wrote, "It happened that I was spending a summer in California with a girl whom I had known in Chicago. Universal City was one of the trips arranged for me. We were watching the making of a scene on the big stage. A Director discovered he needed one more girl for a small bit. He looked around at the visitors and asked if I would try the small part for him. At first, I declined and finally consented. As the cameraman began to grind and the Director called his instructions, I was fascinated. The lure of the game had caught me." As Edmunds points out in his book - "Casting at Universal, before things became more businesslike, was somewhat casual. A passing face, a friend visiting the set, or an odd happening that caught a director's eye — all these, as well as direct applications — often led to successful movie careers. This was not unusual. The Gish sisters got their start because they dropped in to see Mary Pickford one day at Biograph." Vernon had previously claimed, "I had always had a sneaking desire for the other side of the footlights." After her movie experience, Vernon acquired an intense desire to be in films, but her prim mother would not hear of it. Now Vernon would have to convince her mother to change her mind about an acting career. In Vernon's own words, "Then I decoyed her out there again, and she began to see its advantages. She realized the reasonable hours of the actors and their out-of-door existence. The chance of living, as she expressed it, 'like a Christian instead of traipsing all over the country,' gradually converted her to the idea of letting me try my luck." Even though she had no stage experience or Universal contacts, she had this all-consuming desire to succeed. Vernon got her name on an "extra list" at Universal City. Career Most fan magazine articles agree; Vernon started her movie career as an player in March 1913. She was and barely a year out of convent school. Those uncredited roles are unknown and, consequently, not listed in her filmography. Universal distributed most of her films. They were well-received because she collaborated with specific actors like Murdock MacQuarrie, Herbert Rawlinson, and Franklyn Farnum. Her pairing with Herbert Rawlinson would make them the most popular stars on the Universal list. Another facet of her