Silent-Movie Organist Enters Video Era

Gaylord Carter hasn’t quite mastered his video recorder.

The 79-year-old theater organist, who is one of the last performing accompanists from Hollywood’s silent era, fumbled with the buttons, searching for the one that would bring life to his videocassette of “Wings.”

Carter tried another button, the video recorder hummed and the 1927 silent epic finally flickered onto the screen.

For a moment it was quiet, and then the powerful strains of Carter’s electronic organ began to pump out of his color TV.

“Technology is great,” he said. “This means I’ll be able to leave a little legacy.”

Carter, who will celebrate his 80th birthday at 7:30 p.m. Friday by playing accompaniment to Buster Keaton’s silent comedy, “The Navigator,” at the Seeley G. Mudd Theater in Claremont, recently signed a contract with Paramount Pictures’ video division to compose and perform sound tracks for seven classic silent films on videocassette.

“Wings,” the first film to win an Academy Award for best picture and the only silent film ever to earn that honor, marks Carter’s videocassette debut.

However, Carter said he still spends most of his time doing what he has done for the last 60 years: weaving melodies on giant Wurlitzers as silent actors perform their pantomime on the silver screen.

Although some of the silent classics he accompanies already have scripted musical scores, Carter frequently composes his own musical accompaniment or adds touches of improvisation to suit the action on the screen.

“You have to have a good musical imagination, to visualize in musical terms what you see on the screen,” he said. “I have students now who are so used to sound (films) that they don’t know what in the world I mean by that.”

Carter, who continues to give private organ lessons, performs with about four movies a month. He often travels from his San Pedro home to silent film festivals or to restored movie houses throughout the country.

He frequently plays such local theaters as the Pasadena Civic Auditorium, the San Gabriel Civic Auditorium and the Mudd Theater in Claremont, where about 450 people attended his birthday performance last year.

And wherever he goes, a small but devoted following of silent-film lovers comes to hear Carter’s dramatic crescendos, thundering chords and whimsical melodies.

“Back when I started, nobody paid any attention to the organ,” Carter said. “Now, because people think this is rare, I’m the center of attention at the concerts.”

Although popular tastes and technology have changed over the years, Carter said the silent classics still have the power to captivate an audience.

“I always tell people that we’re not dredging up old relics,” he said. “This is a form of entertainment that still has tremendous impact and vitality. When something’s good, it doesn’t matter how old it is.”

Carter conceded, however, that the theater organ does not always appeal immediately to contemporary listeners.

“Just like anything else, it has to be sold to them,” Carter said. “If we can make it the thing to do--because there’s a unique instrument or a unique theater in town--then it’s no problem getting people to come.”

And once they’re there, he said, the magic of silent film takes over.

“At its best, the music is felt but not noticed,” he said. “When it’s right, you should lose yourself in the picture.”

Carter, a smiling and energetic man, began his career in 1922, while he was a student at Lincoln High School in East Los Angeles. Lacking even a dime to go to the movies, Carter solved the problem by playing piano in a local movie house.

With the help of silent-film comedian Harold Lloyd, who was a friend, Carter landed a job at the ornate Million Dollar Theater on Broadway in downtown Los Angeles. From there he moved on to some of Hollywood’s most prestigious movie houses, including the Egyptian Theater and Grauman’s Chinese Theater.

After talkies took over in the mid-1930s, Carter composed and performed for radio and later television. He has also worked as musical director at the Forum in Inglewood and spent 16 years as a church organist in La Canada Flintridge.

In 1975, the American Theatre Organ Society named Carter organist of the year and inducted him into its Hall of Fame.

But now that Carter has entered the video business, he will spend most of his time watching silent films on his VCR and composing organ music to fit the drama. With “Wings” completed, he is turning his attention to such other classics as the 1926 silent version of “Ben Hur.”

“This is great,” he said, struggling to get the recorder to eject a videocassette. “It’s the first time I’ve ever been able to do my work at home.”