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Taylorology Issue 63
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* T A Y L O R O L O G Y *
* A Continuing Exploration of the Life and Death of William Desmond Taylor *
* *
* Issue 63 -- March 1998 Editor: Bruce Long bruce@asu.edu *
* TAYLOROLOGY may be freely distributed *
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CONTENTS OF THIS ISSUE:
Louella Parsons Interviews with Actresses:
Beverly Bayne, Betty Blythe, Clara Bow, Marguerite Clark,
Elsie Ferguson, Dorothy Gish, Juanita Hansen, Osa Johnson,
Alice Joyce, Mae Marsh, Violet Mersereau, Alma Rubens,
Gloria Swanson, Blanche Sweet, Alice Terry
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What is TAYLOROLOGY?
TAYLOROLOGY is a newsletter focusing on the life and death of William Desmond
Taylor, a top Paramount film director in early Hollywood who was shot to
death on February 1, 1922. His unsolved murder was one of Hollywood's major
scandals. This newsletter will deal with: (a) The facts of Taylor's life;
(b) The facts and rumors of Taylor's murder; (c) The impact of the Taylor
murder on Hollywood and the nation; (d) Taylor's associates and the Hollywood
silent film industry in which Taylor worked. Primary emphasis will be given
toward reprinting, referencing and analyzing source material, and sifting it
for accuracy.
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Louella Parsons Interviews with Actresses
TAYLOROLOGY 53 contained a selection of Louella Parsons' interviews with
silent film actors. Now it's the ladies' turn. The following interviews
with actresses were conducted by Louella Parsons between 1918 and 1923.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Beverly Bayne
February 23, 1919
Louella Parsons
NEW YORK TELEGRAPH
It was seven years ago, a beautiful Autumn day, with the leaves turning
a russet brown and a rosy red. A little girl with a tan-colored suit and a
hat gay with pink roses shading a pair of very dark eyes walked up to the
front door of the Essanay studios and in a shy, half-frightened voice asked
for a job. The girl at the switchboard, used to coldly turning away dozens
of just such girls every day, paused in the gentle art of telling our heroine
it was no use, and then took a second look at the big brown eyes, the soft
dark hair which fell so softly over the forehead of this child, and said,
"Wait a moment."
This scant word of encouragement brought forth a smile and the little
girl with the rose-garlanded hat sat down to wait. The wait brought Harry
McRae Webster to the front office.
"Well," he said, looking at the girl, "what do you want?"
"I thought--that is, I hoped--you might use me in pictures."
"Ever had any experience?"
"Oh, yes; I have acted lots in school plays," was the naive and entirely
unexpected answer.
"Come around tomorrow at 9 o'clock," said Harry Webster, who was at that
time director general of the Essanay productions.
The girl--and she was none other, as they say in the thrilling
melodramas--was Beverly Bayne, a truant from school, screen struck and dying
to get into pictures. Harry Webster came into my office and told me of the
little girl who looked about 16 and gave promise of being a raving beauty.
Suddenly, as if struck by an inspiration, he said to me:
"You know, I have half a notion to give her a chance in 'The Loan
Shark.' You know the story."
I did, for at that time I was scenario editor and a part of my work
consisted in buying scripts for the directors to produce; there were only
four other directors besides Harry Webster.
"But she hasn't any experience," I said, "and won't Miss B. (the leading
woman in Essanay stock) expect to have this story?"
"Yes, yes, I know--but Miss B. is too old; this girl is young and fresh
and the type I need."
And so it came about that Beverly Bayne's first appearance in pictures
was not as an extra girl, but as the featured player. All the directors at
once wanted Beverly Bayne in their productions--pardon, pictures, for one-
reel dramas and one-reel comedies were the best Essanay or any of the other
companies gave at that time, and were not productions. There was a real
Beverly Bayne craze on at the studios with all of the directors clamoring for
the new leading lady.
Francis X. Bushman was the leading man. Every one liked Frank in those
days, he was such a boy, alternately teasing the girls and wrestling with the
men. We were all much like one family--there was only one studio, and
actors, directors and writers would congregate in my office to discuss the
plays.
Finally Beverly was cast in a Bushman picture. There was great rivalry
among the women players to play with Francis Bushman. Beverly took it all as
a matter of course, and confided in me she didn't much like Mr. Bushman; he
was too big a tease. But Mr. Bushman liked her, and found he could work with
her better than with any other actress. He asked for her, until she
gradually became associated in the mind of the public as Francis X. Bushman's
leading lady.
A better understanding sprang up, but still Beverly was neither
infatuated nor especially interested in her leading man. This went on for
several years, with the Bushman and Bayne combination growing stronger and
more popular, but with no thought of love on either side.
It was after they joined the Metro Company that Beverly suddenly woke to
a realization the hero of her screen romance was her real hero. And then, as
every one knows, came the marriage of the two who had worked side by side,
studying, reading and doing their best to find the art in motion pictures.
This sounds like a history or a biography but it is meant for an
interview. But, borrowing Miss Baird Leonard's phrase, it was a mental cross
section dancing through the brain waves of my mind as Beverly and I sat and
chatted over our tea. She and Francis came in last Sunday to see me and have
a cup of tea with me, in my apartment; strange as it seems we are now almost
next door neighbors.
The promise Beverly's exquisite girlhood held for beautiful womanhood
has been kept. She is one of the best groomed, most attractive, charming
young women I know. The influence of her home, for Beverly was gently reared
and one of the girls who might have stayed home and had the tender care of a
devoted mother if she had not wanted to set out for herself, is always
present in her every movement. She is a gentlewoman, well poised and
exceptionally entertaining.
Naturally we three reminisced, and chatted over the days when pictures
were crude, unfinished affairs.
"Sometimes," said Mr. Bushman, "I smile to myself when I see on the
screen little things I did a long time ago. If I should now take one of the
copyrighted acts, I should be branded an imitator--when frequently they are
the very things we tried out at Essanay."
The two Bushmans are very congenial. They both like riding; they are
each passionately fond of dogs, horses and other pets, and they are each
students. Francis Bushman is one of the best read men I know. He hasn't the
superficial knowledge, which, veneered, suffices to pass as mentality, but he
has the real knowledge acquired from much delving into books and constant
studying. Beverly is also a brilliant woman, having with the years added to
her retentive mind the things worth knowing.
"When I get back to the city from Bushmanor," said Beverly, "I feel
stifled. You see, we live outdoors there, ride in the open country and lead
a simple, next-to-nature life."
"You like that way of living now?" I asked her.
"I have never cared for the bright lights nor for the night life in a
big city. The cafes, the cabarets and the parties in these places never hold
an attraction for me, perhaps because I know so little about them. We lead
such a quiet life. I want only a few good friends, my books, my horses and
dogs. This is my idea of contentment: I love my home, and am what Frank
calls an old-fashioned girl."
"What about your painting?" I asked her, for in the old days Beverly had
considerable talent, and her mother always cherished a secret hope that some
day the name Beverly Bayne would become associated with the world of art
instead of with the plebian motion picture.
"I still love to sketch, and to dabble in water colors, but I have never
done more than visit the art galleries, and wish I could create some of the
paintings I see there. Art will always be an idealistic longing with me, and
one of the things I shall always regret I was unable to accomplish."
The Bushmans were both greatly interested in the Westminster dog show,
where Mr. Bushman had entered twelve beautiful Danes, and carried off a motor
truck full of ribbons and cups and badges.
"You should see Frank," said Beverly. "He fusses over those dogs,
doctors them, bathes them, and sees to it that they have just the right
amount of food. Such a barking when he appears; they all know him, and one
is jealous of the other in trying to claim his attention."
Francis Bushman loves the country as well as his wife does. It is no
affectation, either, for I can remember when he used to tell me the height of
his ambition was to make enough money to buy a country estate. Many of the
things he hoped for have come to pass--but they have made no change in
"Bush," as his friends call him.
The years have improved him, and the Francis Bushman of today, older,
graver, but with the same almost foolish desire to have every one like him,
is a great improvement over the boy I knew so well at Essanay. He has
learned to be less impulsive and less apt to judge other people. I could not
help thinking how much his association with gentle Beverly has helped him.
One thing he has retained, and that is his generous spirit. No friend in
need ever went to Francis Bushman in vain. He recently took an old director
of his, broken in health, to Bushmanor, gave him a home and a chance to earn
some money raising chickens. He does not tell these things, and it was only
with the greatest reluctance I coaxed the story from Beverly--and then only
when this man whom we all knew was mentioned.
Our tea chat reached way into the evening--to the time when they had to
hurry home to greet some dinner guests--but we did have such a pleasant
afternoon, and I hope they will run in again and have tea with me.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Betty Blythe
May 1, 1921
Louella Parsons
NEW YORK TELEGRAPH
After seeing Betty Blythe on the screen with a few draperies and a
couple of beads it was somewhat of a shock to see a young woman step into the
lobby of the Gotham Hotel dressed in a modishly tailored suit, with nothing
to suggest the gorgeous raiment of the queen. Whatever was missing in the
queenly robes was very much present in the beauty of the young woman. She is
as handsome as she looked when Solomon was vamped by her on the screen at the
Lyric Theatre. I had no reason to believe she would appear in ancient garb,
but some way the name of Betty Blythe ever since she made such an impression
as the Queen of Sheba has been synonymous with this enchantress of long ago.
The hour was half after twelve o'clock and since Miss Blythe had eaten
no breakfast she ushered me into the dining room. Even queens must eat.
Her royal highness managed eggs and bacon, toast, marmalade, prunes and tea,
proving as well as being beautiful she has a hearty and healthy appetite.
Any one who could drive the chariot with the skill and strength of Miss
Blythe would need to keep herself in proper physical form.
"How did you manage all those prancing horses," I asked her.
"I suppose I should say it was easy, but I am going to be truthful and
tell you it was the most difficult thing I have ever been called upon to do
in pictures. I knew if we rehearsed the scene once more I should never have
been able to endure the strain. Nell Craig, who drove the other chariot, was
so overcome that she fell and broke three ribs just as we were finishing the
last scene. There was terrific excitement, with the extras yelling and all
of us frightened and trembling with fear that Miss Craig was seriously
injured.
"My arms, you see," she said, holding out a pair of shapely hands, "are
long, and I am strong. Miss Craig is weaker and she simply could not hold
those wild animals a moment longer. Fortunately it was the very last scene.
I am sure neither Miss Craig nor myself would be willing to go around those
sharp curves again."
