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Chapter Ten: Ethnic Extras
- University Press of Mississippi
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187 ш Chapter Ten ETHNIC EXTRAS In 1917, one fan magazine reported that Los Angeles was a city with a population of over five hundred thousand cinematic souls, “to say nothing of a number of Mexicans.” The magazine article goes on to say that the film industry employed seven thousand as actors—“and every Mexican.”1 There can be little dispute that if all those Mexicans really were working in the movies, they did so in only one capacity—as extras. Rob Wagner, writing in 1918, identified one extra as “half Indian, half Mex., and half Chink.” Because he possessed long, black hair, the extra would often double for “women who have to be handled rough.”2 Ill treatment of Mexican extras was commonplace in the early years, and often a group would be hired to play a scene if it held potential for injury during shooting— even if the parts were not written for actors of any particular ethnicity. A good description of the manner in which Mexican extras were hired in the 1910s is provided by Rob Wagner: The Mexicans are the queerest bunch that work extra. They are employed by a patrón, and consequently take orders from him alone. A director can shout his fool head off, even in bad and violent Spanish, but they won’t do a thing until their patrón tells ’em to. They work best in the battle stuff, for they are naturally better actors and more dramatic than Americans. The lowest-browed dub in the bunch has some artistic sense and will take a fearful drubbing for art’s sake. Strangely enough, they fight with much more enthusiasm just before lunch. The studio lunches are banquets to fellas who’ve grown up strong on chili beans. I once heard a director tell a patrón to tell his men that he was goin’ to pay ’em five dollars for their day’s work; but he expected ’em to earn it. Say, you ought to ’ve seen those black devils fight! They’d liked to have killed one another.3 188 / E T H N I C E X T R A S Producer Thomas H. Ince noted in 1915, “Los Angeles is a rendezvous for Mexicans of all classes alike, and particularly hundreds of peons who have fought in various revolutions. These chaps have smelled powder, have been acclimated to scenes bordering on the melodramatic, and consequently make excellent material for the purpose for which they are used before the screen.”4 According to Angela Gomez (who worked as an extra along with her husband in the 1920s and 1930s), Mexican and other Hispanic types were provided to the studios by Pedro Carmona and Chris-Pin Martin, who lived and worked in the Chavez Ravine area of Los Angeles (where Dodger Stadium now stands). The studios would send runners to the pair, and Carmona and Martin would hire extras congregating around “El Arbol,” a large tree outside a house owned by the Gamboa family on Temple and Diamond Street.5 There was always the more convenient possibility of finding all the Mexicans one might need if a film were actually shot in Mexico itself. Supposedly, the entire Mexican army appeared in the scenes where Villa makes his first entrance into Mexico City in Viva Villa (1934). The army was mobilized after Mexican officials complained that the original shoot did not contain sufficient soldiers. There were obvious reasons why American producers would prefer hiring extras on location in Mexico rather than in Arapaho Indians, who had appeared in The Covered Wagon, take part in a prologue to the film titled “Pioneer Days” at Grauman’s Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood, beginning April 10, 1923. In the center of the photograph, from left to right, are: Sid Grauman, producer Jesse L. Lasky, director James Cruze, and Colonel Tim McCoy. [44.203.235.24] Project MUSE (2024-03-28 21:41 GMT) E T H N I C E X T R A S / 189 the United States: In 1938, it was reported that Mexicans in their own country were willing to work for five pesos or one dollar a day. Generally, Mexican extras were badly treated in Hollywood. When one such extra, working for $7.50 a day on Dancing Pirates in 1935, was told to speak a line in Spanish, thus qualifying him for an adjustment in pay, this adjustment was denied. The assistant director excused the injustice by explaining...