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20 C H a p t e r 2 Funny Girl in feBrUary 1916, gloria and Her motHer arrived in los angeles , looking for a new beginning. Packed deep in Gloria’s trunk was a letter of introduction to Mack Sennett, an acquaintance she wasn’t sure she wanted. Her experience at Essanay had not made her any more impressed with funny movies or the people who made them. Now, however , she had another role to consider: breadwinner for her shrinking family. Adelaide had left her husband, a choice which pulled Gloria away from her father as well. Wallace Beery met the train when Gloria and her mother disembarked . He had made the eight-hour drive from the Essanay studios at Niles to welcome Gloria and Addie to California. Escorting them to their new apartment on Cahuenga Boulevard, he told Addie that he hoped to be working in Hollywood soon himself. His brother, Noah, was making a good living playing heavies for Jesse Lasky. When Wally came south, they would bring their parents from Kansas to share the good life. Conditions at the Niles facility were primitive; the mostly male companies were roughing it, making western adventures and comedies. As far as Beery was concerned, it was the Klondike, and he couldn’t wait to get out. Beery chauffeured the two newcomers around Los Angeles. He was gentlemanly and attentive, a good guide, though Gloria did not think much of her new home: “The city seemed to be composed entirely of factories, empty lots, gas stations, telephone wires, drugstores, open markets , and barns. Here and there cows ate weeds beside rickety houses.”1 They chuckled at the strange costumes of people on the street. People dressed funny here, Beery explained, to attract the attention of movie producers and talent scouts. Everyone was hoping to be spotted, and a crazy outfit—an oversized hat or a checkered suit—might get you a second look. Beery assured Gloria that she would not need to parade f U n n y g i r l 21 around in funny clothes to attract the attention of a film producer: her introduction to the head of the Keystone studio was the most valuable thing in her luggage. They would “crash” Hollywood together.2 Beery seemed more mature, more polished and serious than he had in Chicago. Gloria concluded that the trouble there had scared him. As Wally advised her to hurry over to meet Mack Sennett, he was “firm as a father.”3 Shortly after her arrival in Los Angeles, the young actress hopped on the streetcar to Edendale and presented herself at the front offices of the Keystone Film Company. If Swanson thought she was ill-suited to Essanay’s brand of comic hijinks, Keystone meant moving from the frying pan straight into the fire. Company founder Mack Sennett had worked in vaudeville and burlesque before deciding that a film studio specializing in comedy could be a lucrative proposition. He made no bones about his ambitions for the cinema: “We made funny pictures as fast as we could for money.” Keystone churned out fast-paced one-reelers at a very fast pace, about two per week. The pictures were sold “like gingham for girls’ dresses—at so much per yard.” To meet the apparently insatiable demand, Sennett craved a steady supply of “roaring extroverts devoted to turmoil.”4 He put together a crack company of comic players who exceeded his requirements for speed and crazy inventiveness. Sennett’s pictures were wild affairs based on raucous physical antics. The company took advantage of public assemblies, feeding off the energy of crowds and treating the spectators as free extras. When a fire truck careened down the street, the Keystone players followed close behind , ready to turn any situation to hilarious effect. The crazy chases and bruising romps of the Keystone Kops, egged on by the Bathing Beauties, were perennially popular. At home on the lot, Sennett supervised filming while soaking in an oversized bathtub in his office high above the outdoor sets. He hollered instructions and corrections from the tub. Given the improvisational genius of the players, Keystone comedies could be built around situations rather than highly planned sequences. The comic repercussions of putting funny lady Mabel Normand, her screen lover, his wife, and Mabel’s pet dog together in a hotel appears in one film script simply as “Consternation, etc.”5 Regular pairings, like the creative partnership of Normand and Fatty Arbuckle, allowed players to...

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