Below is the OCR text representation for this newspapers page.

Page 6 The Southern Israelite The FNfapoleon of the TTCovies The Story of Jesse L. Lasky, the Movie Magnate An Exclusive Interview By GRACE JAFFE Several weeks ago Jesse L. Lasky, First Vice-President in charge of production of the Paramount-Publix Corporation, cele brated his fiftieth anniversary. On this occasion Miss Jaffe, staff writer of the Seven Arts and The Southern Israelite, interviewed the master-mind of the American movies and obtained from him the story of his climb to success, in his own simple words. Full of hitherto un known facts and information is this story which narrates one of the “Believe It or Not“ business romances of modern America. —THE EDITOR. “If I had had a better lip I might still he a cornet player,” smilingly remarked Jesse L. Lasky, First Vice- President of the Paramount-Publix Corporation, known to movieland as the master-mind of the huge Paramount enterprises—when 1 interviewed him recently. This modest way of looking at his phenomenal climb to the greatest heights in the motion picture industry is typical of Jesse L. Lasky the man. Success has not turned his head. He views his own career with detached eyes not devoid of a sense of humor. Jesse L. Lasky was horn at San Francisco, son of Isaac Lasky, a Jewish merchant of San Jose, near the Golden Gate City. After finishing public school he at tended and graduated from the Santa Clara High School there. Just as the ambitious lad was preparing to enter Sanford University at Palo Alto his father died; and, contrary to the accepted legend that all Jewish merchants make money, the family was left in none too comfortable circumstances. So young Lasky, whose hobby and passion had been music knd who dreamed of becoming another John Philip Sousa, looked h around for a job as a musician. He was a proficient "pianist and cornetist, and without too much trouble secured a position with a San Francisco theatre orchestra. From the first day of his entry into the battle of life Lasky revealed a restless quality. He did not care to settle down in the routine tracks of whatever occupa tion he happened to be engaged in. After his first experience with the San Francisco theatre orchestra he embarked, one fine day, for the Hawaiian Islands, then heralded as the land of well-paid entertainment. Hawaiian prosperity, however, proved a mirage, and soon Lasky faced great difficulties. The theatre in which he was a pianist closed after a few weeks and left him stranded. But after a short time he elbowed his way into the position of cornet soloist of the Royal Hawaiian Band. “I was the only white man there, except for the leader,” Mr. Lasky told me with a remi niscent smile, “and I can recall people staring at me and whispering: ‘Why, he’s a white man, isn’t lie?’” “One thing I can say,” the Paramount executive continued, “I never wrote home for money. I simply carried on till I had saved up enough to pay for niv passage back to the mainland. Once back in my birth place I deserted music and turned—please don’t laugh ; I was a rather naive boy then—to the newspaper field. I became a cub reporter on the Evening Post. I en joyed the work all right, but it was not particularly remunerative, and it looked to me like a long apprentice ship with no great goal in view. During the few months that I w'as one of the gentlemen of the press, however, I learned a good deal about human nature, gained a lot of experience and came in contact with all sorts of people. “At that time the Alaskan boom developed. Cape Nome and the riches of the Far North were con tinually exploited in the press. Everybody was talking Alaska and gold. It was almost a replica of the ‘forty- nine days in California’; so I decided to try my luck. “I put all my eggs in one basket; that is, I turned everything negotiable into cash and purchased placer Jesse L. Lasky mining machinery and other supplies. I was one of the first hundred men to reach Nome in the days when Jack London, Rex Beach and others became identified with the gold rush in the North. I remember the first Fourth of July parade in Nome city, where I met London as we stood side by side watching the proces sion which featured the first white child horn in the town.” Jesse Lasky penetrated to the interior and worked like a beaver on the creeks, with varying success. He dug in like any other prospector, worked, perspired or froze till his hack ached and his hands grew blistered. At Dutch Harbor he found a way of earning some money on the side; lie rented a rowboat and took passengers ashore from the vessels which came to anchor there. The future movie king carried freight, later buying a push-cart worth ten or fifteen dollars hut for which he had to pay a hundred; for several weeks he transported baggage at what he laughingly describes as “Alaskan prices”—ten or twenty dollars a load. He earned about fifteen hundred dollar- way, and then transported his own mining to his beach claim. But the claims did not | “There was always color, but not enough." l.a- ex plained. “And finally, after all this sweating ing, I found myself flat broke.” True to form, he refused to give up. He som other claims and did locate one from which h wash out forty or fifty dollars a day. “You see." hr observed whimsically, “it all comes out in tin wash Soon I had enough gold to square my various debts and pay my passage back to Frisco, where I arrived and a wiser man.” His dreams to emulate Sousa came back. He < his sister, who in his absence had developed a talent for music, and the two formed a combine, a sort of juvenile team giving vocal and instrumental musical entertain ment. They appeared with success at several large benefits, and finally a vaudeville agent came t<> them with an offer of sixty dollars a w’eek. “That was a lot of money in those days, and we accepted it,” said Mr. Lasky. “Our bookings East for the first time. The possibilities of vaudeville began to be revealed to me. This is what actually- started me on my career in the entertainment field Within the limits of a newspaper article one can only touch upon the highlights in Jesse Lasky’s ‘ He lieve It or Not” adventure, which brought him to tin very top of the entertainment industry. The fact that so much action has to be crowded into a brief narrative may make Lasky’s rise read like a sober, very pros, tale. But if you sit facing this quinquegenarian whn looks hardly forty, if you listen to his frank remi niscences you realize that even if his lips had been per feet cornetist’s lips he would have climbed to the dizzy heights he occupies today. There is an element ot undeniable, irresistible push and vitality in Jesse l.asky a self-confidence that overcomes obstacles and d culties with a smile. Once he was in the vaudeville business things began to ‘happen. From a performer in Leon Herrmann > (Continued on Page 19) **/ do not believe in you shall you must’. I do believe in enlisting the intelligent co-operation of those in tyour employ. “/ believe in the one hundred pei <■ square deal. I have negotiated with dreds of artists and authors and at time have I endeavored to get the of a deal’. At the same time / do think I have ever gotten mu>. worst of it. “Put your cards on the table a beginning of negotiations and th<. will be cleaner and better for a., cerned. A few disillusionments disturb my faith in humanity. —Jesse L. Las