"He Stole the Picture!" is the one Glorious Phrase in all Screendom—Famous Thefts from Charles Ray to Ernest Torrence.
These are dark days for the Arrow school of actors and the seminary of golden curled actresses. The character player is darkening their doorsteps with a vengeance.
Time was when a perfect profile or a baby stare meant a well nigh sure road to celluloid stardom. Those days have gone forever. The public is actually demanding that actors act!
Not so long ago, the Hollywood press agents put on a party and invited many guests, at five dollars a head. To entertain the guests, the press agents trotted out their prettiest stars of both sexes. And after Herbert Rawlinson and Anita Stewart and William Desmond and Pauline Garon and J. Warren Kerrigan had smiled and dimpled over the footlights, who do you suppose carried off the greatest round of applause?
Ernest Torrence, the demon "heavy" of Tol'able David and the memorable scout of The Covered Wagon.
Dial Patterson ran away with several hits in Richard Barthelmess' productions during the past year. Judging from this camera study, we can't understand why Dial plays character roles.
And the cheers that greeted Torrence symbolized the new public taste. Which undoubtedly accounts for the frequency with which character actors have "stolen the picture" in several recent big productions. We want acting, and the man who can give it to us,
