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

James Morrison

James Morrison and Jean Page in Black Beauty (1921). JAMES MORRISON Winsome. boyish James Morrison was the perennial silent screen juvenile. a leading member of the Vitagraph Company from 1911 through 1916. who returned to the company as a freelance player in later years. He was small in stature. good-looking in a boy-next-door fashion and was so passive in his performances that he also seemed to blend in with the scenery. Watching him act, one can well understand why he described silentfilm playingas "the thought behind the action." It is what we. the audience. do not see that matters. not the performance itself. Born in Mattoon. Illinois. on November 15. 1888. James Morrison studied at the University of Chicago and later at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York before visiting the Vitagraph studios in flatbush and being hired at $25 a week. The first film in which he appeared was A Tale of Two Cities. a three-reeler. released in february 1911. Morrison is a young peasant who attemps. unsuccessfully. to save his lover. Lillian Walker. from the advances of a marquis: "The marquis carries her off. I come in in a rage. jump over a balustrade. try to kill the marquis and. of course. rm killed. There was a little john off this studio into which [leading lady] Julia Swayne Gordon had gone. She heard a yell. came out. and said. 'Something's going on here.' It was me jumping over a pedestal. She always said. That was the first time I really saw you. You pulled me up short. and I had to come out and see what was happening.'" Julia Swayne Gordon played Julia Ward Howe in The Battle Hymn of the Republic. released by Vitagraph on June 30. 1911. and Morrison recalled it well: "It followed the poem very specifically. They had the battle all set up in the Vitagraph tank. a big concrete pool. They were going to superimpose a lot of angels coming down the stairs. These were the days when anybody had to work at anything, and among the angels. the extras. were Norma Talmadge. Lillian Walker, and Mabel Normand. John Bunny was Nero and Maurice Costello was Sidney Carton. approaching the judgment seat as common figures . There was to be an earthquake and the temple was to be destroyed. The temple fell and the columns fell into the pool. And they all floated-they were all wooden!" Morrison remembered the Vitagraph Company as it has been portrayed through the years. as a close group. "It was a family. It really was. The people there were very fond of each other. In the dressing room which I had were Earle Williams. Harry Morey. Leo Delaney. and. afterwards. Tom Powers joined us. I remember we used to get paid in cash. and we never knew when we were going to get a raise. We usually got a raise when the Paris office sent 252 James Morrison word. Yes. the Paris office. I was going home one evening. and Julia [Swayne Gordon] was behind some scenery. and she said. 'Jim. will you come over and count this for me.' I said. 'Sure. Judy.' She'd gotten a fifteen-dollar raise for some picture she'd done. That's the way the business went. We had no contract . Just word of mouth." Tom Powers and Helen Gardner were brought to the studio by James Morrison. When Anita Stewart came for an audition. Morrison played opposite her. (Years later. Louis B. Mayer proudly boasted to Morrison. "I killed that girl with bad scripts.") Initially. the costumes provided by the company were ill fitting. and Earle Williams was the first to insist upon his own wardrobe . Clothing could not always help an actor. and as Morrison recalled of George Cooper. who always played toughs. "you couldn't dress George up." The partingfrom Vitagraph in t9t6was reasonably amicable as Morrison signed a contract with Ivan film Productions. Inc. founded by Ivan Abramson. the company was noted for its lurid. exploitative melodramas. In all. Morrison starred in seven features for Ivan between 1916 and 1918. The first. The Sex Lure. released in November 1916. is a drama of kidnapping and revenge. Enlighten Thy Daughter. released in December 19t7. is the most famous of the Ivan productions and has Morrison forcing his girlfriend to undergo an abortion . In the last of the Ivan...