Miss Blythe is here to consult with William Fox about going to Europe
with J. Gordon Edwards. He is to make "Mary, Queen of Scots," and since "The
Queen of Sheba" was such a howling success Mr. Edwards does not wish to
change queens. There is no denying Miss Blythe does look like the mythical
queens of our childhood days. She is tall, stately, dignified and beautiful.
An ideal combination of what queens should be and seldom are. Contracts are
stubborn things and up to now Mr. Fox and Miss Blythe have not come to any
definite agreement. She wants to go abroad, but there are many things to be
considered.
Until she came to New York Mrs. Sheba had not seen herself on the
screen. The print of "The Queen of Sheba" was rushed to New York before any
of the players had a chance to see the picture. Naturally the first thing
Miss Blythe did was to rush to the Lyric and take a look at herself.
"I haven't been East for two years, so I have spent much of my time in
the shops and at the theatres. If I should return to the Coast without going
to Europe," she said, "I want to see enough good plays to last me for a
time."
The stories that Miss Blythe left New York after nearly starving to
death, she says, are very poetic but absolutely without foundation.
"I worked with World and Vitagraph and had a very good salary before I
went West to make a Goldwyn picture. I had been on the stage in a Morris
Gest production, but I never did the starving in the garret act. I wonder
why," she said, "every one always thinks any girl who achieves any degree of
fame must have had a miserable hungry time. The chorus is always used to
illustrate how far she has advanced."
If Miss Blythe does not go to Europe with the J. Gordon Edwards company
she will return to Los Angeles in another week. She says there is only one
thing she wishes to have every one know and that is, she is not
temperamental.
"I shouldn't like to have any one accuse me of being a creature of
moods. I am not a great actress and no one unless she be as famous as
Bernhardt or Duse should indulge in temperament. It is unbecoming and
foolish."
Miss Blythe admits she is ambitious. She has aspirations and she wants
to do something worth while.
"I am grateful," she said, "to the Fox company and Mr. Edwards for the
chance to play in 'The Queen of Sheba.' It has inspired me to do other
pictures of a similar nature."
The queen, you see, is a mortal, even as you and I. So she finished her
breakfast and departed for the dressmaker's for a fitting, for styles do
change and one cannot wear beads and draperies outside of a studio.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Clara Bow
July 22, 1922
Louella Parsons
NEW YORK TELEGRAPH
I wish Booth Tarkington could meet Clara Bow. If he has never heard
Clara tell of her romances, her ideas on life and the way she manages her
"dad," he has missed getting material for a great juvenile story. Clara is a
combination of the Tarkington type of small town girl, and the flapper who
now flaps in up-to-date juvenile society. She is the unconscious flapper.
She doesn't hail form Podunk or Cedarville, Iowa, the towns where girls
wear the fraternity pins of their best beaus, and consider a high school
picnic the essence of hilarity. Clara was born and brought up in Brooklyn,
but someway neither our neighboring city nor the big town of New York has
ever touched her. She has remained Clara Bow, high school girl, whose beauty
somehow brought her into the fillums, but never made her a part of them.
Clara, who is eighteen this month, and who as naively says she was so
"smart" she graduated when she was fifteen, has kept all her old school
friends. Her class mates are her beaus, although her father, she says, is
very strict and makes her send her company home long before midnight. Her
mother died at Christmas time last year, leaving her alone with her father
who has tried to mother her as best he could--perhaps spoiling her a little.
Everyone does.
Morrie Ryskind insisted that I meet the new Preferred star and take a
look at her just to see if I had ever met anything like Miss Bow in motion
pictures. I never have.
"What paper do you write on," asked Clara, slipping her hand into mine.
"Shsh"--whispered Morrie, "she is the lady who wrote the nice things
about you."
"Oh, I know you are on the Telegram."
"Just having a little joke," groaned Morrie. But Clara hadn't been
rehearsed, she said.
"Honest, Mr. Ryskind, I didn't hear her name--"
"Where shall we have luncheon," sighed Morrie, thinking the sooner the
affair was over the better for his peace of mind. "Shall we go to the Astor,
the Biltmore or the Chatham?"
"Let's go to a chop suey place," said Clara. "I know a wonderful
restaurant here on Broadway where they dance at noon--don't you love to
dance?"
So Morrie, hoping the din of the Chinese orchestra would drown any
additional faux pas lead us to Clara's choice, and in the middle of the day
when most of us eat salad or a poached egg, this youngster ate soup, chow
mein, salad, ice cream and rice--and with a relish.
So far motion pictures haven't affected her one iota. She is as
refreshingly unaffected as if she had never faced a means to pretend. She
hasn't any secrets from the world--she trusts everyone, and doesn't believe
that any one would be unkind enough to print any of the romances that she
loves to tell about. Almost any mascaro firm would pay her a big salary for
the use of her name.
She came into pictures after winning a beauty contest. She screens in
the vernacular of the studio like a million dollars, and when Elmer Clifton
had a look at her big brown eyes, and her round little face, almost like the
girl in a picture book, he gave her one of the leading roles in "Down to the
Sea in Ships."
"This chance, Clara" said Mr. Clifton (every one calls her Clara), "will
either make or break you--it depends upon the success of the picture. Every
one knows of the phenomenal success of Mr. Clifton's great whaling picture.
It made him, and it made Clara, and led to her getting an offer from J. G.
Bachmann to play one of the leading roles in "May Time" for Preferred
Pictures.
She has just finished "Grit," with Glenn Hunter. She says she just
loves Glenn.
"I went down to see 'Merton of the Movies' the other night and I sat in
the front row. Glenn said something about Clara Bow, the motion picture
actress, and I was so embarrassed. Mr. and Mrs. Harold Lloyd were in the
audience, too, but Glenn didn't see them in time to put them in the play.
"Glenn thinks I could act on the stage. He said maybe sometime he will
give me a part in one of his plays."
She thinks Mr. Hunter is a fine actor and dares any one to deny it.
In fact, she rather hopes someone will, so she can prove her loyalty to young
Merton by having a battle.
Our conversation was mostly about whom Clara adores and whom she does
not adore, and what she is going to do in California and the ideal man she
expects to marry.
"You know," she said, confidentially, leaning over a dish of chow mein
almost as big as she is, "I have had six proposals of marriage; but I didn't
love one of them. My daddy says I am too young to marry, anyhow."
"What about the fraternity pin, does that belong to one of the loves?"
she was asked.
"No," she explained, "I traded a piece of jewelry I had with a boy
because I thought it was pretty. A girl gave it to him--some boy had given
it to her--and now it's mine!"
Shades of Harvard, Yale, Princeton and Cornell and any other college
where the Greek letter fraternities are in vogue!
"I think you better go back to the office," said Morris, interrupting
Clara's rhapsody. "Mr. Beatty wants to see you."
"No, he doesn't, I have to have my picture taken," answered the
incorrigible Clara.
But the pictures were as good an excuse as any, and Mr. Ryskind piloted
her from the chop suey palace where she pranced across the floor, keeping
time to the music like a delighted child.
I thought afterward if the little girl who lives at my house had not
been so frightfully grown up she and Clara might have had a good time. We
hope some one will tell Mr. Tarkington about Clara so that he will put her in
a story. She is almost too good to be true. And to think she is going to
Hollywood to play in the "fillums." We only wish some reformer who believes
the screen contaminates all who associate with it could meet this child.
Still on second thought it might not be safe: Clara uses a dangerous pair of
eyes. And as for eyelashes, almost any mascaro would pay her a big salary
for the use of her name.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Marguerite Clark
April 10, 1921
Louella Parsons
NEW YORK TELEGRAPH
After she makes two or three more pictures, Marguerite Clark expects to
retire to her plantation in the South and raise--flowers. It wouldn't give
her much of a pang to exit now, only she feels she would like to make one
more big picture and then kiss her fingers good-by to her public. As far as
the stage is concerned, Miss Clark has already sung her swan song--but deep
in her heart there is such a warm place for the screen she doesn't want to
retire until she has departed in the manner she has planned.
Marguerite's whole life has been arranged in this picturesque fashion,
with each event being patterned and fashioned to suit her fastidious little
self.
"Do you know," she said, "if I had the forming of my life I would have
chosen to marry Harry, and retire from the screen after I had found the man I
love, and the home that I enjoy so thoroughly. I love my home, my flowers,
my little chickens, and the freedom the country gives me. I am never lonely.
Sometimes we go to town for a dinner party or the theatre; often we come to
New York for a good time; but when it is over we love going back to our
house. It is two miles from New Orleans, and such a great big rambling old
place, Harry and I ramble around like two little peanuts."
Harry is H. Palmerston Williams, the attractive husband of Marguerite.
They are desperately in love with each other. So much so, Harry wasn't above
taking Marguerite's little hand and holding it at Delmonico's when he thought
the rest of the luncheon party was too engrossed in talking shop to see him.
Marguerite, on the other hand, had to stop talking every few moments to lean
over and whisper something in her husband's ear. The correct waiter coughed
discreetly whenever he approached, and tried not to show his interest.
He was more polite than some of the guests, who stared with frank interest at
Mr. and Mrs. H. Palmerston Williams.
In the luncheon party were Mrs. J. Gordon Edwards, wife of the Fox
director; their young son Jack, home from Cornell for his Spring vacation;
Miss Cora Clark and Miss Wilson. Mr. Edwards acted as stage director for
Marguerite at one time and the two families have kept up their close
friendship.
"The first time I saw that young man," said Marguerite, nodding at the
good-looking young Jack, "was after he had received a terrific bump on his
head in the elevator. I was so incensed at the unsympathetic manner in which
the elevator man ejected him from the lift I said I would leave the hotel.
Mr. Edwards spoke up and said: 'Oh, I wouldn't distress myself; it was
probably my son. He is a terror, and he undoubtedly deserved everything he
got.'"
"You didn't know how nice I was going to grow up, did you?" said young
Edwards, who graduated from Cornell this Summer, and who hasn't decided
whether to be an assistant to his father or a business man. He says he is
afraid his dad will make a general utility man out of him, and he wouldn't be
doing right by Cornell to accept such a menial job.
"You know the day Marguerite speaks about," said Miss Cora, "was her
first performance of 'Peter Pan.' Mr. Edwards was her stage director, and I
always remember how upset she was over Jack's argument with the elevator boy.
We didn't want her to get excited."
"She loves children," said her husband, whereupon young Jack made a
grimace. "Children love her, too," said Mr. Williams. "My niece and nephew
gave a party, and a youngster said, 'See that pretty little girl there, I am
going to have a dance with her.'
"'That,' said another boy, 'is no little girl, it is Marguerite Clark.'
