he showed them as little strips in the break in the vaudeville

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shows. Well this became more and more popular and in one of Martin Beck's theaters there was a lad

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by the name of... The boy that... It was the usher that he... There was a nursery in one of these theaters by the name of

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Bill and Mr. Spoor employed him to operate the projection machine during this little short strip.

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And as time went on one of the machine was not acting properly and Bell told Mr. Spoor that he

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had a good friend by the name of Howell who was a mechanic and he could fix it. So Howell came in

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and became... Was the repairman on the machine. And this went on for a number of years and Bell

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became more and more of an operator and finally in... As I recall sometime around 1913 Mr. Spoor

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turned over the machine business and all that he had built up to Bell and Howell and told them to take it and make a business of their own out of it.

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You ever know the original of the S&A head in the film as his trademark his sister Molly drew it from a penny. It was Indian head on a penny. And that became

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daddy's trademark. And did Molly suggest this or did your father... I think daddy suggested it probably because he was the one that had the ideas.

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But Molly... You see he sent Molly to the Art Institute for many years. Oh and then therefore he wanted Molly back. Yes, yes. That's the reason he wanted Molly. You do.

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Alright you say that again now in your own words so that if I ever want to put this in another document. Alright you tell me about his sending Molly to school.

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Daddy George sent... Actually daddy George to me always will be... Sent Molly to the Art Institute for several years and that's where she learned to draw and she drew beautifully and still does draw beautifully.

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And it was upon his suggestion that she make the Indian head which he copied from a penny. Very good. Just a moment recollections of John Beargren's natural vision.

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He was a tall slender man. Very studious. Always very serious with a beard.

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How did your father meet him? I don't know. I really don't know.

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Was he as the papers said a Swedish physicist or was he mainly a man who could work with his hands and was a good draftsman. Was he a draftsman primarily?

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Now that I'm not too sure of either. I'm sorry. But he worked with your father then on this? Oh for years. Just for years.

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Did they have any offer that is for the process from anybody in Hollywood or anywhere? No. No offers? None that I know of.

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Several films were made. Do you recall any of those films that were made? There was a film of Niagara Falls am I right? That was the main one that I remember.

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And what did it look like? What are your impressions? What did it look like? It was just, it was, oh you just felt wet. It looked so wonderful. So natural the way it was.

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Also there was one called City Lights. Do you recall this? It was with, City Lights was done. And I believe the soundtrack was put to that.

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And then a film called the Flag Maker and some versions it was called the American. Do you remember that? That was done on the west coast.

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Yes I remember. I remember about it. But you didn't see it? No I didn't see it. Unfortunately.

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The City Lights received very good reviews in Chicago and in New York. And what was the major reason that this was driven out was sound. Is that correct? Sound had come in.

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And they couldn't change over. That was it. That was it.

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So of Max Aronson, of G.M. Anderson.

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Well he was always very pleasant to me. Of course I was the other lad's daughter. But he was very, very pleasant. I don't know. I never knew him very well.

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Chaplin talks about him as a very fine human being who had a number of various projects. I know that he supported some boxers.

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Oh sure he did that sort of thing. He had a very big heart. That's what I understand. Very big heart. Very generous man.

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And I don't know whether his little wife, I don't think she's still living. That's her heart. Max Leona is I know. Little daughter.

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Maxine is yes. Her name is Max Leona.

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Max Leona? Ah good. Leona after his sister.

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Max Leona. Yes Max Leona is the name.

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I see. Well she calls herself Maxine now. Oh does she? Her name is Max Leona.

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In 1913, Mr. Spoor and his brother Harry, who was in charge of the European distribution of pictures, were building a motion picture theatre in Berlin.

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They visited Berlin and the mayor gave him this statue of a lady Godiva on a white bear which is the symbol of Berlin.

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Then the war came along and of course that all went up.

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He lost everything.

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Nothing ever happened to him. But they were building a theatre of their own in Berlin at the time.

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I also have some information that I guess it was Harry then who, or SNA I have no idea, who owned a building am I correct in Berlin?

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Harry owned some real estate then.

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Yes I think so.

