When he arrived in this country he had no more equipment for making his own livelihood than is suggested by this background of frivolity, of leisure, and of rigid caste etiquette. Yet he was penniless now. Soda-fountain attendant and groom in a stable--these two jobs are only a few of the milestones passed in the wanderings of Von Stroheim from his hereditary environment. He was, in fact, almost starving when Griffith’s war-pictures presented to him an opportunity. His Austrian uniform, his scars, his typical Teutonic appearance--all these were utilised in a screen presentation of the hated German officer. After the vogue of the war-picture had passed, however, Von Stroheim found himself in a plight almost as bad as that from which these pictures had delivered him. No use to him now was the uniform, the scars, the typical Teutonic appearance! Quite the reverse. For days he would sit in those depressing anterooms which guard the presence of the great. I used to see him in the Goldwyn Studios and, remembering with admiration his work in the war-pictures, I wished only that the change in popular taste had not prohibited my employment of him in a characteristic rôle. “I knew all the time that I had something in me which might be valuable to the screen,” so he himself told a friend of mine in reference to this period, “but I couldn’t get myself over. I lacked the American push. I took no for an answer far too easily, and so I might still be sitting around in dingy anterooms had not something happened to me. I became deeply infatuated with a girl. But she said to me, ‘No--not until I see if you can ever make good.’ Then for the first time in my life I made up my mind to succeed.” The rest of his story is known by those who follow the history of screen celebrities. He had long been fired by an idea for the screen. Maddened by his inability to get an audience for this idea, the erstwhile Viennese aristocrat resolved upon forceful measures. He literally broke into Laemmle’s room in a hotel, and with all the fire of desperation set forth his great ideas. The result was “Foolish Wives.” This picture, notable--even notorious--among screen folk for the tremendous costliness of its production, is also set apart by the fact that Von Stroheim’s activities in it were three-fold. He wrote the scenario, he directed it, and he took the leading part. His subsequent work shows the same correlation. The first time I ever saw this picturesque figure away from the studio was at a café where he was the object of concentrated attention on the part of the other diners. Men glared at him; women whispered to each other, whispered as if an ogre had suddenly walked in upon the feast. “There’s Von Stroheim--look at him; oh, isn’t he too horrid!” I understood then why I had so often heard him called “the most hated man on the screen.”