"'I don't care, she looks like a little girl,' he said."
"Speaking of 'Peter Pan,' who do you think should play Peter in the
Famous Players-Lasky screen version?" asked Mrs. Edwards.
"I refuse to answer," said Mr. Williams, "on advice of counsel. I am
too prejudiced."
"I read with interest the Morning Telegraph series on the choice for
Peter Pan," said Miss Cora.
"That reminds me," said young Jack, "we have dozens of letters
recommending Marguerite."
"That is because I played the part on the stage," said Miss Clark.
"Would you like to play it?"
"I would love to," she said. "I have always wanted to make 'Peter Pan'
in pictures, and I must admit nothing would make me happier."
We asked Marguerite if she didn't sometimes have a hankering for New
York and the theatres.
"I never expected to be as contented in my life as I am now," she said.
"Do you know what I bought here?"
"Clothes," said young Jack.
"Oh, that goes without saying, but I mean we have bought seeds of all
sorts, garden trowels, and everything to make my Southern garden beautiful.
Harry raises chickens," she said. "He has his part of the garden and I have
my part, and if his chickens run into my flowers there will be an instant
annihilation of one part of the farm's product, and it will not be my
posies."
This threat amused Miss Clark's husband so much he had to give her hand
one more surreptitious squeeze. He seems to think everything she says is
amusing; in fact, he appreciates all her merry little witticisms.
I wondered if he didn't get jealous of the attention she attracts.
Apparently not, for he seems to enjoy having her admired, and beamed when
people pointed to her admiringly. Happiness has certainly been a great
tonic, for she looks younger and prettier than ever.
Her husband wishes she would not consider it necessary to make other
pictures, but he says if she feels she wants to make one or two before she
retires, he will not interfere.
"What about the stage?"
"That is different," promptly answered Marguerite. "I wouldn't be
willing to stay away from my beau that long."
As we were leaving, Marguerite spied Wesley Barry and tried to attract
his attention.
"He only cares for me," she said, "when he is trying to raise money.
When he came South he invited me to give to the Near-East fund, and seemed to
like me when I helped him."
Mr. and Mrs. Williams return home today after having spent a brief week
in New York. She is one of the best arguments I know against the old-
fashioned theory that no actress is content away from the stage. Marguerite
Clark says she is happier than she has ever been in her life, and she
certainly looks it.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Elsie Ferguson
February 16, 1919
Louella Parsons
NEW YORK TELEGRAPH
The interview about to be transcribed on this crumpled piece of copy
paper should have been written a week ago, for it was then I talked with
Elsie Ferguson, and came back to my typewriter, my office and my Roget's
Thesaurus with a feeling of exaltation. Elsie Ferguson has that effect, she
is stimulating, constantly buoying one up by her mentality, and by her human
outlook on life's tangled problems.
Now there comes to me a vision of her beauty, and a remembrance of the
pleasant hour I spent with her in her apartment on Park avenue, but with no
definite recollection of all we said--and we said much after the fashion of
two women who are left alone to talk for a solid hour.
The interview took place on a Friday morning very early, at the time the
world likes to picture actresses and women who lead leisure lives just
opening their eyes, having their breakfasts served on a silver salver, by a
neat maid, in a shell pink boudoir, with its curtains, its rugs and its
furnishings all harmonizing in color.
Yes, dear readers, that is the way this story should be written, I know
according to the Hoyle of fiction. But that isn't the way it happened.
I arrived at Miss Ferguson's apartment bright and early and was met at the
door by the young woman herself in a street frock of dark green velvet,
looking as if she had been up for several hours at least. From this most
matter of fact beginning you can readily see Miss Ferguson is not idle, and
neither has she acquired the habits of the leisure class who, before the war
made people realize there was work to be done, never gazed upon the morning
sun. It didn't take me long after Miss Ferguson started to talk to decide
she refutes the old axiom that beauty and brains seldom go hand in hand. She
has a liberal share of both, a thing which has elevated her to an enviable
place of esteem in the hearts of the picture world. We spoke about the
screen as a medium of describing emotion, and what improvements might be
expected to come within the next few years in the art of the motion picture.
"If we are to advance," said Miss Ferguson, "I believe it will be a
technical advancement. Some one will invent a camera powerful enough to take
distances and close-ups at one time. I always feel after a scene has been
taken, and I have to pose again for a close-up, how sorry I am that my face
cannot be photographed when I am actually engaged in a big dramatic scene.
It is difficult to get back to the place where the camera caught me a few
moments previous. Usually my feet must be kept on a spot marked for them,
and I am conscious of being cramped and forced to stay in a small place."
By this Miss Ferguson does not mean she dislikes motion pictures. She
merely, like all folk who study the needs of the screen, is constantly
groping about for a better way of doing things. Elsie Ferguson is not bound
to pictures commercially, though she does make $1,000 every day she works,
and has a maid, car and other accessories furnished her by the Famous Players-
Lasky Company, whose treasury she enriches.
"I cannot truthfully say I do not miss the stage," was the answer given
by Miss Ferguson to a tactless question as to whether or not sometimes there
did not come a longing to get back before the footlights. "Quoting from
'Dear Brutus,' where the man says the woman is so fluid, I would say the
stage is so fluid. That is what I miss--not so much the audience, though it
is pleasing to get recognition for one's art, but the something the stage
possesses that is not possible to get on the screen."
Elsie Ferguson is responsible for a vogue in pictures for which many of
us are grateful. Up to the time she brought her youth, her good looks and
her stage experience to the screen, we were overwhelmed with curls, and short-
frocked little girls, whose only claim to picture fame was a mop or tangled
hair and babyish star. Elsie Ferguson, by her graciousness, by her well-bred
manner of doing things, and her knowledge of what to wear and what not to
wear, gave [those] ambitious to be motion picture stars a new ideal to copy.
This conservative, gentle breeding is not a camouflage adapted as a
screen disguise; it is as much a part of the real Elsie Ferguson as her hand
or her foot. Her whole bearing, from the top of her golden head to the toe
of her tiny shoe (it is small--I noticed it) is that of a gentlewoman. One
wouldn't have to be in Miss Ferguson's presence or her home many minutes to
get this as a first impression.
Her home, who was it that said, "Show me the home and I will tell you
the character of the people who live there"? Elsie Ferguson's home is the
sort of livable place you would associate with that. There is nothing
ornate, garish or over-decorative. The lamps, the grand piano, the table
with its magazines and books, the vases here and there, all bespeak
refinement, good taste and breeding.
Miss Ferguson, besides having a place in the picture and theatrical
world, has a very definite social position given her by her marriage with
Major T. B. Clarke. I might have said, primarily given her, for she has kept
this place, and has by her charm, her beauty and her intelligence, made many
friends in the social world.
In speaking of Elsie Ferguson and the high regard in which she is held,
a woman well known in literary circles spoke of seeing Miss Ferguson at the
opera. At the conclusion of the last act Miss Ferguson rose, and walked out.
"It was," said this woman, "as if a princess were leaving. The audience
unconsciously stood still and looked at the slender, graceful figure wrapped
in a chinchilla coat, and then as if unconsciously walked out after her."
Ask her about suffrage, and about the uplift of the shop girl, said some
one.
It seemed absurd to ask Elsie Ferguson about suffrage.
A woman with her mentality, her poise and her conception of life could
not help believing in suffrage.
"I have believed in woman's equality for many years," she said. "The
old belief that a woman's place is in her home is all very well. We all like
our homes, and need them; but why spend the time in the manual labor of a
home, when we can get people who can do it much better than we can."
"Shall I say you would love to have a rose-covered cottage, with plenty
of house-work?" I asked.
"The cottage sounds all right, but I am not so sure I would add the
plenty of hard work," she said, smiling.
Elsie Ferguson in a cottage in the kitchen takes a strength and a depth
of imagination which I do not possess. I could better picture her on a
throne giving orders and receiving messages from an assembled multitude.
As for the shop girl. This question was born of the knowledge that
Elsie Ferguson does many little kindnesses quietly, and without ostentation
for some of the girls less fortunate than her gorgeous self.
"The average shop girl of today seems well able to cope with the world,"
said Miss Ferguson. "She is taught this necessity in moving pictures, and in
books. The girl of today is taught to face the world, and the salaries these
girls get are usually sufficient to keep them until they can get something
better. The woman who starts out to make a living will keep advancing if she
has the right stuff in her. If she doesn't it is her own fault. I am not
putting this down as a hard and fast rule. There are exceptions, and these
cases should, of course, be helped."
Right now Miss Ferguson is in Palm Beach--no, not vacationing, but
working on a new production. She hasn't, she said, had a vacation in so long
she feels her nerves are on edge and her mind weary for the need of some
recreation.
Will Elsie Ferguson return to the stage?
It is possible, though such a move would not necessarily interfere with
her screen work. She could do both. It is a well-known fact Miss Ferguson
has had several plays submitted to her by theatrical managers within the past
few months, but up to last week she had made no decision. She has a contract
with the Famous Players-Lasky Company, and she has expressed herself on
several occasions as being satisfied with the treatment she has received and
of being eager to make other pictures, and better ones.
"We need better stories," she said, "and we need them badly."
There were many more things we discussed, but as I said above, Elsie
Ferguson and I, like Alice and the Walrus, found the time had come to talk of
many things, and, being women, we talked them, and no one could ever record
everything a woman said.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Dorothy Gish
November 9, 1919
Louella Parsons
NEW YORK TELEGRAPH
The younger daughter of the Gish family arrived in New York three weeks
later than her mother and sister. Lillian and her mother brought three
birds, a canary and a parrot and eight hat boxes. Dorothy worried along
without any birds but she made up for this oversight by getting in Chicago
with five suitcases. She lost one there somewhere between the New York
Central station and the Blackstone, and landed in New York with only four.
"It was either the fault of the hotel clerk or the taxi driver," she
said. "Hotel clerks and taxi drivers are my pet aversion, and I hate them
more than anything in the world."
Dorothy, standing about five feet, very young, very slender and looking
not a day over seventeen, had given her denunciation of the race of hotel
clerks and taxi drivers in such a fierce tone we all laughed.
"You needn't laugh," said Dorothy. "That clerk at the Blackstone Hotel
in Chicago acted as if I were a stray dog. I asked him if I could get a room
and bath.
"He said, 'Certainly not; there isn't an empty room in the house.'
"'Will you please tell me where I can go,' I pleaded
"'No where,' he said. 'There is a convention in town and the hotels are
full.'
"Then he called a boy and I fully expected to be kicked down the steps.
