Bunny The Star
Bunny's speaking voice was something that the movie audiences never got to experience. He was equally successful in his stage shows and talks. Bunny was adept at many dialects and if lived, would have transferred well to sound movies although by that time, he would have been in his late 60’s.
Bunny was able to assess his career and where the industry was going. “Look at the picture plays of just a few years ago: a moving train was a story then, now they're filming Les Miserables in twelve reels.” It is also said that Bunny predicted color film and the advent of sound. Bunny also did appear in serious Vitagraph films including Pickwick Papers filmed in England and Vanity Fair.
Bunny loved the attention and attracted fans and waves wherever he visited. Bunny was now something he could not be on the stage: a star.
Known as “Uncle John” on the set, Bunny would be happy to listen to a trouble or just visit. It would not be unlikely to walk into the Vitagraph set and see Mabel Normand or Florence Turner sitting on his lap.
That was the public story: The old, wise, lovable man. According to Anthony Slide in his book, The Big V, The History of the Vitagraph Company, Bunny was hated by just about everyone on the set. "John Bunny was pompous, rude and arrogant." states Slide. Larry Trimble's daughter states also in the book, "He was very bad-tempered, very difficult. He upstaged everyone. He was an old egocentric. He always wanted the camera on him. He wasn't as mean as W.C. Fields, but he was verging on it."
Bunny was very adept at his craft. When asked if he studied his own facial expressions, Bunny stated, “No, no: that's fatal; it makes everything you do hard and unreal. If you can manage to be the character you're impersonating, feel it so thoroughly and vitally that you really transform yourself for the moment, your actions will tell more than you realize. That is, of course, when you are mastering this particular technique.”
Bunny felt that Max Linder and a handful of others were real artists and knew that things were changing fast. Bunny would have also had the chance to see several Keystone and a couple of Essanay Chaplin films including Tillies Puntured Romance, The Champion, Dough and Dynamite and the Rounders many including a young actress named Mabel Normand who used to appear in his films.
Bunny was slowly being lured away from the screen. While making $200 a week with Vitagraph, Bunny accepted an offer for a one week speaking engagement for $1,000. After this happened a couple of times, Vita graph raised his salary to $1,000 a week in 1913. This was big news and Bunny was often known as "the man who makes more than the president."
Click Bunny to Continue!