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That is Harry.

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Marvin Spoor was director of photography. He was the youngest of the seven brothers am I correct?

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That's right.

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And he was then made director of photography at SNA?

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I don't know that but he was one of the main cameramen.

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One of the main cameramen there. Very good.

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Then what happened there between Spoor and Anderson? What was the date approximately?

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Well as I recall it was sometime around 1916 that Mr. Spoor and Anderson decided to break up the partnership and Mr. Spoor bought him out for somewhere around a million dollars.

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Tell me about that.

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Well he was utterly delightful. He really was and he had a marvelous sense of humor. You could just see everything he talked.

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This is about Max Linders?

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Max Linders. He was a remarkable person. He really was. And daddy made some very good pictures of him I think.

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Tell me this. They were, according to them they were not good box office. There were three made at SNA I believe.

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And then your father and Max terminated the contract primarily because Max couldn't stand the Chicago cold.

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That's right. He didn't like the cold. He was just perfectly frigid all the time. He just couldn't stand it. So then they swore off again.

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You tell it dear. You tell it dear.

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Wallace Berry and the works. All right go ahead.

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Well Wallace Berry wasn't so successful at first but he soon became very successful.

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And the pride of his life was this wonderful car and he got a little SNA and he put it on the car.

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And that's all that was necessary. So he had an accident and daddy had to pay about $100,000.

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$100,000?

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Was that much?

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Good heavens.

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What was the accident? Do you remember the accident?

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He went into another car, killed somebody I think.

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I heard that he may have done that but was this confirmed that he did kill somebody?

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I think he did dear.

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I'm not too sure. He injured somebody anyway.

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And the car was a Mercer was it not?

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Yes it was a Mercer. That's right. That's what it was. It was a Mercer. And he thought he was so proud of it.

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And how did you get? Yeah we're recording. Okay you go ahead.

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Well I uh...

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Let me just slate this now. This is Beverly Bain SNA Studios.

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I'm moving around. Beverly Bain SNA Studios Chicago.

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Well that's where I started my career. SNA in Chicago and it was in Chicago.

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It was really a truly Cinderella like story.

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I was going to Hyde Park High School in Chicago and I had only been three weeks in my freshman term

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when a girl, Chum of mine, said oh you're so interested in the theater and movies and things like that

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that don't you think it would be wonderful if we go up to the SNA and see how pictures are taken?

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There's such a mystery about them. And I was thrilled to pieces.

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She said you know my mother and father know the head director Harry McRae Webster

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and I'm sure he'd be delighted to have us come.

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And we'll take pictures along because they love young society girls who have pretty clothes and long white gloves

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to go in the ballroom scenes. Well that excited me beyond words.

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And so we went up on a Wednesday and Mr. Webster took us all through the studio

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and we saw how the movies were taken. Maybe the last scene was taken first

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and he explained the whole thing and oh it was such a mystery and so exciting and so thrilling to two young girls.

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And the following Tuesday afternoon about four when I got home from school a phone rang

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and it was Mr. Webster's secretary and she said Mr. Webster would like to have you come to the studio tomorrow morning at 10.30.

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Well I thought that was rather strange because Mr. Webster had said before you know we start at nine o'clock in the morning

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and you punch a time clock of all things and then the studio closes promptly at five and from nine until one on Saturday.

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And so I couldn't understand why he was asking me for 10.30.

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So I said to my mother oh mother may I go please let me go and she said yes if your aunt goes with you.

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Well you see in those days we did use chaperones.

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It was sort of a lost art today. Well anyway the next morning we were at the studio

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and Mr. Webster came bristling in you know bustling in and he said here here's a script.

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Go out and have your lunch and come back after you do and I'll take you through a scene.

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And oh my heart was palpitating and he said your part is the part of Marion now you go and study it and come back.

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So that's what we did. I had a bowl of vegetable soup I remember and I had about four tablespoons full

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and that was it. I couldn't eat anymore. I was so excited. The part of Marion was the lead in the picture.

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So we went back to the studio. Mr. Webster set up in the green room tables and chairs

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and arranged for me to walk the scenes with him and of course in those days you made up your own lines.

