Silent Players: A Biographical and Autobiographical Study of 100 Silent Film Actors and Actresses

Claire DuBrey

CLAIRE DUBREY Claire DuBrey was not an easy woman to know. She was outspoken. arrogant . and unwilling to listen to others. Her career was long and basically undistinguished . but. as she grew older, she saw herself as one of the last pioneers of the cinema. She was born in Bonners Ferry, Idaho, on August 3I, 1892, and died, almost 101 years later, on August I, 1993. Thus, she could claimquite legitimately-to be the oldest living actress of the silent era. As such, she was determined to offer her opinion, wanted or not, on anything related to the era. She did not see Peter Bogdanovich's "tribute" to the period, Nickelodeon (1976), but still denounced it, fuming, "The Good Old Days-May they never come back'" Perhaps she didn't need to see it. Director Allan Dwan, who was a consultant on the film, complained to me that nobody involved in the production had any interest in hearing what he had to say about what was wrong with the film. After time in minor theatrical stock companies. Claire DuBrey entered films with the Lubin Company around 19 I3. She spent four years with producer Thomas H. Ince from 19 I5 through 191 7, initially at Inceville, the studio complex he had created where today Sunset Boulevard runs into the ocean at Pacific Palisades, but where I don't believe he ever actually shot a production in which the ocean was visible. Claire's remembrances of Ince and Inceville were vidid: "The studio itself, which was a rough board, unpainted affair, with stables and wigwams for the Indians, was on the ocean front. There was a road between the water and the stables, and it was fairly level down there. They did their Westerns up there, with the Indians chasing the settlers. "But Ince wanted to get away from this, and so he resolved to engage New York stars, and he put this ad in the paper for society women to work in pictures. I was married to a doctor, I was young, not too unattractive, I was told, and I had time on my hands. So I went up to Inceville, and I got a job immediately. It wasn't much of a job. It was ten dollars a week. but that was the going price. He had about thirty girls and twenty boys in what was called stock at ten dollars apiece. One of the boys was Jack Gilbert, and one of the girls was Alice Terry. There we were, working for Ince six days a week, playing settlers in the morning and possibly Indians in the afternoon. "A new class of women was needed. He was no longer using the cowgirls or the Indian squaws. He was using society women, because we had independent means. We had to furnish our own clothes, makeup, etc., and a girl could hardly live on her salary, so we had to have a family. "Mr. Ince was absolutely charming. He n~,ver issued orders. He had a 118 Claire DuBrey man to do that. as one should. He had a stooge. who was called a studio manager. and he was rude. His name was E.H. Allen. an ignorant and foulmouthed Irishman. He would come on the set and bawl the director out. or the actors or anyone else. Ince issued these orders. but he was always charming. We thought he was a dear. Ince never. never. never directed. He just appeared on the set on rare occasions. Once or twice a week. he'd come around and smile and say hello. but do nothing on his part to make himself unpleasant." There was. however. one film that Claire remembered Ince directing. and that was Peggy(1916). in which Billie Burke (Mrs. Florenz Ziegfeld) made her screen debut and in which DuBrey doubled for the star: "He kinda liked the girl. built her a whole stage. including a piano. down on level ground 200 feet from the ocean road. She didn't need to climb the steep wooden stairs as did Bill Hart, Louise Glaum, etc." Ince also built Billie Burke her own personal toilet. creating considerable animosity among the fellow actors and actresses. who had to share a single faucet. Like so many actresses from the silent era Claire DuBrey had a fixation over problems relating to studio toilets-astrange phenomenon unnoticed by other historians. Later at Universal. she...