The Kansas City sun. (Kansas City, Mo.) 1908-1924, 1918-01-05

are "movie" stars goes without saying, of course,
as such a thing would be impossible in any other
field of endeavor.
That the romance that surrounded the mush-
roOmlike development of the motion-picture indus
try has not all been d~issipated since it has been
placed on a modern business basis, is shown by the
stories of these young stars who have risen to
fame and fortune almost overnight. While they
have succeeded, of course, hundreds of Others,
treading the same path, have failed, but that is
another side of the picture. The world is not in
terested in failures. 1t is interested in those who
have made good" under unusual circumstances.
1t seems probable that some of the leading
movie stars of today may have had to tell a
tiny fb or two to escape the clutches of the min
ions of the law whose duty 1t is to enforce the
child labor regulations, for some of those who are
now in the very center of the spotlight are still
far from that age which they must attain, accord
ing to the fiction Of the law, before they are cap
able of managing their own affairs.
The case of Bessie Love, one of the most recent
youthful stars to flash into view in the movie"
armament, is typical of that of several others VINO
have gained fame and fortune in the past year or
two. Just q little more than a year ago this young
star was Just Sweet sixteen and still a pupil in
the Los Angeles high school. She admits now that
while she pored over her books her thoughts were
elsewhere. She dreamed of the time when she
might become a movie star, but she did not know
then how soon her dreams were to come true.
III SITE HAUL l. Iul LObSihNlo thA ANN ~ HNE
studying, Miss Love would not have been out OF
high school yet, but the doctor said mo more
school for q while" and that dictum resulted in
Miss Love becoming a star almost in the twinkling
of an eve. OF course she did not become q star
the first day she visited a studio, and she worked
hard before she reached the top, but her period
Of probation was q short one, and it was only a
few short weeks, after she first went timidly to a
studio in Hollywood, the center of the motion-pic-
ture industry in Los Angeles, and was given a trial
as an extra, that she was playing leads with such
actors as William S. Hart, Douglas Fairbanks and
De Wolf Hopper. Then it was but a step to the
poInt where it was Bessie Love in -" when
the pictures in which she played came out. She
is now a full-fledged star, appearing In her own
pictures and still she is only seventeen.
Through it all, Miss Love has remained I'M
spoiled. She is still the modest and unaffected girl
of sixteen. Neither she nor her mother, who al
ways travels with her, seems to think that it is
anything unusual for a girl just past seventeen to
be earning as much money as the president OF the
United States. Mrs. Love tells how Bessie used
to sit up in her high chair and discuss civic mat
tiers and religion and music at the age of six, and
of how they had planned that she should be a
schoolteacher. "And here she is a film actress"
saws the mother; but her heart was set on 1t and
1 believe that one only does we'll that which one
loves to do" And Bessie declares that she loves
her work In the movies.
Then there is Mary Miles Minter, who is not yet
sixteen, and is said to be the youngest of all stars
~ecalvine the amount of money which Is paid to her