Item Info

Publication Date: 12/12/1913
Media Type: House Organs
Source: Theatre Collection
Notes:

Miss Ethel Clayton

More than anything else Ethel Clayton has the rare quality of distinction both as a woman and an actress. Hers is a finished, brilliant personality, the reflection of cultured tastes and firm convictions. She adds to the Lubin photoplays a charm, a dignity, a refinement not often encountered outside the drawing-room.

Miss Clayton joined the Lubin Studio with a long record of stage successes to her credit, and in adapting her gifts to the demands of the screen she had the advantage of that facility of technique only acquired through experience. Besides several stock engagements Miss Clayton has played opposite Emmett Corrigan, Wallace Eddinger, with Edwin Stevens in “The Devil,” and in the productions of “The Country Boy” and “The Brute,” all within five years. From the outset Miss Clayton has been successful, yet she modestly declares that her greatest ambition today is “to be a good actress.”

   Among the seventy-five photoplay roles Miss Clayton has created she naturally has her favorites, but of them all she prefers, and it is expected she will exceed, herself as Shirley Rossmore in the forthcoming Lubin release of Charles Klein’s famous play, “The Lion and the Mouse.”

   Like all picture players Miss Clayton has had her share of those moments when she did not know what would happen next, but few outside those concerned in the scene are aware of what is really the narrowest escape from instant death yet recorded in a studio. It occurred in the scene in “When the Earth Trembled” which represents the crumbling of the walls of a house as the earthquake strikes the city. A mistaken signal brought a crash, followed by the collapse of one side of the room as Miss Clayton leaned against it. The actress was stunned and nearly buried in debris, but with remarkable presence of mind she continued the scene, knowing that it had been built at the cost of many hundreds of dollars and weeks of labor. With two children in her arms she tottered across the room only to encounter a swaying chandelier. Suddenly it dropped, striking her squarely in the face. Miss Clayton screamed with pain, but nerved herself to the utmost and made her scheduled exit. Outside, she fainted. Whatever reward there is in such daring hazards Miss Clayton finds wherever she goes into a theatre where the film is being projected and hears in the darkened auditorium men and women gasp and shriek. It gives her a curious sense of having been killed and yet seeing how it all happened!

   Miss Clayton is consistently reticent. She is affable, cordial – but she discourages interviews and asks not to be quoted. What is known of her comes from her associates, and they in turn comply with the star’s wishes regarding personal information. She feels that with her constant appearances before the public there can be little else to make known.

   The camera catches unmistakably the charm of Miss Clayton’s personality, but there is a combination of tints and tones which it reduces to mere black and white. Her auburn hair, the intense whiteness of her complexion, and her eyes – blue, of startling clearness and depth – suggest, in a flash, Ellen Terry. 

Call Number: Lubin - Bulletin I:3