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You got the sense of the story and then the actors made up their own lines and to follow the script that way.

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Well he took me through this scene once and then he had my aunt sit in where he had been

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and I went through the scene and he sat out front as directors were wont to do with the idea of a megaphone in their hands

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and as you worked and said your lines why he would say well now turn a little more to the right now look up now smile

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and now you go over and wave goodbye to somebody. Well he was very satisfied I could see with the scene

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and he said now little lady he said what would you consider your services worth.

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You know you have to be here from nine until five every day and from nine until one on Saturdays. We never work Sundays.

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And well I said oh Mr. Webster I've never been in the theater I don't know what to say.

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Well I who was getting an allowance of 25 cents a week knew that actors got tremendous sums of money.

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So I tried to think in large numbers. So he said now go on I'm not going to give it to you you know if you're not worth it

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I can't pay it and he said just say anything and so I said very timidly 30 35 or 25 dollars a week.

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Well the dear man I can see him now his face flushed a twinkle came in his eye and he said well I'll tell you little lady.

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He said I'll start you the first week you will just work under my personal direction and for four weeks you'll get 25 dollars a week

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and then you'll go into regular stock and play with the other directors and rest of the company it doesn't make.

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And he says from then on it's up to you and I'm here to glad to relate that my next jump six months later was 75 and then it went to 350.

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So I have always been very amused at my childlike asking 25 dollars as though it were a big sum I who had 25 cents allowance.

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Excellent. Tell me this now you said that you had you had come to Chicago but where where had your earlier schooling been?

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Well in Minneapolis and in Philadelphia my stepfather traveled a great deal and Duluth I was about in the first or second grade in Duluth

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and I spent about six months or years to go to school there and stayed with an aunt and my grandmother and went to school there.

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I have a series of clippings one from I believe Minneapolis you were in society there am I correct?

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Your family?

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Well we were just sort of middle class nice middle class family and but I did go back there and play at the Bainbridge family.

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I played at the theater the Bainbridge stock company in with Brandon Rhodes I see him once in a while on TV in brief moment and one other play I can't even think of it now.

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And it it's a beautiful city and I loved it but I haven't been back many times.

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Now you talk about.

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I played Claudia there in 43.

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Excellent. You you talk about your then you went from really then from the motion pictures to the stage.

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What about that transition because.

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Well it's very interesting because of course I played leads immediately in movies and never played anything else and then went from the movies to do a play for Oliver Morosco

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in Los Angeles and we toured that and I at that time was married to Mr. Bushman and we toured east and when I played in the play it was called the Master Thief very dramatic title

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and Edward A. Rose was the author and also director as I recall and when I made my entrance everybody was watching me everybody had the book the script throw me lines and everything

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and the moment I opened my mouth and had said my first paragraph Mr. Rose said well I don't have to worry about her so I've had a unique career in the fact that I played leads on the legitimate stage and in the movies and it's been all very interesting.

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What can you tell me the you were of course the you and Francis X Bushman were the stars of S&A.

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Considered one of the great romantic teams like Norma Talmadge and Eugene O'Brien and let's see oh May Ellison and Harold Lockwood and there were two or three others.

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The period there of acting for S&A extended from what time to what time then.

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Oh my word I couldn't tell you.

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Until approximately 1917 though am I correct?

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Yes somewhere in there.

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I see and what do you estimate how many films do you think that you did while you were there?

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Oh I have no idea I think a publicity person one time said possibly in the neighborhood of 400 films but you see we did one Reelers in the early days the early part of my career then we went to two Reelers then three and then they became multiple.

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No one Reel is approximately a thousand.

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A thousand feet.

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That was one picture and so of course doing three or four of those a week you could line up quite a number and then of course I think let me see Ross Dark I believe was five Reels.

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You are right it was five Reels I just finished reading that.

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Tell me this did you what directors for instance the kind of directing that went on then was it certainly wasn't primitive from the kinds of films that I have seen from S&A it was tell me about that what is your opinion of the early direction?

