By Barbara Wingo
Gene Gauntier (born Eugenia Gauntier Liggett) began working in films for the Kalem Company in 1907. She acted in and wrote scenarios for numerous films, including the first motion picture version of Ben-Hur (1907), which was not only a great success, but also gave rise to a landmark United States Supreme Court case concerning the use of copyrighted materials in films. In those days, before actors were credited in films, she became known as the “Kalem Girl.”
In 1928 her recollections of her filmmaking days, entitled “Blazing the Trail,” were serialized in the Woman’s Home Companion. These reminiscences give a vivid view of the early days of filmmaking in Jacksonville. Although Kalem had briefly filmed in Jacksonville in 1907, in 1908 it came for a significant period of time. Gene Gauntier wrote: “Mr. [Sidney] Olcott had selected his stock company and we were Florida-bound, the first company to be sent out of New York for such a lengthy stay. Our departure caused a sensation in the industry.”
The company stayed in the Roseland Hotel, in the Fairfield suburb of Jacksonville. Gauntier described Roseland as “a big, rambling, ramshackle old hotel set in three acres of ground, on the banks of the St. John’s River, at this point a mile and a half wide.” The “stock company” occupied over half the hotel, which, Gauntier noted, was run by “Ma Perkins, a stout, jolly widow.” In addition to the Kalem players, other performers stayed at the hotel. Indeed, according to Gauntier:
Roseland, during the height of the season was the liveliest place imaginable. If the Websters, a family of acrobats, were not practicing their act on the front law before the veranda the man with the trained goats was putting animals through their tricks, a juggler was practicing his stunts, or the trained dogs were perfecting themselves. Weaving in and out everywhere moving-picture actors in all sorts of make-up lent color to the bizarre scene.
The night before filming a new production the company would gather to read the scenario, and the characters would be assigned. The next morning the “characters” would come to breakfast in their make-up. When the film was completed it would be sent to New York for comments. A projection room was also set up at the hotel.
Gauntier pointed out that there were “no property men, no carpenters, no wardrobe facilities.” Everyone pitched in, but the director’s job was the most difficult. The director, in fact, had to not only direct and produce – but also procure (at no cost) all the locations for filming. Of course, they were located in “a territory rich in locations.”
Gauntier’s work was not light: “I was playing in two pictures a week, working in almost every scene, and writing two or three scenarios a week, in the effort to keep ahead of our production.” Her parts were “strenuous” involving horseback riding, water scenes, climbing trees, jumping from roofs and so forth. As she wrote, these stunts “never seemed difficult when I was seated before the typewriter in the throes of creating them, but as the moment for performance drew near they assumed unwarranted aspects of terror.” And there were no “doubles” in those days!
According to Gauntier, there were no ready-to-wear stores in Jacksonville at that time so she was careful not to write “dressy” parts into her scenarios. But the players did have wigs. They accomplished much “with so little.” And “each character was distinctive.”
The difference between making films in Jacksonville in 1908 and the Hollywood of 1928 was cited by Gauntier as a reason for her writing her detailed recollections of that time. We who are separated by over 100 years from that time certainly appreciate that she did.
