You will be told, no doubt, that this is a slanderous statement, so let
me give you a little evidence. I happened within the past year to be in
the private office of a well known moving picture producer, a man who is
married, and takes care to tell you that he loves his wife. He was
producing a play, the heroine of which was supposed to be a daughter of
Puritan New England. To play this part he had engaged a chaste girl, and
as a result was in the midst of a queer trouble, which he poured out to
me. His "leading man" had refused to act with this girl, insisting that
no girl could act a part of love unless she had had passionate
experience; no such thing had ever been heard of in moving pictures
before. Likewise, the director agreed that no girl who is chaste could
act for the screen, and the producer asked my advice about it. Mr.
William Allen White, of Kansas, was present in the office, and
authorizes me to state that he substantiates this anecdote. We both
advised the producer to stand by the girl, and he did so; and the
picture went out, and proved to be what in trade parlance is termed a
"frost"; that is to say, your children didn't care for it, and it cost
the producer something like a hundred thousand dollars to make this
attempt to defy the conventions of the moving picture world.
I will tell you another story. I have a friend, a prominent man in Los
Angeles, who was appealed to by a young lady who wished to act in the
"movies." My friend introduced this young lady to a very prominent
screen actor, who in turn introduced her to one of the biggest producers
in America, one of the men whose "million dollar feature pictures" are
regularly exploited. The producer examined the young lady's figure, and
told her that she would "do"; he added, quite casually, and as a matter
of course, that she would be expected to "pay the price." The young lady
took exception to this proposition, and gave up the chance. She told my
friend about it, and he, being a man of the world, accustomed to dealing
with the foibles of his fellowmen, wrote a note to the actor, explaining
that inasmuch as this young lady had been socially introduced to him,
and by him socially introduced to the manager, she should not have been
expected to "pay the price." To this the actor answered that my friend
was correct, and he would see the manager about it. The manager conceded
the point, and the young lady got her chance in the "movies" and made
good without "paying the price." This story tells you all you need to
know about the difference in sex ethics that society applies to the
"lady" and to the daughter of the common people.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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