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One very fine director we had was Theodore H. Wharton and another was Charles Brabham I think Charles Brabham and now maybe he was MGM probably was there a lot?

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I think that was later a Mr. Baker who had been an ex stock director you see everybody was corralled from the stock companies because they were easy in learning lines or they had some schooling or experience but the reason that they took me was that I was untrained and this was a new medium a new technique that they could mold me.

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I was a child of sixteen into the techniques that they wanted and I know that the woman that was the leading woman ahead of me was about forty.

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Ruth Stonehouse?

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Well no she was an extra girl at S&A at the same time I was and then she did a better part but this was I don't know if I should say it because she was an older woman and played in stock but her name was Branscombe and she was playing young girls and old ladies the next day you see they would change about and of course it was rather ridiculous to have a young girl of twenty playing an old woman but they did they make them up.

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But it was a vast college of knowledge I'll tell you about the theatrical profession because of course to my sense acting is merely a keen imagination the ability to hold within oneself memories or experiences that they've seen or watched or something or even going to the theater.

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And seeing how the great actors and my mother as a little girl always took me in Minneapolis to some of the greatest plays the greatest stars the oh dear who were they the lovely ones and so in that way I had a certain poise when I had this opportunity given to me by Mr. Webster and I walked just one week from the first time that I went to the studio.

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I was playing the lead in my first picture.

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That's remarkable.

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Tell me about this your mother then was she enjoyed the theater very much.

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Oh yes.

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I had a great appreciation.

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Can you tell me more about your mother?

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Well mother was a precious person.

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She lived her whole life to develop me as a fine person a lady and also gave me the opportunity to learn how to become a good actress.

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I was a very good actress.

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None of our family had ever been in the theater but by the token of her giving me these opportunities I didn't make a lot of bad mistakes because I remembered how people behave themselves in the legitimate theater and that aided me in the movies.

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Now can you tell me a little bit about the studios as you remember them they were over on Argyle Street.

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1333 Argyle.

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That's right and they're pretty much as they were even today.

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Didn't Jam Handy people buy the studio?

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Wilding.

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Wilding.

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Or Wilding.

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But Jam Handy did have something to do with it.

188
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Yes you're right.

189
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I think they rented or something.

190
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Are they still there?

191
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They are still there and they are still operating under the Wilding.

192
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Is that so?

193
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Yes.

194
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We took the sign down and you could see then S and A right underneath their sign.

195
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Oh yes.

196
00:26:12.520 --> 00:26:14.780
Well I remember dear old Bob Spoor.

197
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He was the director, I mean the manager of the stage you know and he was such a darling

198
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and Major Spoor I believe.

199
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Marvin.

200
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Marvin.

201
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But we called him Major in those days.

202
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A nice young man and tall and so my memories and of course Harry McRae Webster was the director

203
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and he was an excellent director and I always worked in many of his pictures.

204
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Yes.

205
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You were there then.

206
00:26:49.400 --> 00:26:54.000
Did you know that Luella Parsons was a script woman at S and A?

207
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I knew that.

208
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Would you tell me a little bit then about Luella because she I believe George K Spoor's

209
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wife rather took pity on her.

210
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She was recently divorced am I correct?

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212
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Yes and she had a little child called baby later on Baby Parsons who was in the S and

213
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A picture.

214
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Oh well let me say that she was married to oh I can't even recall the name now but Captain

215
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Something or other in Chicago and he and Luella used to come over to my mother and father's

216
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home on the north side there at Malden Avenue and Wilson I think it's called.

217
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Was it Wilson and Malden and they used to play bridge together all the time and I would

218
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meet Luella on the street going up to S and A and we would talk and she'd tell about a

219
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script that was coming in and whether I would like it or not and she afterwards not only

220
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did the script work but became secretary to Mr. Bushman and worked with him and then later

221
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of course she went to Hollywood and she had Harriet Parsons was her daughter little girl

222
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that was at S and A and of course she is now I don't know somebody said I believe she was

223
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selling real estate and the mother is in a sanitarium Luella she's a very good friend

224
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I won't say a little in some difficulty physically I believe.

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Well tell me about she has written about you.