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

Virginia Brown Faire

VIRGINIA BROWN FAIRE Leisure World is an upscale senior citizen retirement community close to the California resort town of Laguna Beach. It was also for many years the home of Tinker Bell or, to be more precise, the actress who played J.M. Barrie's fairy creation in the original 1924 screen adaptation of Peter Pan, Virginia Brown Faire. Since the I920s, she, Priscilla Bonner, and Mary Brian had been good friends, and, happily, the friendship of Robert Gitt and I with Priscilla and Mary was extended to include Ginnie. For a while in the mid- through late I970s it became a routine for the four of us to drive down from Los Angeles to Leisure World. After dropping off Priscilla and Mary, Bob and I would spend the afternoon in Laguna Beach, returning late afternoon or early eveningfor dinner and, on occasions, a screening of one of Ginnie's films that we had brought along. We looked at The Cricket on the Hearth (1923), which was somewhat unappealing in its lack of dramatic action and which its star recalled was filmed in a house on Beverly Boulevard and in woods behind Cahuenga Boulevard. One can tell that producer Paul Gerson is straining with his concept of an English location. The Morris R. Schlank production of Queen ofthe Chorus (1928), directed by Charles J. Hunt, is hardly a major production, but it does manage to relate a complex story of a chorus girl's love for a millionaire's secretary in six tight reels. Schlank's wife, Bess, was a prominent Los Angeles modiste, and her occupation presumably helped the producer decide to open the film at a couturier's showroom, where the chorus girls have their men take care of their outer bodily needs. Here, as elsewhere in the film, the use of pig Latin and contemporary slang in the titles adds to the realism. Rex Lease, whom Priscilla Bonner remembered as "always very nice and courteous ," makes a pleasant, lightweight hero, and Virginia Brown Faire is an equally pleasing heroine. All ends happily for the pair, and, as Priscilla Bonner commented , "Virtue triumphs-or at least it did in 1928." Virginia Brown Faire does not do too much in Tracked by the Police (1927), but it is one of the best Rin Tin Tin features. "He supported Bill Desmond and me [in Shadows of the North. 1923], and then, later, I supported him. Rinty was a darling animal, a wonderful animal. rm sure he understood every word. He was better than most humans. He climbed a ladder. which is a thing most dogs don't do. He came down a ladder, which is unheard of. I remember Lee Duncan, his owner, just holding his breath. because if anything happened to that dog...He didn't have a stand-in. He had a mate. Gloria, a beautiful white dog. Rinty could be very friendly and loveable. but you didn't dare go near him unless Lee said it was all right. There was no recognition of anyone unless his owner said OK." 122 Virginia Brown faire Ginnie was disappointed in Peter Pan, asserting that the original "cut" had contained more scenes with Tinker Bell. It seems unlikely, but she did vividly recall a scene inside a drawer with Peter Pan's shadow. At the same time, the actress also remembered that cinematographerJames Wong Howe had determined how he could shoot close-ups of Tinker Bell but that J.M. Barrie had insisted, "No close-ups, because it would spoil the illusion." Both Esther Ralston (Mrs. Darling) and Mary Brian (Wendy) became close friends: "We had to work together to get the feeling of the picture, but we weren't photographed together. The director of special effects at Paramount at that time was Roy Pomeroy, and I got to know him and his wife. I found out he'd been carrying my head around with him for years. In New York. before I left there, Djinsky, a Russian sculptor, had started to sculpt me, and never quite finished because I was signed up and sent out here. But Roy Pomeroy liked the head so much that he took it. I don't know what happened to my poor old head'" Born Virginia La Buna in Brooklyn, New York. on June 26, 1904, the actress used her stepfather's name of Brown when she entered the "Fame and Fortune...