Instead he had the boy take me to a wash room to wait, saying he would see
what he could do. I waited three hours and I never heard from him until
train time. I always have been afraid of hotel clerks, and now I am in
abject terror of them. If one says boo to me here at the Commodore I shall
make for cover."
The young lady who is afraid of hotel clerks just a moment before had
spoken nonchalantly of her own company. Another incongruous remark which
made me smile.
"Why do you smile?" she asked.
"When you speak of your own company," I told her, "it sounds so
important. And then in the next breath you say you fear the very people you
might be expected to wither with a look."
"That's the way I am," she said. "Do you know New York stifles me? It
makes me so unhappy. There are so many things I want, and so many things I
cannot afford to have. I don't see how people ever have money enough to live
here."
"Dorothy is right about being unhappy," said her mother. "She hasn't
smiled since she came here. We went to a fortune-teller in Los Angeles, and
he told me I would be surrounded with great hustle and bustle. And there
would appear constantly in this great commotion an figure with a scornful
expression."
"I am it," explained Dorothy, "but I am no longer scornful; merely
bewildered at the high cost of living."
"Do what Marie Doro suggests in New York," advised the gentle Lillian--
"wear your old clothes and be dowdy with good grace."
"What a blow all this high price of living sorrow would give the
public," I thought. "All the world believes motion picture stars wear sables
on Monday, mink on Tuesday, ermine on Wednesday, and other furs the rest of
the week. The dear public believes to be a motion picture star means to have
every whim granted at the drop of a hat."
"I thought motion picture stars--" I began.
"You thought like all the world," interrupted Dorothy, "that we were in
the millionaire class. We do not get paid the exorbitant salaries folk
believe, but because of our wealthy reputation we are made to suffer by
dentists, doctors, lawyers, milliners, modistes and all down the line. I had
two tiny cavities filled, and what do you think my dentist charged me--$350
for less than an hour's work!"
"You didn't pay him?"
"No, I left town, but I cannot always leave town when a bill is sent to
me three or four times in excess of what I ought to pay. I shall have mother
send him $100, which is enough for the work he has done--and then if he
insists I shall tell my troubles to a judge and let him decide the issue."
This interview was really to be with Dorothy, and I went over to the
Commodore Hotel to have luncheon with her. Lillian and Mrs. Gish, whom I
know better than the younger Gish, were also invited to Dorothy's party. The
two sisters are entirely unlike--Lillian, fair and stately; Dorothy, brown-
haired, less stately and with a sense of humor that is infectious.
I expected to see the black bobbed wig, and looked in surprise at the light
brown hair coiled so neatly on her head.
"Everyone looks for my wig," said Dorothy. "I am glad to stop playing
for a few weeks to get rid of wearing it. My hair is a surprise and a
disappointment to everyone."
"Not a disappointment," I corrected: "I like it better."
In the interval while we waited for Lillian to get her mother, Dorothy
told me she thought "Broken Blossoms" the best picture she had ever seen.
"When I see Lillian in that picture, I make up my mind never to make another
picture," she said. Which was a fine tribute from one sister to another.
I understood this remark later, when Dorothy, almost in tears over her
picture at the Rialto this past week said: "Comedy is the most
unsatisfactory thing in the world. You never know how it's going to turn
out. I started to make a drama a few weeks ago and it turned out a comedy.
And we all work so hard. That's all I do--work work work.
"Everyone who makes a success has to work," her mother said. "Look at
Mr. Griffith, how hard he works."
"And what does it get him," was Dorothy's reply.
"Why, Dorothy," interrupted Lillian, "that is a strange remark."
"O you know what I mean," Dorothy hastened to explain. "I mean what
good does it do anyone to kill themselves working, because the worms will get
you in the end."
After which philosophy Mrs. Gish, youthful and pretty enough to be a
sister to the girls, gently reproved her younger daughter for this outburst.
The Gish girls would surprise many of these reformers who think monopoly
of the world's iniquity is embodied in motion picture stars. They are sort
of girls you would like to have your own daughters associate with--wholesome,
clean, gently bred, and testifying to American womanhood at its best.
Dorothy is the comedienne of the family, and when she ceases to smile
there is a general cause for alarm. Her mother fussed over her, worried
about her unhappiness and tried her best to make her youngest born forget the
disadvantages of living in a big city. Mothers are pretty much alike the
world over, whether they belong to famous stars or just ordinary folk.
And Mrs. Gish is very much a real mother. Her girls will tell you that.
They give her credit for most of their accomplishments.
After luncheon in their apartment, where they insisted I go to make the
acquaintance of John, the parrot, who creaks out in a funny little voice,
"Mother, Lillian and Dot," they spoke of the farm they hope to buy, a nine-
acre place in the country near the studio, where New York and its wicked
allurement of frocks and frills will not be so distressingly near. Where
Dorothy can keep a red cow that gives a quart of milk at twenty cents per
each day, and where nice white chickens lay dollar a dozen eggs. It's the
life for Dorothy, according to her own confession.
One the way to my office Mrs. Gish walked back from the hotel with me.
She said Dorothy had seven more pictures to make for Paramount, and Lillian's
picture making with the other stars and Griffith players for United Artists
would not affect Dorothy, who remains with Adolph Zukor at least during the
term of her contract.
And in conversation with this wise little mother I learned the real
reason why Dorothy does not buy out the Fifth Avenue shops. Her mother
insists that the girls each save a part of their salaries.
"For," she said in explanation, "when they grown older their earning
capacity may grown less, and you know girls seldom think this can happen.
They believe their salary is a fixed income for life."
And I went back to my desk, thinking of all the good fortune fate had
put in the path of the Gishes, the best of all was the mother they had chosen
for themselves.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Juanita Hansen
May 2, 1920
Louella Parsons
NEW YORK TELEGRAPH
Juanita Hansen says she supposes she should have given her parents their
wish and been a brunette. She was named Juanita before she was born after
the song which had played a part in her parents' courting days. Juanita,
suggesting Spanish, Oriental and dark-eyed, was a misnomer so far as the
flaxen-haired Hansen baby was concerned. But then how could parents of
Swedish ancestry expect a child with Spanish characteristics.
"The name Hansen never seemed to belong to the Juanita," said the young
lady herself, "but I refused to change it for Imogene Winthrop or Gladys
Dewdrop, because I wanted to keep my own identity and I had a peculiar
feeling the loss of my name meant a metamorphis of my personality--and that's
one thing I prefer to keep always.
"And there," went on this young lady, "my name has brought me many
adventures. The other night a party of us went to see a burlesque show--"
"Sh-sh," put in Don Meaney, supervising director, manager and adviser of
Miss Hansen. "I don't believe I would mention going in a burlesque show."
"Why not?" demanded Miss Hansen, "I went, didn't I?"
Resuming the interrupted thread and quite undaunted by the thought
passed on to her that she should mention symphony concerts, the opera and
Shakespearean plays, but leave the word burlesque out of the conversation,
she proceeded.
"In the dressing room at the burlesque theatre was a woman of rather
superior bearing. I smiled unconsciously at her and she smiled back.
'Professional?' she asked me. I replied in the affirmative and then she
said, 'What is your name?' 'Juanita Hansen,' I answered.
"'Juanita,' she repeated. 'Juanita. I was an actress twenty years ago
and I made my greatest hit singing "Juanita."'
"She sang for me, and I have never heard a clearer, sweeter voice.
I was touched at her present plight and it made a deeper impression on me
than any sermon I ever heard. Here she was, old and unknown, and at one time
she had been the toast of the town. It made me do some thinking.
"And so after all the name may be a talisman," Miss Hansen said.
Miss Hansen, whose pet diversion, according to Don Meaney, is taming
lions, modified the lion statement somewhat. I expected it would be
modified. You see, I knew Don Meaney when he was inventing tales for Essanay
as director of publicity and advertising and, if I do say it, there were few
better on original ideas. In most cases he had the cooperation of his
subject but in the case of Juanita Hansen this reversal to its press agent
days was nipped promptly in the bud.
Apropos of lions and household pets, Don had a good one up his sleeve.
He told of Miss Hansen doing a regular Daniel in the lions' den scene, with
snarling, growling, ferocious beasts. An aeroplane passed the cage and
Juanita, the lion tamer, looked up and naively remarked.
"Isn't he brave. I don't see how he dares to do those stunts in
midair."
But, alas, the lady should have been rehearsed. Before Don finished she
said: "Why, I don't remember that."
Somehow one unconsciously associates Juanita Hansen with the Mack
Sennett girls. Mr. Sennett, like Flo Ziegfeld, always picks the good looking
ones and to say, "Oh she is a Sennett girl" is a recommendation such as being
listed in Bradstreet and Dun gives one in the financial world. It was during
these pie-throwing hectic days that the name Juanita Hansen first became
known in motion pictures. She had played in other pictures, but until she
was lined up with the Sennett bevy of loveliness she did not register with
such a bang.
And yet, despite all this remembrance of her Keystone days, it is
interesting to know she only made actually three pictures for the Sennett
company.
"I never could understand," she said, "why people continually refer to
me as a Keystone girl. I served a very brief period throwing pies. I did
not like comedy, and slap-stick comedy I loathed. I hated it so much I left
the Keystone company with only $200 to my name and no job in sight.
Mr. Sennett had always been so kind to me I made my getaway while he was out
of the city. I was afraid I would be overpersuaded by him, and I knew that
pie-throwing was not my forte."
Miss Hansen's desire for serious roles were answered in serials. She
played a few features, but her intrepid spirit, her absolute fearlessness in
riding, climbing and swimming made her the ideal serial type. Her greatest
success has been won in these continued next week films. She is now making a
serial for Pathe, which both Mr. Meaney and Pathe do not hesitate to say has
every thrill yet invented in the mind of men.
Curious enough, she is something of the type of Pearl White, whose
serial episodes and escapades have been household words. Like Pearl White,
she photographs exceptionally well. Not only do her moving pictures give
credit to her good looks, but her still pictures are exceptionally
attractive. She is one of the women who look as well in pictures as she does
off the screen.
"I have a chance to make five-reel features when my present contract
expires," said Miss Hansen, "but I love serials. You are sure of having your
pictures shown for eighteen weeks consecutively in the theatre where it is
booked, and if you have any claim for fame or for the affection of the public
I think you are more apt to win their affection by keeping in constant touch
with them."
But one thing Miss Hansen regrets about her present contract is the
necessity for her leaving the Coast.
"You see, I was born and brought up in California," she said. "All my
life I had a horse to ride, a garden and plenty of room to breathe. I feel
like a lost soul in this city where every one lives so close together and
there is no opportunity for real fresh air."
