Motion Picture Magazine (Aug 1928-Jan 1929)

^ and Gro oung Kathleen Clifford Does — And She's as Fresh as the Dewiest Flowers in Any of Her Own Six Shops I By Oscar Dunning AM so pleased to have met you, Miss Clifford," I said, with an unwonted ring of genuineness in the words. "Are you really?" said Kathleen Clifford. It was the second tim in a week I had pra cally swooned away Metro-Goldwyn-Ma) studio after too sudde exposure to that rare symptom, a human-being complex in a star. The first time was when the beautiful Mrs. King Vidor had come up to me out of a clear sky, held out her hand, and • said: "My name's Boardman." The editorial side of me takes this opportunity to view with alarm such remarks, striking as they do at the finest old aristocratic traditions of .Hollywood. What can Mr. Metro and Mrs. Goldwyn be thinking of to allow a spirit like that to get around their Culver City joint? I mean, come now. 'Are you really?" The question is asked in equally surprised tones by all and sundry who visit the "Excess Baggage" set and are informed in a piping treble by a slip of a blonde that they are confronting the original Kathleen Clifford. And their minds work like much lightning . . . why, let me see . . . can it be ten years ago I saw her in serials . . . come to think of it, how many years before that was it she was playing the London music-halls . . . well, Aunty Grace died in '10, and she used to say . . . well, now, isn't that the darnedest thing? You stand gaping before a fresh-looking young creature in pink-check rompers, her blonde curls tied with a big white bow. That is her costume in backstage sequences of "Excess Baggage." She looks — in the middle twenties with make-up hiding the clearness of her complexion ; hardly out of the 'teens when you meet her on the street. That is all except for her eyes, which have lived in Hollywood and watched the tragicomic changing scene of the movies just 50 long enough to have acquired a suspicion of a cynical glaze. She Is Young Inside Che is only to be described as "cute." It is not the forced skittishness of those conscious of approaching middle-age that is hers. She effervesces like a bottle of genuine Pol Roger. There are springs of youth and irresponsibility deep down in her which she could not check, even if she would. Her favorite expression, evidently, is "this, that and the other." Her conversation is embroidered with up-to-the-minute slang which she pronounces as if she meant it. Her voice is alert and melodious. "Speaking from your experience," I asked her, "would you prescribe a career in the movies for incipient crow's-feet, double chin, dizzy spells after lunch and other symptoms of Father Time's inroads?" "Absolutely," she gurgled, "Positively, and how, and so forth. Now the theater, mind you, in which I spent my early days, is the most aging thing in the world. You're up half the night, rehearsing all day, traveling from place to place, without rest or peace. If you strike a success, you may get a few months' continuous work. Most of the time you're sick worrying about a new job. "But the movies are different. Once you get started in Hollywood there couldn't be a profession more calculated to ward off the ravages of time. You have your own home, you have regular hours, you get to bed— at least, you can if you want to — at a reason ablestime. Nowadays most of the successful people are on contract and haven't even got ifoufse t0 worry about their job. God knows they Photos haven't anything else to worry about. Act v ing for the movies probably requires less mental and physical effort than anything in the world. You stand up in front of the camera, the director tells you what to do {Continued on page 88)