Photoplay (Jan - Jun 1931)

GONEAnother I ngenue By M tri a })i Hughes A YEAR ago a meek little blonde ingenue with a baby voice and a baby face went on a vaudeville tour. Dozens like her had done it. Dozens had failed before the microphone and had made this final, and always fatal, step. Well, Esther Ralston was through, you said sagely, and that was that. But when you said this you did not take into consideration one George Webb, husband of the baby blonde. Perhaps you mentioned Webb. Perhaps you remarked, along with the rest, that had it not been for him Esther would have made Paramount give her a new contract. It was too bad, you thought, that she so utterly worshipped the cocky e\ vaudevillian who had dominated her life and managed her career. That guy Webb sticks his nose in everything. Would be a lot better if he let Esther alone. Esther's all right. Hut Esther wasn't all right and George knew it. So, one of the shrewdest business men of them all out-smarted the picture business and returned to Hollywood with a new and vivid star, named Esther Ralston! Here's the story. A year ago Esther was the victim of old inferiority complex number 877-A. Timid, retiring, she yet followed the accepted path of the average blonde star. Living, as she did, well and luxuriously, she still complained of the hardships of picture work, grumbled when she was called on the set before they were ready to do her scenes, insisted that she have a standin girl to endure the heat of the lights while the camera men were lining up, and demanded special luncheons for herself on location. These things were done and Esther, who had in those days about as much aggressiveness as a sun turtle, did them all. Then came the crash. A year before her five-year contract had expired Paramount wanted to release her. But Webb made them stick to the clauses of the document. And during that year, when she was definitely slated to go, his mind fairly seethed with plans for her. He knew her to be a sweet, mild little thing. He knew, also that her voice was inadequate. But old Doc Webb had the panacea for both these ills. Vaudeville! For three months she worked and at last had an act consisting of four strenuous dance numbers, which, as Webb said later, were just enough to make the audience think she knew more than she did. Forty-two hard labor turn Esther a pungent and a sure N Esther Ralston today — no longer the meek but synthetically imperious ingenue, but a poised and confident woman who gets what she wants when she wants it Webb had seen the average movie star-act in vaudeville. The star greets her public in a high piping voice, sings an <>1d song badly and retires. Esther, he felt, must forget pictures and become a vaudevillian. She must lead the life, the strenuous, nerve-wracking life. She did. In Los Angeles she was Dot so forte, for stage fright had claimed her for its own. only an i ly timid per son knows what manner of courage it took for her to step before an audience alone and do an act which she believed she did not do well. Had it not been for George standing in the wings she could never have done it. Every performance was a new conquest. Every audience had to be won singly. Those tough vaudeville customers had been kidded by film stars before. They wanted to not a beautiful woman, but a good performer. It was up to Esther to give it to them. She played for forty-two consecutive weeks. In miserable tank towns, in theaters whose dressing rooms were not big enough to hold both her and her trunk. Twenty minutes after the last performance there was always a train to be caught. Meals in fifth-rate restaurants between shows. Sometimes five shows a dav — never less than three. Every day and Sunday, too. Work. Work. Work. [ please tvrn to page 108 ] weeks of in vaudeville Ralston into personality -footed star