"New York cramps her style," put in Don Meaney, feeling he had been
neglected long enough.
"It's a wonderful city," she said. "I adore the shops; I love Fifth
avenue, and as for the theater I never had a chance to see so many plays at
one time."
"You do not come here often?"
"It's my first visit here," she admitted. "You see, I have always lived
in the West, and there was never any occasion for my coming East."
And then Don Meaney, who had been chafing at his bit for the last
fifteen minutes, proceeded to tell the things Miss Hansen mapped out to see
in the big city.
After her very simple admission of never having seen New York before one
feels decided admiration for her truth and simplicity. She makes no pretense
of being traveled, learned or wise. She is as she is. If you like her, she
is glad; if you don't, well that is your privilege. As for the chance to
make a big salary, it's like a fairy tale in her life. To have all she wants
to spend is as if she had stepped into some other girl's shoes.
It is said one finds this simplicity more in the West. If true, Juanita
Hansen is the very spirit of the West in her mannerisms, her hail fellow well
met attitude and her absence from affectation. She is not blase. She has
not burned the candle at both ends. Life holds much for her, and it isn't
going to be her fault if she doesn't get all that is coming to her.
She said frankly she came to New York alone.
"Why shouldn't I?" she asked. "I had Mr. and Mrs. Meaney, and I am not
afraid. I have taken care of myself alone ever since I was fourteen. I have
taken care of my mother, too. She has depended upon me, and if I had been a
coward what would have become of us? We would have been swallowed up, and I
would probably be clerking in a store or working in a factory."
So 'tis plain to be seen Miss Hansen has more in that small head of hers
than her light, fluffy hair, and she will manage to take care of herself.
Yes, we think she will without the slightest difficulty.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
[The following woman is not really an "actress", but she did appear in her
husband's documentary films, and the interview is interesting enough that it
is included here.]
Osa Johnson
March 23, 1919
Louella Parsons
NEW YORK TELEGRAPH
Tomorrow Mr. and Mrs. Martin Johnson put behind them for three long
years every comfort of civilization. They start on the first lap of a
journey which will take them into the depths of tropical forests, and into
the wilds of the South Sea Islands, where natives roam about in their
birthday clothes and choose as their special desert a compote made of man's
flesh.
A woman who has lived in a palm-thatched hut, away from the electric
lights, the pavements and the luxury of hot and cold showers, has had
adventures the rest of us in our civilized life have been denied. Mrs.
Johnson, therefore, appealed to me as a woman whom I should like to meet.
I had pictured her as reflecting some of the color of her South Sea Island
existence, and was surprised to see standing before me a fair-haired, slender
young woman who looked as if she has never been away from Broadway and its
alluring atmosphere.
The Johnson apartment was filled with trunks, bags and suitcases
containing, Mrs. Johnson told me, the most precious belongings of these two
wanderers, who were storing all of their best-loved treasures. There was no
suggestion of the South Sea Islands in this New Yorky apartment fitted out
with all the up-to-date necessities, with the exception of a chatter of
speaking birds, which floated from the dining-room into the living room, and
gave out the shrill sound of the far-away tropics.
There are three of the birds left out of the nine Mrs. Johnson brought
with her from the islands. One of them, a rare specimen of parrot, brilliant
in plumage and gorgeous in color. Two of them are white birds, pink-tinted
and noisier than the parrot. Such a commotion and chattering. They answered
in squeaky tones the voice of their mistress, showing almost uncanny
intelligence in recognizing her.
"Weren't you afraid," I asked Mrs. Johnson, "to live among those wild
bushmen on the islands?"
"I was frightened," she said, "of course, though I loved the free
outdoor life. I spent my time swimming, hunting and fishing; I lived in my
bathing suit or in silk pajamas; it is so hot you simply cannot dress. The
British Government begged Mr. Johnson not to risk his life, but ever since he
took a trip on the schooner Snark with Jack London he has longed to continue
his exploration and to get pictures of this 'great unfilmed' country."
The Johnsons have been married nine years, although Mrs. Johnson might
easily pass for a girl of eighteen. She and her husband have never been
separated for a day, and when he announced to her it was the ambition of his
life to film these savages of the South Sea Islands and put into motion
pictures the bushmen of the back country of the Malista, she insisted upon
facing all of the dangers with him.
"We were saved," Mrs. Johnson said, "by the timely arrival of a British
man-of-war, lying in a nearby harbor. The natives are terrified by the
machine guns. One time some of the sailors landed and were immediately
killed by the savages. The machine gun on the ship was turned on them and
they were mowed down like so many stalks of grain. Ever since that time they
have had a wholesome fear of the man-of-war, and we owe our deliverance and
our safety to its power."
An adventurous part of the Johnson journey will be a visit to old Chief
Nagapate, the cruel chieftain of the South Island, who finds the flesh of
human beings the most tempting dish obtainable for his dinner. The chief was
the hero in a film taken by Mr. Johnson, and upon his return he hopes to pay
his respects to this unwilling star by projecting this picture on a screen.
"This," said Mrs. Johnson, "will be the first picture ever shown on the
island, and if the picture does not frighten the life out of Nagapate, it
will at least make him treat us with more respect than he did on our last
visit."
Mr. and Mrs. Johnson will go alone on their expedition. They are
accustomed to the life on the islands and Mr. Johnson feels they can get
better results with the natives by approaching them alone. Aside from the
photographic equipment, containing special lenses for microscopic work,
special metals made to resist the heat of the tropics, long-distance lenses,
five different kinds of cameras and a complete developing and printing
apparatus, there will be gifts for the natives.
"We are taking gay beads, jumping jacks, tobacco, knives, hatchets,
bolts of calico, old hats, fancy dress costumes, and things which will appeal
to the simple souls of these untamed children of nature.
"Speaking of calico," said Mrs. Johnson, "they love it. They will
disappear and wrap themselves in yards of it, showing they have instinctive
modesty as well as a love of color. People have laughed at me when I say the
South Sea Islanders have more morals than the average white man. In all the
three years we spent with these people I never saw them do one thing out of
the way--they are cruel, but so far as their morals are concerned I might say
they are unblemished."
Mrs. Jack London visited the Johnsons in the Fall, and it is the
intention of Mrs. Johnson to return the visit when they get to San Francisco.
"You know Jack London was my husband's dearest friend," she said. "It
seems hard that the Londons had to be separated, they were so well mated and
so happy. Charmain and he were so congenial. She would rough it and live
close to nature the way he liked, forgetting the luxuries at home. The first
Mrs. London adored society and liked to have Mr. London appear every evening
in dinner clothes and live in the correct manner in which she was accustomed.
He hated all that sham, and they didn't get along well together."
Mr. Johnson, his wife explained, was a member of the original crew that
sailed from the Golden Gate harbor on the schooner Snark for the South Sea
Islands.
It is Mr. Johnson's intention to send his completed film to the traders
at Sydney, Australia, to deliver it to Robertson-Cole here in New York, so
all the time this intrepid pair are facing the fascinating experience of
perhaps being cooked for dinner, the world will be seeing their pictures.
One of their expeditions will take them among a class of people who
place a stone[...] substitute will have to do. They live on canned foods.
Don't you think, girls, all the things so dear to the feminine heart and
regarded as so altogether necessary, is a lot to give up for art and one's
husband?
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Alice Joyce
January 5, 1919
Louella Parsons
NEW YORK TELEGRAPH
Alice Joyce is shy. She is self-conscious, frightened to the point of
tears at crowds, dislikes to meet new people, and constantly bemoans the fact
that she lacks the necessary poise and savoir faire for attractive, well
balanced womanhood.
The above description is exactly what Miss Joyce thinks of herself, and
a very accurate analysis of the mental picture she carries of her own
importance. It is not the way the world measures her, nor the impression I
gained after a delightful two hours spent over the luncheon table with her.
In fact, the mental picture I carried away was the direct opposite from her
own frank declaration of her short-comings.
My meeting Alice Joyce was the climax of a long desired opportunity to
speak and to have a chance to converse with a young woman whose name I have
probably written some five hundred times in my life. Since those days in
1910 and 1911, when Kalem, as one of the foremost film producing companies,
and Alice Joyce as the star of one-reel dramas, were in the picture
ascendant, Miss Joyce has had a tremendous hold on the public. Even during
the days when she returned to give her undivided attention to her little
daughter, there were always requests for Alice Joyce stories and questions as
to when she would come back to the waiting public. Therefore when her
secretary called me on the phone, I felt Miss Joy
ce must have realized how
much I wanted to know her.
Our appointment was at the Claridge, and we were both on time. She was
nice enough to say this desire to have a chat was mutual. If Miss Joyce had
told me of her extreme shyness before we walked into the dining room I might
have believed her, but after seeing her queenly quiet unconsciousness of all
the stares and nods in her direction, I knew she was nothing she thought and
everything she didn't think; which, after all, is rather nice, especially
when one hasn't even a bowing acquaintance with the word conceit.
Miss Joyce acknowledges she owes a very great debt of gratitude to the
Kalem Company for taking her when she was a novice and for steering her
safely by all the camera pitfalls.
"In those days," she said, "I didn't even know I must not look into the
camera. I didn't know the first thing about picture acting, and I don't mind
telling you it took patience and perseverance to teach me what to do and what
not to do."
One does not have to have a key to the book on human-nature to get a
keen insight into the character of Alice Joyce. She breathes a veritable
atmosphere of real womanhood. One man said, in speaking of Miss Joyce, a
woman with eyes like hers could never be anything but sweet and kind. If the
eyes are the windows of the soul, Alice Joyce must have a Madonna-like
quality in her nature, for she has the most perfect Madonna eyes I have ever
seen. They are a replica of the painting of the Madonnas of every country.
One couldn't name any special picture, for her eyes are like them all, and
she instinctively gives one a feeling she is everything her eyes claim for
her.
It was while Miss Joyce was playing in Kalem pictures that she was wooed
and won by Tom Moore, one of the stalwart Moore boys. This romance, which
started out so auspiciously, was blasted by mutual consent. Ordinarily one
stays religiously away from the subject when there is a domestic breach, but
Miss Joyce herself introduced Mr. Moore into the conversation so easily and
so gracefully we felt no restraint in speaking of him.
"Mr. Moore deserves the great success he has made with the Goldwyn
Company, for he has brains and ability, and is one of the best juvenile
actors in the country today. I was so pleased to have one of the Goldwyn
executives tell me how well his pictures are going throughout the country,"
is the way she commented upon Tom Moore.
