ained. The picture was taken out in the
Mohave desert; for the making of it the director had scoured the West
for riders and ropers and cowboys of the old school. "He men"--every one
of them, and for a time they looked with dislike and suspicion upon the
"star," but when they saw that Fairbanks did not ask for any "double,"
and took the hardest tumble with a grin, they received him into their
fellowship with a heartfelt yell.

Dull in the Mohave desert? Why, he had to sit up nights to keep even
with his engagements. From one man he learned bronco-busting, from
another fancy roping, and from others all that there is to know about
horses, cattle, mountain, and plain. And around the camp-fires he got
stories of the winning of the West such as never found their way into
histories.

When one picture called for jiu-jitsu work, he didn't rest satisfied
with learning just enough to "get by." Every spare moment found him in a
clinch with the Japanese expert, mastering every secret, perfecting
himself in every hold. Same way with boxing. When no pugilists came
handy, he put on the gloves with anyone willing to take chances on a
black eye, keeping at it until today they have to hire professionals
when he figures in a movie fight.

When they made a "water" picture he never stopped until he could
duplicate every trick known to the "professor" who drilled the extra
men. He took advantage of a biplane flight to make friends with the
aeronaut, and by the time the picture was done, he was as good a driver
as the expert.

No matter where he is, or what the job, he finds something of interest
because he goes upon the theory that every minute is meant to be lived.
Maroon him at a cross-roads, with five hours until train time, and he'd
have the operator's first name in ten minutes and be learning the Morse
alphabet, after which he would rush up to his new friend's house to see
the babies or to pass judgment on a Holstein calf or a Black Minorca
brood.

It is the tremendously human quality, more than anything else, that gets
him across. People like him because he likes them. He attracts interest
because he takes interest. Talk with any of the big men in the
motion-picture industry, that is, those with brains and education, and
they will tell you that personality counts more in pictures than it does
on the stage.

H.B. Aitken, president of the Triangle Film Corporation, said to me:
"The screen is intimate. The camera brings the actor