Colleen’s first credited role was in The Bad Boy, written by  Frank Woods, the Manager of Production, and Chet Whithey; it was the a resentful young man played by the popular actor Robert Harron, who falls in with a bad crowd, but who is eventually redeemed through the power of a good girl. The good girl, in his film, would be played by Mildred Harris, who was a popular young actress who would soon marry Charlie Chaplin, the first of several underaged brides. Colleen played Ruth, and outgoing and worldly temptation for Harron’s character of Jimmy. The film was shot in Sawtelle, a town midway between Hollywood and the Pacific Ocean, at the Soldier’s Home, a complex of red-roofed, double-storied buildings reminiscent of old Southern mansions.

   That role was maybe a single day’s effort. Motion pictures at the time were typically shorter unless they were features (five rolls or more).  The nickelodeon had mostly vanished from the popular culture a few years earlier, but their influence was still felt in the form of the audience expectation that a day at the pictures typically meant a program. Programs were a collection of films that the exhibitor “programmed” for his theater, tailored to the tastes of his audiences. The exhibitor might choose films from several producers, but the studios produced complete programs for the convenience of the exhibitor (and profit of the studio). A program might last in the theater for several days by the time Colleen started working as a professional actress. Sometimes they lasted a week or two. Thus, with such a rapid turn-over of their output, the studios cranked out films like cars off an assembly line. An average film might take less than a month to produce, from the initial story to the final cutting and distribution.

   Colleen’s appearance in front of the camera that first time might have only lasted a few minutes, but it was a large roll. The Bad Boy was a full-length film, and not a short. Shorts (one or two rolls) were a large part of programs, rounding out the program between the features and newsreels. If an actress was not careful, she might find herself stuck in shorts, where she was less likely to be notices. So, while Colleen’s first roll might not have been big, it was still a prominent one in the production. She had managed to follow direction well enough that she was cast in a second film.

   Outside the studio, Colleen’s mother had found a new home on Virgil Avenue; when she and her mother and grandmother had first arrived in the city, they were put up in a bungalow on Fountain Street.  The new home was about a half-block closer to the studio, in an area that was just beginning to be developed, and so the wilderness of the Los Angeles area was all around her. Each morning she was up early and walking to the studio. Sometimes she would meet Carmel Myers outside the entrance to the studio and they would talk before going in. Colleen would go to the studio every day, regardless f whether she was needed for a film. She was eager to learn.

   Her net film had been given the working title A Gentleman of the Old School, again with Robert Harron. This film was another adventure, the gentleman (Harron) an honorable man in contrast to Harron’s previous anti-hero. Rather than play the feminine distraction to the main character, Colleen was elevated to a more featured, if passive part, essentially playing the prize won by Harron’s character, who defends the honor of a woman whose reputation is smeared. Colleen played the daughter of the wronged woman, and Harron’s actions win her devotion.