This was said with a ring of sincerity, too, for although Miss Joyce and
Mr. Moore are separated they are still good friends and have never reached
the point of stabbing each other with unprintable words for weapons.
I couldn't help thinking what Owen Moore had said to me at the Sixty
Club. Alice Joyce was there dancing and looking particularly lovely in a
pale yellow satin frock.
"Alice Joyce, in my opinion," said her one-time brother-in-law, "is the
most beautiful woman here tonight."
This was after the separation, and was said after Owen Moore had
commented several times on how much he liked Alice Joyce.
The brown tones in the smart street suit Miss Joyce wore harmonized most
amazingly with the dark brown of her eyes. I accused her of planning her
costume to match her eyes. She disclaimed all such intention, by declaring
colors were the bane of her existence.
"I never know what colors are becoming to me," she said. "I seem to
have no faculty for getting the right shades to wear. The one thing I have
admired, especially about Blanche Sweet is her judgment in knowing what
colors suit her, and planning all her frocks and hats with those certain
tones in mind."
We spoke of art and music and gossiped a little as two women who have
the screen at heart are bound to do. Alice Joyce makes no pretension of
being a high brow, but she has an innate liking for things fine and real.
To associate her with anything common and ordinary would be to depreciate the
value of a fine bit of statuary or to lower the worth of a choice engraving.
She is a woman who has a set standard for herself, and whatever obstacles lie
in her path she seems bent on following out her own idealism.
Usually women who give out this impression create the idea of painful
prudery and forced goodness. One cannot accuse Alice Joyce of trying to set
herself up on a pedestal. She does not criticize other people nor does she
loudly cry out her own virtues. She merely lives as she believes is right,
permitting the rest of the world to follow its own sweet will.
Only Alice Joyce is not shy, she is not self-conscious, and she does not
lack poise. These are the bugbears that worry her, but they are needless
causes for fear, for only to herself does Miss Joyce give out the impression
of being anything but extremely well poised and entirely able to meet folk
and cope with them in conversation, and match with them her own wit and
repartee.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Mae Marsh
April 15, 1923
Louella Parsons
NEW YORK TELEGRAPH
Mae Marsh, who returns to the Griffith fold in "The White Rose" after an
absence of six years, comes back in an unexpected fashion. The little sister
of "the Birth of a Nation," the pathetic little wife of "Intolerance," and
the sweet and heroine of numberless Griffith dramas, plays an up-to-date
"flapper."
"Instead of having the hero court me," said Mae, "I run after him,
decking myself in the garb of the up-to-date flapper and pursuing him
relentlessly. I had to study the psychology of the flapper, because she is a
rare avis to me. In the past I have played the ingenue variety--the girl who
wears a white dress and blue sash and who peers shyly upon the world through
a mass of tangled curls. In "The White Rose" my hair is bobbed and I forgo
all my former earmarks of girlish sweetness. I become a brazen overdressed
girl whose world is clothes."
Be this as it may, the "flapper" must have her moments of pathos,
because every one in the Griffith office who saw "The White Rose" shed
buckets of tears. "Jack" Lloyd, who says he has a stony heart that never
melts, cried all over his new monogrammed handkerchief.
"How did it seem to be working again for Mr. Griffith?" Mae was asked.
"Very strange," she replied. "I have had so many poor directors during
the six years' interval since I left him--it took me several weeks to get
used to his way of directing me.
"Do you know," she said earnestly, "I never realized how wonderful Mr.
Griffith is. Up to the time I left the Griffith company to go with Goldwyn I
had never worked for anyone else. I came to the old Biograph studios as a
child and I thought all directors were like Mr. Griffith, but I hadn't been
away from him very long before I knew why his pictures were better. There is
as much difference between Mr. Griffith and the average director as there is
between a genuine Corot painting and a badly executed imitation.
"In Florida," said Miss Marsh, "the people could not believe Mr.
Griffith was a real director. They had seen directors wearing knee breeches
and puttees, dressed in the height of fashion, going in swimming every day
and creating a great deal of attention, and here was a man whose first
thought was his picture. We worked like slaves and so did he. He didn't
have time for any nonsense. As for dressing the part--he always wears the
oldest clothes he owns when he is making a picture. His recreation was
dining with the McLeans on the Pioneer, the houseboat where President and
Mrs. Harding were guests and he had dinner with William Jennings Bryan
several times."
Miss Marsh herself dined with Mr. Bryan and visited the McLeans.
Now that she has finished her picture with Mr. Griffith she is
formulating new plans for making pictures. She says these plans are too
vague to be made public yet, but she knows what she wants to do and if she is
able to get the right story she will be ready in a month to tell her secrets.
Before she does anything she is going to her home in California with her
husband and daughter and take a rest.
One of Miss Marsh's most recent pictures is "Paddy the Next Best Thing."
This is based on a play that ran in London for three years with Peggy O'Neil
in the leading role.
Lee Arms, who is Miss Marsh's husband, says he doesn't wish to be
prejudiced, but he thinks it is about the best English-made film he has ever
seen and he says his wife does some work that reminds him of the old-time
Griffith pictures.
Meanwhile, every one is waiting to see "The White Rose." In addition to
Miss Marsh, Carol Dempster, Ivor Novello and Neil Hamilton, the Griffith
find, are in the cast. It is said every Griffith picture brings some
heretofore unknown player into notice and at the Griffith office they are
saying that Neil Hamilton is this discovery.
With Mae the day I had luncheon with her was her mother, Mrs. Marsh, who
has kept her figure and who has masses of red gold hair that made her look as
if she might be a sister, but never old enough to be the mother of Mae and
the grandmother of little Mary Marsh Arms. Mrs. Marsh, with two actresses in
the family and a son, who is considered one of the best cameramen in the
field, knows all about motion pictures, and she was particularly eager to
have Mae make a picture with Mr. Griffith. Marguerite Marsh is in vaudeville
doing, her mother says, very well and so happy she hasn't thought of
returning to the screen.
I asked Mae if Mr. Griffith found her any different from the girl he
trained in the ways of the screen.
"Some older," she said, "but just as eager to please him and get my
scenes the way he thought they should be played.
"The sad part," said Mae, "is after playing with him I am going to be
very hard to please in the matter of a director. He always knows exactly
what he wants--and some of the directors I have worked for have made it
necessary for me to go ahead and do most of picture myself."
"The interest Mr. Griffith keeps in his former players," Mae says, "is
one of the finest things about him.
"He talked of Mary Pickford, Lillian and Dorothy Gish and expressed
interest in their work and recalled the old days when they all worked in the
old Biograph studios.
"Days that were history-making because they were the beginning of better
motion pictures. Days when one-reelers were the fashion and big salaries
were unheard of.
"Most of us," said Mae, "leave when we get big salaries, but most of us
are willing to return for less money because we know the picture will be good
and that is something no one can promise with other directors. Mr. Griffith
has only made one poor picture."
And because I refuse to admit that picture was poor I am not going to
tell which one Mae considers beneath his art. Anyway, we all have a right to
our opinions.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Violet Mersereau
December 18, 1921
Louella Parsons
NEW YORK TELEGRAPH
Christmas in Rome is one thing to read about, but another thing to
experience. Violet Mersereau took all this into consideration when the
chance was given her to either stay in sunny Italy and Christmas with
strangers or hurry to the steamer homeward bound and reach New York in time
to hang up her stocking on U. S. soil. Being 100 per cent American, her
choice was easy. She arrived home last week full of adventures abroad, but
content with the land of her birth.
These adventures were mostly staged in a motion picture studio where
Miss Mersereau was playing the part of the fair-haired Christian girl in the
great spectacular film drama "Nero" J. Gordon Edwards is making for the Fox
Film Company. Accompanied by her mother and her sister Claire, Miss Violet
sailed for Italy last July and has been there ever since with the exception
of the few weeks she spent in Germany and Switzerland.
Over the luncheon table Miss Mersereau told of her experiences abroad,
many of them amusing, and all of them interesting.
"Making pictures in Rome," she said, "has some advantages and many
disadvantages. The climate is perfect, and the studios are fair, but none of
them have the perfect equipment that make our American studios such a joy.
"I might give as one of the greatest disadvantages my scenes with the
players who spoke only Italian or French. I was the only American in the
cast, and I found it somewhat disconcerting at times to have the director
tell me to look tenderly at the leading man while I listened to his earnest
protestations of love--disconcerting, I mean, when he would pour a perfect
volley of Italian at me. I could not understand a word he was trying to say,
and when I answered his passionate declarations in English he looked just as
mystified. I felt sorry for him. He seemed to think I was discussing
everything but my film affection.
"I think I was a little disappointed in the Italian men," confessed Miss
Violet. "I had thought all Romans must be tall and handsome and like greek
Gods. I found the Italian men small, very timid and not at all like I had
pictured them. Their spaghetti eating amazed me, and after seeing yards of
this food crammed down their mouths I decided I never wanted to see or eat it
again."
"Tell about the lions," prompted Sister Claire, who had joined us at the
luncheon.
"The Italian climate is so balmy it affects even the beasts," went on
Miss Violet. "The lions engaged to devour the Christians were so weary and
so bored Mr. Edwards said it would be easier to pet them than to fear them.
When my mother saw how harmless these gorgeous beasts of the jungle appeared
she heaved a great sigh of relief, for she had expected to see me eaten alive
before her very eyes. Just when we were all feeling the cruelty of the beast
of the jungle had been greatly exaggerated Mr. Edwards said we will go to
Germany and get some real lions."
"Oh, those terrible, terrible beasts," interrupted Claire.
Yes, they were terrible, shivered Violet. "The leading man took one
look at the jowls of the lion which was supposed to feed on him and he said,
'you must get a substitute.'
"Mr. Edwards," went on Miss Mersereau, "was very much upset. He had
brought all this company to Cologne just to get the lions, and here was the
leading man ready to leave us.
"You won't desert me, will you, Violet?"
"I told him no and laid me down to die. The leading man seeing me about
to be put into the jaws of the lions thought he could do no more than die
with me. We laid down and the lion saw us and made one dash. For the
rehearsal we were separated from his majesty by a thin piece of glass. He
broke the glass and made a dive for his victims. I was so terrified I took
to my heels and ran out of the picture. There was a trainer near by with a
gun, but the sight of that great beast licking his chops was enough to
frighten any one. But we returned to the scene and let the camera catch us
with the lions about to devour us. I was so glad when it was over I wanted
to cry for joy."
Miss Mersereau had one regret. She longed to go to Paris and shop on
the Rue de Paix.
