Rupert Julian: An Appreciation, by John B. Clymer (click to enlarge, see below for text)
RUPERT JULIAN
An Appreciation
BY
JOHN B. CLYMER
More than a million. Net profit. Made by the Universal Film Manufacturing Company. On “The Beast Of Berlin.” Written, directed and acted by—the Man from Auckland. No other one man has such a record—even in a business which does its thinking in the hundreds of thousands.
Artists usually have a divine contempt for money, and those who have it. But Rupert Julian isn’t that kind of an artist. He wears his hair short and his bank account long. And among the immortals he will probably be designated as the fellow who brought home the bacon for the boss.
lot he broke in—writing his own stories and acting in them.
He made a lot of good pictures there—“The Fire Flingers”; “Mother o’ Mine”—two of the memorable ones.
For a year Julian has scouted about the country looking into exhibition conditions. Studying the trend in public demand. Observing the evolution of taste. Finding out what the man with a quarter—the man with two quarters and the man with a dollar—wants for his money.
Now he’ll make what these men will pay to see.
Clean stories—lots of heart—the onion of realism and the rose of the ideal.
Julian loves life. And he learns about it thru active hearty sympathy.
He has a good slant on the psychology of the man and the woman in the audience.
There a little tired of the conflict of existence; the edges of their hope a trifle frayed; their dreams are paling. And thus as they sit and look at life thru the medium of pictures they want to be bucked up—want to be assured that dreams can come true; that love comes into its won; that the glad clean things find reward.
In his study and work Julian has an able ally—Mrs. Julian. He has been married to her exclusively and continuously for years and likes it better all the time.
Mrs. Julian is of the stage herself—having opened her career in Australia at the mature age of two and one-half years. She toured the world as a leading woman and then took up picture work as an actress and later as a director. With her auburn hair and general attractiveness she made the part of the vampire in “A Fool There Was,” most convincingly alluring to Robert Hilliard and the audience.
To Mrs. Julian came the honour of being the star to open Los Angeles’ Little Theatre, playing in Galsworthy’s “The Pidgeon” and Schnitzler’s scintillant “Affairs of Anatol.”
Her life is dedicated to keeping her husband’s digestion in good order and in helping him to make each new picture a little better than the last.
Back in Aukland, New Zealand—Julian grew up with a kangaroo. He is still jumping ahead.
They had him in Marest College—grooming for the clergy. But at the ripe old age of sixteen off he ran and joined a travelling dramatic company.
Quickly he mastered the subtle intricacies of carrying a spear. Touring the Antipodes he learned about drama from life and mash notes as he rose to leading man.
Thru Africa, China, India and the luring Orient. Then to Piccadilly and the Continent.
Rose the war clouds in Africa, as the sharp-shooting Boers began their hopeless fight against the Empire. Julian had carried a spear. He quickly showed he could carry a gun. He learned about pain and Hell and how men die.
He was still forgivably young when Johannesburg fell. Then back to the boards in support of such stage celebrities as Sir Beerbohm Tree, Sir George Alexander, Arthur Benson and Lewis Waller. Also to tour in Shakespearean repertoire. With George Rignold. Under the famous J. C. Williamson management.
America saw him for the first time in nineteen-eleven. There with Waller in Monsieur Beaucaire at the old Daly’s Theatre. Then to play opposite the piquant Mitzi Hajos in the tuneful “Spring Maid”. Back to the heavier thing when William Faversham stepped out of Marc Anthony’s shoes and Julian into them. And then with Tyrone Power as the ambitious Brutus. On to Los Angeles—in 1913.
Two years as leading man in pictures. Learning what the movies were all about. And how they shouldn’t be made. And what they should cost to be profitable.
Out came the incomparable Anna Pavlowa to posture her famous self through the title role of “The Dumb Girl of Portici.” Julian played her tempestuous Sicilian sweetheart.
Then over to smile down upon the petite Marguerite Clark in “The Pretty Sister of Jose.”
But now Julian felt that he was ready to be a director. Actually prepared to do good work. And on the Universal