The Photo-Play Journal (Jul 1919-Feb 1921)

February , 192 1 For You and For Me By OLGA PETROVA M Y DEAR friends: It seemes to me . that, in returning to conduct "FOR YOU and FOR ME" after a period of absence, I should take advantage of the fad that this issue is the first issue of the year by wishing you all the realization of your heart's desire during the year that is to come. May the rough places be made smooth and may the torch of steady determination light you safely through the pitfalls that may beset your path. May your vision be clear and your spirit strong. May each day mark one step forward in achievement, that beacon light upon which all our eyes are fixed. To those I know and to those I do not yet know; to my. friends of the past and to my friends of the future I wish you all the blessings of the New Year. Olga Petrova Dear Miss Petrova: Some time ago I wrote to Miss A, Miss B, Miss C and Miss D, telling them that I was collecting photographs and that I wanted to add theirs to my collection. Miss A and Miss B didn't take the trouble to reply at all. Miss C wrote and said she hadn't any and Miss D sent me a miserable little ten-cent affair, that I didn't trouble to keep. It seems to me that when one takes enough interest in players to ask them for their pictures that the least they can do is to reply and send a decent portrait of themselves. Stars seem to forget that if they don't please the public they won't stay stars very long. By the way, I haven't a picture of you. Please send me one. I should prefer one without a hat and with the eyes looking straight at me. I hope you will notice what I said about the other stars and send me the' picture. If you do I'll think you are as good as I have always thought you. MAY WINSLOW, Kansas City. My dear Miss Winslow: Possibly you will never see this answer to your letter for you wrote to me some time after I had discontinued "FOR YOU and FOR ME." ■ Your letter interests me for several reasons. In the first place, you omitted your address from your writing paper so that, even had I been inclined to send you a photograph of myself, without a hat and looking straight at you, your own carelessness would have rendered it impossible for me to do so. It is more than likely that you were similarly careless in the case of Miss A and Miss B. (You will see that I have carefully hidden the names of the ladies that have so misused you.) In the second place I am interested in the fact that you show so little gratitude for the picture that Miss D did send you. This should prove a valuable lesson for other stars. illinium i iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiniiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii i {Any questions of general interest ivill be welcomed by Madame Petrova and of these three or four ivill be selected and printed each month. Letters should not be more than three hundred ivords in length and should avoid matters of a personal nature. — The Editor.) IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIUIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII) In the third place you remind me very forcibly that tact is becoming more and more a lost art, for it seems to me that to intimate that the only claim an artist has upon your interest is, that he may be permitted to contribute to an indiscriminate collection of photographs recruited for no other reason than that "As you had Mary Jones' picture you may as well have Lizzie Smith's" is about as tactless a proceeding as I can well imagine. These stars I think are much more distinguished by their absence than by their presence in your gallery. In the fourth place if your opinion of the merits of a player is to depend on the price or size of the photograph that he sends you free I think that the sooner he drops from so unsteady a place in your regard the better. As for myself, as I have said, your address was not given so that willingly or unwillingly as the case may be I shall not have the privilege of "being collected" on this occasion. My dear Madame Petrova: I don't know why I should be writing to you. I suppose you have troubles enough of your own without my adding to them. And yet I am impelled to write. Perhaps I might have bothered someone else instead of you — you may think. But that's just it, I couldn't and I didn't. I am twenty-five years of age. I feel fifty. Three years . ago I believe that I was the happiest girl in the world. Then the awful war came and my fiance was left to help redden the poppies in Flanders Field. They say that time heals all wounds, but I don't know. My heart is very sore. Of course I know it had to be and yet that reflection doesn't fill my arms or dry my tears. Before he went away I took interest in most things that girls of my age take interest in. I read a great deal. I danced. I took part in local private theatricals ; picnics and water parties were my delight. But now all these things seem to be so flat, so empty. I have no heart for anything or anybody. I have watched you so many times on the screen and I have watched you on the stage. It seems to me that you will understand and perhaps suggest something that might give me a new interest in life. Sincerely, V. B., Canada. {Continued on page 52)