"I needed clothes so badly," she said.
"That frock is charming," I told her.
"Oh, this is a Parisian product," she said, pointing to her gray velvet
frock, with its had and boots to match. "A purchase made in Italy but
imported to Rome.
"We enjoyed Switzerland and Germany, but we felt we missed a great deal
by not getting to Paris and London. I have not been in France since I was a
little girl, and there is so much I want to see--not only the shops, but the
galleries and the places of historical interest."
"But you enjoyed Italy?" I asked her.
"I enjoyed most of all working for Mr. Edwards. It was one of my
happiest engagements. He doesn't rehearse you until you are ready to faint
from fatigue. He gives you credit for a little intelligence, and after
explaining the scene and the mechanics gives you an opportunity to play the
situation in your own way. I firmly believe," went on Miss Violet, "first
emotions are best, and by that token I can act a scene better when I do it as
it comes to me first."
"He let you do it your way," Miss Violet was told "because he knows you
have had experience on the stage and screen and could interpret the scenes
without a primer of instruction."
"I suppose there is something to that," replied Miss Mersereau.
"I have been on the stage since I was eight and in pictures since I was
twelve. One would have to be very stupid not to learn something of the
technique of the drama in that length of time."
"Do you think you will return to Italy?"
"Violet had several offers to make pictures for Italian companies,"
answered her sister, "but she wanted to get home."
"Yes, and this ought to be our very happiest Christmas," said Violet.
"Mr. Edwards said he could use me in other foreign pictures and I suppose I
might have waited until he was ready for me, but I longed to hang my stocking
up in New York, all I could think of was getting home by December 25."
Miss Mersereau can go to Italy any time she chooses if one is to believe
what one hears. The swarthy Latin race admired her golden hair, violet eyes
and fair complexion. To them she was the personification of all that is
young and beautiful, and the artistic Italians love beauty and worship it
above everything else. But we are glad she decided to come home for
Christmas because we agree with her the best place to greet the mistletoe and
holly season is right in the U. S. A.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Alma Rubens
December 14, 1919
Louella Parsons
NEW YORK TELEGRAPH
Locating a face you have only seen on the screen is not as simple as it
sounds. Alma Rubens in her street clothes is not like Alma Rubens in peasant
costume or Alma Rubens in a white frock and sash. Unconsciously the girl I
had mentally mirrored in my mind fitted in with this latter classification,
hence we passed each other by without a sign of recognition.
We were both fifteen minutes late, a feminine failing this time of the
year, with Christmas shopping to be finished in odd moments. She looked
frantically in every nook and cranny in the Commodore mezzanine and I did the
same. After we had passed each other about twenty times I decided the only
solution was to have her paged. The same idea must have come to her at
exactly the same moment for our two names were shouted through the hotel
corridors simultaneously.
And we met, introduced by a page boy.
After Miss Rubens removed her heavy fur coat with its huge collar
shading her face I wondered I had not instantly recognized her. Off the
screen there is, of course, that same Oriental type of beauty, dusky eyes and
dark straight hair. Her coloring the screen fails to get.
Alma Rubens is one of the girls whom David Griffith chose for a picture,
and by his selection gave her an entree into motion pictures. Mr. Griffith's
choice of film material is always distinctive and every girl whom he casts in
a picture is given opportunities to make good. Some of these young women
have justified the Griffith confidence in their beauty and talent, others
have not lived up to his diagnosis.
Alma Rubens in herself has justified the Griffith selection, but her
vehicles have not always been so fortunate. The shortcomings of the Rubens
pictures have in the past been not in any fault of acting but frequently in
the story, its structure and its theme.
Those days of anguish now Miss Rubens believes are in the past. She is
to have congenial stories and no plays which are distasteful. Her first,
"Humoresque," is a Fanny Hurst story picturing a girl whom Miss Rubens says
she knows and understands. International, for whom she is to make the
Cosmopolitan brand of pictures, believes in an actress's own intuition where
film plays are concerned, and Miss Rubens is banking on this privilege of
exerting her intuition to the utmost.
"It's pleasant to be allowed to have a word in the selection of the
plays I am to interpret. But I have been so frightened at the
'temperamental' reputation I have in the industry I let this suggestion come
from International. I have been called the most difficult actress in
pictures, when all I ask or have ever asked is to have stories suited to me.
That isn't much to demand, now is it?"
Temperament is the most used and misused word in the dictionary.
It covers a multitude of other sins and frequently is used where it does not
belong. Therefore, when Miss Rubens first said she had been accused of being
temperamental I felt her own interpretation was needed. Some actresses feel
it is a personal slight if you fail to agree with the world and do not call
them temperamental, while to others it is the nastiest word in the lexicon of
characteristics.
To the latter class belongs Alma Rubens, and her genuine anxiety at
clearing herself of this stigma would have been amusing had she been less in
earnest.
She has had a year of changes. Since leaving Triangle, the company with
whom she has spent the most of her motion picture career, she has had several
contracts, but they were of brief duration, caused, she said, by a multitude
of reasons.
Miss Rubens is a convent-bred girl, having graduated from the Mesdames
of the Sacred Heart in San Francisco, and she admits her fondness for
children and for lending a helping hand was instilled in her by the gentle
sisters who taught her to not only preach but practice charity.
"Those lessons cling to me," she said, "despite the disillusionments of
the world outside a convent wall. For instance, I spend $100 a week sending
photographs to the fans. I don't mind the money and I am glad to send my
picture to any one who is sincere in wanting it--but I wish some one could
have that money who needs it. I wonder if I couldn't sell my pictures
through some orphanage and let this institution have the revenue?
"Will you help me find such a place?" she asked.
Miss Rubens's idea may be a brilliant gem. If all the stars sold their
pictures in this way what a harvest these homes would make. And most of the
people who write could afford 25 cents. They spend many times that in
postage and stationary telling the world how much they love Mary Pickford or
why Charlie Chaplin's feet are the funniest in captivity.
The rest of our conversation was a discussion of this and those who
compose the letter-writing world. We decided these folk who send letters to
actresses are in a class by themselves and have a hobby just the same as any
postage stamp collector.
Being discovered by David Griffith and remaining on the screen in spite
of an army of discouragements isn't sufficient for Miss Rubens. She has the
stage hankering in an exaggerated form and it is our experience when a young
woman of Alma Rubens's comeliness wants a thing bad enough she gets it. She
admitted she had been given a play by a stage producer to read and if she
liked it and he liked her in the part she might spread her wings stageward.
"But I want to do a serious part. As much as I wish to go on the stage
I will not accept a play or a part until I know I can do the sort of thing I
am best fitted to play. I couldn't play light comedy. I would be a dismal
failure, and as for bedroom farces I would get my notice at the end of the
first week."
We shall see what we shall see when Miss Alma does take that stage
plunge, meanwhile she is enthusiastic over an opportunity to put Fanny Hurst
on the screen or perhaps we should say over Fanny Hurst's opportunity to put
her in pictures. It seems a mutual delight, and when two women of brains set
their mind to the accomplishment of a deed no more need be said, especially
when they have International back of them.
And next time we meet Miss Rubens promises to know me and I am sure
unless she wears a mask I shall know her. No one could miss her eyes. They
are a combination of what Tennyson could have beautifully described and of
what the twentieth century scribe would call a "come hither look."
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Gloria Swanson
April 16, 1922
Louella Parsons
NEW YORK TELEGRAPH
If any one pictures Gloria Swanson as a blase young woman, bored with
everything life has to offer, he has only to hear her on the subject of going
to Europe. She is as pleased as a youngster at his first circus, and as
thrilled as any girl in the world would be at an opportunity of getting her
first glimpse of Paris.
I had not expected to see Gloria this trip. She was only in town from
Wednesday until Saturday, but an unexpected meeting at the Famous Players-
Lasky offices presented a chance to talk to her, and hear something of her
plans for Europe.
"The one sad thing," Gloria confessed, "is leaving the baby for two
months. Mr. Somborn has her with her nurse at his hotel. I thought it was a
fair thing to do, but when I think how she will grow and how she will forget
me in that time, I have a feeling I may be homesick.
"We better not talk about that," she said. "I suppose all mothers feel
that way. She is such a gorgeous baby, so pretty and so responsive."
"Where are you going and what are your plans?" an interruption that
brought the proud mother of the most beautiful baby in the world back to the
subject at hand.
"Seven days in Paris, four in London, two in Monte Carlo, two in Naples,
one day in Florence and Venice, and four days in Berlin," answered Miss
Swanson. "You see," she laughed, "I have our itinerary all down to a system.
It's my very first visit to Europe and I do not want to miss a single thing.
I am so thrilled I can hardly sleep at night.
"I shall probably travel around with a Baedecker in one hand and a
sandwich in the other because I want to see Versailles, Malmaison,
Westminster Abbey, the Louvre, the London Tower and all those historical
places of interest I have read so much about, and I shall try to get in the
races at London and the Grand Prix at Paris, and of course the Casino at
Monte Carlo."
Shopping will be part of the program. Miss Swanson sailed yesterday
morning on the Homeric with Mrs. Frank Urson, wife of Marshall Neilan's
assistant director, and the two girls were planning where to shop in Paris,
and how many Paris frocks they would bring home.
"One person tells me to shop one place and another says, 'Oh, I wouldn't
go there, you will not find any exclusive styles,' so I have decided," said
Gloria, "to select my own shop, and do a little reconnoitering on my own
hook."
"You would," I said, and we both laughed. Gloria, the ambitious
youngster who used to park her belongings outside my office door at the
Essanay Film offices, when she was trying her wings in motion pictures for
the first time, is not very different from the star of today. The young
woman with everything at her feet. She is a little sadder, a little older,
and has, of course, acquired more dignity and poise. But there is the same
eagerness to learn and the same ambition to get to the tip top, and to leave
no stone unturned to make her dreams come true.
"I like New York," she said, looking out of the window down the crowded
Fifth Avenue street. "I like all the busy people, and all the signs of
energy and life. I get tired of California. There isn't much out there but
work and home, no theatres and no scenes of activity like that. Of course I
suppose if I lived here I should feel I have the two big things, my work and
my child--that is all any one can ask for. We all have our disappointments,
and mine are no more bitter than other peoples, only things do not always
turn out as one expects."
"But you have been very lucky?"
"In some ways," she answered.
Miss Swanson said all the girls who met her asked about Rudolph
Valentino.
"He played opposite me in my last picture, 'The Gilded Cage' [Beyond the
Rocks], and if these questions concerning him are any criterion or indication
of his popularity, they will all rush to see him when the picture is
released. They asked me how he makes love and a few more equally interesting
questions. I suppose 'The Sheik' had something to do with this interest."
