With excitement and anticipation, I caught the early morning train for New York, which was only two and a half hours from Philadelphia. I did not know what to expect – I imagined sitting in a lawyer’s office listening to a will being read.
When I arrived, however, I was somewhat disappointed, for Kessel and Bauman were not lawyers but producers of motion pictures. However, the actual facts of the situation were to be thrilling.
Mr Charles Kessel, one of the owners of the Keystone Comedy Film Company, said that Mr Mack Sennett had seen me playing the drunk in the American Music Hall on Forty-second Street and if I were the same man he would like to engage me to take the place of Mr Ford Sterling. I had often played with the idea of working in films, and even offered to go into partnership with Reeves, our manager, to buy the rights of all Karno’s sketches and make movies of them. But Reeves had been sceptical and sensibly so, because we knew nothing about making them.
Had I seen a Keystone Comedy? asked Mr Kessel. Of course, I had seen several, but I did not tell him that I thought they were a crude mélange of rough and rumble. However, a pretty, dark-eyed girl named Mabel Normand, who was quite charming, weaved in and out of them and justified their existence. I was not terribly enthusiastic about the Keystone type of comedy, but I realized their publicity value. A year at that racket and I could return to vaudeville an international star. Besides, it would mean a new life and a pleasant environment. Kessel said the contract would call for appearing in three films a week at a salary of one hundred and fifty dollars. This was twice what I was getting with the Karno Company. However, I hemmed and hawed and said I could not accept less than two hundred dollars a week. Mr Kessel said that was up to Mr Sennett; he would notify him in California and let me know.
I did not exist while waiting to hear from Kessel. Perhaps I had asked too much? At last the letter came, stating they were willing to sign a year’s contract for one hundred and fifty dollars the first three months and one hundred and seventy-five dollars for the remaining nine, more money than I had ever been offered in my life. It was to start with the termination of our Sullivan and Considine tour.
When we played the Empress in Los Angeles, we were a howling success, thank God. It was a comedy called A Night at the Club. I played a decrepit old drunk and looked at least fifty years old. Mr Sennett came round after the performance and congratulated me. In that short interview, I was aware of a heavy-set man with a beetling brow, a heavy, coarse mouth and a strong jaw, all of which impressed me. But I wondered how sympathetic he would be in our future relationship. All through that interview I was extremely nervous and was not sure whether he was pleased with me or not.
He asked casually when I would join them. I told him that I could start the first week in September, which would be the termination of my contract with the Karno Company.
I had qualms about leaving the troupe in Kansas City. The company was returning to England, and I to Los Angeles, where I would be on my own, and the feeling was not too reassuring. Before the last performance I ordered drinks for everyone and felt rather sad at the thought of parting.
A member of our troupe, Arthur Dando, who for some reason disliked me, thought he would play a joke and conveyed by whispered innuendoes that I was to receive a small gift from the company. I must confess I was touched by the thought. However, nothing happened. When everyone had left the dressing-room, Fred Karno Junior confessed that Dando had arranged to make a speech and present me with the gift, but after I had bought drinks for everyone he had not had the courage to go through with it and had left the so-called ‘present’ behind the dressing-table mirror. It was an empty tobacco-box, wrapped in tinfoil, containing small ends of old pieces of grease-paint.
ten
EAGER and anxious, I arrived in Los Angeles and took a room at a small hotel, the Great Northern. The first evening I took a busman’s holiday and saw the second show at the Empress, where the Karno Company had worked. The attendant recognized me and came a few moments later to tell me that Mr Sennett and Miss Mabel Normand were sitting two rows back and had asked if I would join them. I was thrilled, and after a hurried, whispered introduction we all watched the show together. When it was over, we walked a few paces down Main Street, and went to a rathskeller for a light supper and a drink. Mr Sennett was shocked to see how young I looked. ‘I thought you were a much older man,’ he said. I could detect a tinge of concern, which made me anxious, remembering that all Sennett’s comedians were oldish-looking men. Fred Mace was over fifty and Ford Sterling in his forties. ‘I can make up as old as you like,’ I answered. Mabel Normand, however, was more reassuring. Whatever her reservations were about me, she did not reveal them. Mr Sennett said that I would not start immediately, but should come to the studio in Edendale and get acquainted with the people. When we left the café, we bundled into Mr
