Two Interviews with John Bunny In 1913, Frances Agnew published Motion Picture Acting. "How to Prepare for photoplaying. What qualifications are necessary. How to Secore and Engagement. Salaries paid to Photoplayers."  We are very fortunate that one of the people she interviewed for the book was John Bunny. This was his third year in the movies and he was at the top of his game. Bunny's predictions for the future of motion pictures are staggering. Although somewhat arrogant, it is hard to argue his visions for the future.

INTERVIEW WITH MR. JOHN BUNNY, STAR OF THE VITAGRAPH COMPANY Perhaps the best known of all photoplayers is Mr. John Bunny, star of Vitagraph. Mr. Bunny's name is a household word, not only from coast to coast in America, but also in every city and town in the world all acquainted with the "movies" and the appearance of a "Bunny film" at any theatre is really a treat. It is difficult to say whether Mr. Bunny is most delighted on the screen or off. He is a man of marked intelligence and a brilliant personality. He is especially interested in the motion pictures from an educational viewpoint. In a recent personal interview, when speaking of the industry which he says is his hobby, and not only his present but also his future life work, Mr. Bunny said in part:     "I believe the time is coming when motion picture machines will be a part of the equipment of every school and college in the country, and many branches of learning now so objectionable to children will be made interesting by the use of motion pictures. My principal worry is the fact that I can't hope to live long enough to do all the work, which I've mapped out for myself.  I have planned fifty years of activity in the motion picture business, which I fear I will not live to carry out entirely. I want to see Latin and Green mythology taught in every school and college in the United States by the use of films. It can and will be done and will be one of the biggest gifts to mankind the world has ever known."

Photo of Vitagraph workers with the Vitagraph Truck.

What is left of Vitagraph Studios today.

Regarding the motion picture industry as a profession, Mr. Bunny said:     " There's nothing like it. No other work gives an actor or would be actor the same advantages. In the pictures, a player gets 52 weeks in the year. Where is the theatrical manager who can offer that? Not even vaudeville stars can get such 'bookings.' At best, 30 weeks is about all an actor can expect on the stage. He may get summer stock work, but even so it is of uncertain duration. Stage work is a gamble. Even when you have been engaged for a production, rehearsed from three to six weeks, without pay, and no doubt both your own costumes for the piece, you have no guarantee that it will be a success. If the public does not set its stamp of approval, your job is all over perhaps after but one performances, and you can only repeat the procedure by trying again with something else, charging the other to your loss account, with a credit notation probably on the page marked 'experience.'     " It is so much different in the pictures. There you get a weekly salary, no long tedious rehearsals, and an occasional off-day as the result of inclement weather, lack of parts for your type of player, or other reasons, and still draw your salary if on a contract basis."     " In many cases - as for instance your humble servant - there is an occasional open week when the film company will give a player permission to appear in vaudeville. I have made such appearances, - at Hammerstein's, and other theatres, and also in larger cities of both the east and west. I do a special typically moving-picturesque act, which is a novelty, goes big, and I enjoy it, too. It brings a little 'loose change' as well as an intimate acquaintance