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She had been De Wolf Hopper's leading lady. While I was playing in stock she lent me some of her clothes.
After the fourth week I asked Louise's mother, who had seen all four plays, which part I'd played best.
"That Indian woman in Girl of the Golden West," she said.
"But I only got to say 'Ugh!' in that."
"That's why I liked it best," she said.
With that doubtful encouragement, I advanced on Mr. Selwyn and he gave me the leading part. To this day I can't help admiring his reckless courage.
Helen Hayes thought he had courage, too, when he asked her to come to Hollywood and make The Sin of Madelon Claudet. The mechanics of picture-making made her so nervous she wanted to scream. Not being able to touch her face when it was made up annoyed her. At noon, instead of eating, she'd get a second makeup; grease paint in place of vitamins.
The film was finished and previewed. Helen saw it and congealed inside. She begged the studio to sell it to her so she could destroy it. Metro wouldn't sell. Helen wouldn't speak to Edgar Selwyn.
The picture got her an Academy Award.
She didn't see Selwyn for years. One night as he sat in a New York theater waiting for the curtain to rise on a new play, Helen came down the aisle.
Spotting Edgar as she passed, she leaned over, patted him on the shoulder, and whispered, "Thanks, genius."
We toured the country with The Country Boy, winding up at Christmas time in Minneapolis, Minnesota, with the temperature at 42 below. Audiences are always slim around the holidays, and ours were even slimmer due to the weather. Those who did come to see us seemed to sense that we needed encouragement and were awfully good to us.
Half a dozen of them had a party at the hotel after the Christmas night performance and asked us to come. We did, and it was quite gay; there was something touching about souvenirs of paper parasols and paper hats, with the weather outside far below zero.
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