Page:Once a Clown, Always a Clown.djvu/200

ONCE A CLOWN, ALWAYS A CLOWN Quixote was a ghastly thing, suggesting a death mask. It registered naturally in the camera but I was an apparition to the eye. We were on location in Santa Barbara on one occasion and I had, as usual, made up in my room after an early breakfast. My room was on the fourth floor of the Hotel Potter. As I descended in the elevator the car stopped at the third floor to admit two elderly women, voyageurs from Prides Crossing, Massachusetts. The interior of the elevator was dim and they did not see me until they were crossing the threshold. When they did they screamed as if they had encountered the devil himself, and fled down the corridor.

Tree would have none of the Hollywood working day, and he was of a dimension in the theatrical world to enforce his own preferences. Not appearing on the lot until well after noon, he necessarily had to work far into the night. It became my habit, when homeward bound in the late evening, to drop into the studio and say good night to the company. I usually found those not working before the camera at the moment perched about on various props, munching sandwiches and sipping hot coffee.

Tree was doing Macbeth, and I would have