“When I was a young man at home I remember that one day at the dinner-table I unhooked the high collar of my uniform--just the top hook, you understand--because the day was so warm and the collar so tight. My stern old father glared at me across the table and then he sent me away from the room. ‘Low-born,’ ‘vulgarian’--these were some of the words he hurled at me as I went out. And now, behold! I sit here without any collar and in my shirt-sleeves, and when I go home to-night I shall sit down to dinner without putting on either collar or coat. My wife doesn’t mind--neither do I. There you are.” Because of his own struggles Von Stroheim is often exceedingly kind to those trying to get a foothold in the profession. Mae Busch, for example, speaks glowingly of Von Stroheim’s helpfulness and says that it is to him she owes the chance which proved a turning-point in her career. The mention of Mae carries me to one of the most forceful examples of the fact that few screen careers are achieved without experiencing reverses. In about the second year of the Lasky Company’s existence, Mae Busch, a little Australian girl with big hazel eyes fringed by incredibly long lashes, was acting in one of Lasky’s vaudeville companies. For some reason or other she bolted the show in Los Angeles, and soon after this she made her first appearance in pictures as one of Mack Sennett’s famous bathing girls. While she was in Sennett’s organization she became involved in a drama of love and jealousy and revenge which had nothing to do with screen performance. The situation, familiar to many of the Hollywood colony, resulted temporarily in her professional overthrow. A pathetic little figure, she wandered from studio to studio in search of work. Unable to find it, she finally married. Perhaps, as one of her friends has suggested, the marriage was the result of gratitude on her part to the man who did not let the world’s desertion shake his love for her. Be that as it may, the marriage proved disastrous, and for some years the pretty little Australian girl went down under the deep waters which have submerged so many others in the profession. Poor, unhappily married, the victim of several severe illnesses, who would have believed that Mae Busch would ever come back? Those who found this belief difficult did not reckon with the mettle which is her distinguishing quality. One day she said to herself--this is the story as she tells it--“This has got to stop. Others are getting away with it. Why not I?” This crystallisation brought her to Von Stroheim, who gave her a part in “Foolish Wives.” Small as the part was, she made it stand out. Von Stroheim praised her work. So, too, did no less a person than Charlie Chaplin. The latter, in fact, promised her a big part in his next picture.