Gloria looked very well in a mink coat, a grey frock with hat and shoes
to match, and some curious amber earrings and necklace. She always has the
air of being perfectly groomed, and only in the Cecil De Mille pictures does
she affect bizarre costumes and unusual hair dressing. She is and always was
one of the best dressed women off the screen, which is saying something.
Many a star might qualify for that distinction on the screen but not many in
their regular street garb.
As Gloria rushed to join her friends I could not help thinking Paris
would not have anything on the Rue de la Paix any better gowned or smarter
than Gloria.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Blanche Sweet
December 29, 1918
Louella Parsons
NEW YORK TELEGRAPH
Just now Blanche Sweet is facing a very interesting moment in her career
as a motion picture star. After having deliberately stepped out of the
public eye, where she was reigning as one of the most popular stars in motion
pictures, into private life, Miss Sweet is about to return to her former
pedestal and take back her place in the affection of the public.
How will she be received? Will the historical fickleness of the
American audiences manifest itself, or will the love they have had for
Blanche Sweet through all the years of her reign still predominate? Ah! here
is a psychological question worth studying for future use? This was the
thought I had in my mind when I went to the Knickerbocker Hotel to have
luncheon with Miss Sweet. I had talked with her over the phone, but I had
not had a glimpse of her for some months.
After she greeted me and we walked into the dining room and were seated,
I wondered how I could have ever given the fickleness of the public a
thought. A dozen heads were turned in our direction, and full the same
number of voices whispered in accents of interest: "Blanche Sweet."
Blanche Sweet, to be sure, is as pretty a blonde and as well poised and
charming as ever. Looking better than she looked in the days when the
exhibitors fell all over each other to book her pictures, when she and Cecil
De Mille were a combination of acknowledged strength.
Another argument that Blanche Sweet still retains her hold on the
affections of the motion picture audiences is the number of letters she has
received since she made her last picture two years ago. We who snoop into
the private affairs of these film stars have also been deluged with questions
as to when and where Blanche Sweet would play a return engagements.
She had made her two pictures, "The Hushed Hour" and "The Unpardonable
Sin," and will be seen in both of these in Los Angeles in January. Just when
they will be released outside of the motion picture city depends, we suppose,
upon how they are distributed and by whom.
To return to our luncheon. Miss Sweet was leaving that very night for
the Coast. She was going to speed across the country to get back West in
time to eat Christmas turkey. We talked of the shortage of good material,
and the great difficulty that every star experiences in getting the right
sort of scenarios.
"The novelists and playwrights have boosted the price of every popular
book and play so high, one has to hesitate before one can even consider
buying them. I am too good a business woman," said Miss Sweet, "to pay
$40,000 for a play without having given what the cost of production will be
some consideration. Forty thousand dollars without anything but the scenario
is a lot of money."
We agree that $40,000 was so much we never expected to see that amount
either in cash or on a check. We hoped we would never be tempted with that
amount, for the scales which old dame Justice spends her life trying to
balance would have a terrific jolt.
"I am confident," went on Miss Sweet, "that the story is the thing, but
it is going to be a problem to get it. For instance, I thought Miss
Pickford's purchase of 'Daddy Long-Legs' and 'Pollyanna' was a wise stroke of
showmanship. She had the good sense to see that no star is big enough to
carry a picture alone."
We chatted about the Coast and the stars, all of whom are working there.
We gossiped a bit, though Blanche Sweet never seems to really gossip, for she
never has anything but cheerful, pleasant things to day of her fellow
workers. This trait in Miss Sweet is one of the things which attracted me
toward her when I first met her a few years ago. She seems to have the happy
faculty of always seeing things through rose colored glasses, of finding some
gold among the dross.
She spoke of the artistry of Charlie Chaplin, and how remarkable she
thought it was that he had never yet recorded a failure in any of his
productions. We spoke, of course, of Charlie's marriage, and Miss Sweet said
when Mr. Chaplin did announce it they all refused to believe him.
"We thought it was one of Charlie's pranks," she said.
While we were having luncheon the discussion of proper publicity came up
and Miss Sweet expressed her strong disapproval of the way the average
picture is put on the market.
"It annoys me," she said, "to have them advertise in big letters that my
picture is the greatest one ever made. Besides being in bad taste it strikes
me as a mistake for any company to make such a statement. I was speechless
when I read that I was supposed to say all of those complimentary things
about 'The Unpardonable Sin.' Why, I have had the most wonderful cooperation
from the entire company, including the cast, the director, the cameraman,
every one who had a part in making my picture, and they haven't even been
mentioned."
"But you do think 'The Unpardonable Sin' is a good picture, don't you?"
"I think it is wonderful. It is Marshall Neilan at his best, and I feel
I have never done better work--but see here," she said, looking at me
suspiciously, "you aren't going to publish that?--I am telling you because we
are friends."
I am going back on Miss Sweet, however, and I am publishing it, because
I believe it is a good thing for her admirers to know she really believes in
the picture and feels she has a worthy vehicle to come back to her friends.
As for advertising the fact she likes the picture, even that doesn't
seem as flagrant a breach of good taste as she says, for if the world didn't
have a chance to read of the merits of the picture, the exhibitors, the
audiences and even the other manufacturers might never know all of these
things about the production.
Blanche Sweet is blessed with the rare combination of having an artistic
mind and an excellent business judgment. I remember her telling me one time
she had never yet made an error in her bank account. She said she knew to a
penny just how much she had in her account and how much she spent.
"In fact," she said, laughing, "I should have been a bookkeeper.
Sometimes I think my brain was meant for bookkeeping and my soul for
pictures."
All of this greatly impressed me, for my mathematics is so wabbly, when
the little girl who lives at our house comes to me for help, I immediately
seek some way to escape. I have to trust my bank implicitly, for if they
told me I didn't have a penny left I should probably take their word for it,
and you can readily see what a dishonest bank could do to such an
unmathematical person.
P. S.--I hope my banker doesn't read this.
I left Miss Sweet hurrying to keep a business engagement before she set
sail on the Golden Limited. The last glimpse I had of her she was waving her
hand smilingly, and again I said to myself:
"Yes, Blanche Sweet will come back, and the dear public will forget for
once to be disagreeable and fickle, for she has a charm about her, an elusive
something that two years' absence will not make you or me forget."
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Alice Terry
February 18, 1923
Louella Parsons
NEW YORK TELEGRAPH
Wherever Alice Terry dined, wherever she lunched or spent the evening
she was received with the open-eyed admiration of our Manhattan, who, like
Paris, can forgive a woman anything but ugliness. But Manhattan, in addition
to loathing plainness in women, strikes such a high average of feminine
beauty a woman has to be a combination of Helen of Troy and Cleopatra to get
more than the flicker of an eyelash.
So when every man in the Knickerbocker grill gazed with admiring eyes on
Alice Terry I realized, if I needed anything further to convince me, that the
wife of Rex Ingram is a very beautiful woman. But it was not this beauty
that gave her a chance to play the leading feminine role in "The Four
Horsemen of the Apocalypse." It was Rex Ingram's confidence in her ability.
He had known her for some years when he brought her the offer to play
Margaret in Ibanez's story.
"I cannot do it," she told him.
"Don't you like the part?" he asked.
"I love it, but I haven't had sufficient experience to play in a picture
of the importance of 'The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse'."
And after Mr. Ingram had persuaded her to let him cast her, she worried
for fear she might spoil the picture for him.
The slim, blonde girl, who, with Rodolph Valentino, came in for world-
wide praise, was made in that picture. Rex Ingram was right: the role was
meant for her. Because Ibanez described Margaret as a blonde, Mr. Ingram,
eager to follow the book as far as possible, insisted that Miss Terry cover
her auburn locks and become a blonde. The effect was marvelous, so marvelous
that she has never made a picture without the wig.
People meeting her for the first time take one look at her auburn hair
and look surprised.
"Miss Terry!" they repeat, and, if they are impulsive and given to
talking too much, they will say: "But your hair!"
The complications, she says, of being a blonde on the screen and a
brunette on the street are many, but now that her public is used to seeing
her look like Margaret she has no intention of disappointing them.
Just before Miss Terry went to the Coast she was called upon to make a
momentous decision--whether to sign a contract with Metro and remain a Rex
Ingram star or to go with another company where she would have to paddle her
own canoe.
"Mr. Loew is such a good boss," she said, "and I love working with my
husband, but sometimes I feel it would be better for us both. Rex feels he
must not play me up too much in any of his pictures, because people will say
that he pushed his wife forward, and I would like to see what I can do
without help.
"Of course," said Miss Terry earnestly, "if Rex had any objection to my
leaving Metro I wouldn't consider the other offer. But he is perfectly
willing to have me do what I want in the matter. I haven't reached any
decision yet, but the company that made me the offer is one of the largest
ones in the business. Naturally Rex would not permit me to talk business
with any other kind."
If Miss Terry does sign the other contract she will make "Scaramouche"
for Metro first. She says she loves the story and she is eager to play the
woman's part. While she was in New York she had an offer to play
"Scaramouche" on the stage with Sidney Blackmar.
"Why didn't you accept the offer?" she was asked.
"I should have died of fright. I know I could never go on the stage,"
she said. "I was cast for a part in a tableau on the stage in California,
and if I had had anything to say I would have passed away then and there."
The Ingrams returned to the Coast a week ago. Mrs. Ingram was not very
eager to get back to sunny California. In New York she managed to get in the
theatres, some parties and a good time.
"In California," she said, "we never go anywhere. Rex studies all the
time. He no more than finishes one picture than he starts planning sets and
reading books for his next. I do not care to go without him, so we stay home
on an average of seven nights a week. I like to stay at home, of course, but
I do enjoy going out once in a while." So you see being the wife of a great
director has its drawbacks.
A sentiment that is honest and natural you will admit when it comes from
a young woman not yet 23, who has been given more than her share of good
looks and charm.
But life for Alice Terry is not all dancing, attending the theatre and
buying gowns. She is genuinely interested in her husband's work and watches
with eager eyes every picture he creates. "However, Rex and I do not always
agree on his picture," she said, laughing. "His favorite is 'Trifling Women'
and mine is 'The Conquering Power.'"
We are usually neutral in all matters that concern a husband and wife,
but in this case we agree with Miss Terry. We like "Trifling Women" the
least of anything Rex Ingram has ever made, and so we told her as we parted
on the corner of Forty-Second Street and Broadway.
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For more information about Taylor, see
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