13 Aug 1924 – The Story of Alice Terry

The story of Alice Terry has the same fairy tale quality as Valentino’s own. Like him, who had worked hard as an extra for many years and the hard work had resulted in little recognition. However, discouraging as had been her experience, it was not without results. For Rex Ingram happened to see her in NY when, as a girl, still in her mid-teens, she played with Bessie Barriscale in “Not My Little Sister”. The promise which she gave impressed the young director almost immediately. When indeed, he moved from NY to the coast, he welcomed the fact that she, too, had shifted from East to West. Had it not been for the war, in fact, Alice Terry would probably have been his leading lady some years before. When Ingram on his return from overseas service finally located the job which put a roof once more over his head and civilian clothes again upon his back, he was to resume his slight acquaintance with Miss Terry. For she came to his office then applied for a position as script girl, the functionary who, working on the set, chalks off the scenes as they are made and notes the new ones extemporized. He looked at her in amazement. “What”, cried he, “you don’t mean to say that you’ve given up acting do you?” She looked at him somewhat sadly, “Oh dear, yes,” she replied, “I did that sometime ago. It was too discouraging I wasn’t getting any place, you see. No matter how hard I worked nothing seemed to come of it. And of course being an extra or getting some bit now and then does not keep you. So I decided I’d just get a regular job.” “And what have you been doing since”? Inquired Ingram. “I’ve been working in the cutting room,” replied she, “and that was fine I mean it. Knowing just what you were going to get each week. But the ether commenced to get into my lungs that’s why I’m looking around for something else.” Ingram promised to give her the desired position in the picture following “Shore Acres”. However, something changed his plans and instead he case her for a wild and wooly Drury Lane melodrama called “Hearts are Trumps”. To his surprise she seemed loath to accept this chance of returning to the movie screen. “Oh no, I don’t want to try I’ve give it all up you see” she kept protesting in a way that showed how completely previous discouragements had shattered her self-confidence. But he finally succeeded in overcoming her fears, and since then she has been his leading lady in every story except “Piffling Women”.   It was not, however, until the appearance of “The Four Horsemen” that Alice Terry, the girl who, heartsick from her discouragements on the set, had wanted to retire to the comparative obscurity of script work, won the wide recognition her beauty and her screen personality had so long deserved. All this I have just related I heard from Miss Terry now Mrs. Rex Ingram, on the same evening when Ingram told me of his experience working with Valentino. On this same occasion she and her husband mentioned that her next appearance will be in John Russell’s “Passion Vine”. In this her support will be Ramon Navarro, another dancer from whom Ingram predicts a success which may even duplicate that of Valentino. Both Valentino and Navarro, Ingram made an interesting observation. “A good dancer” he said, “frequently makes a good screen actor”. Why? Because he has both poise and repose, and I don’t know any better start than these. In this connection.