Picture Play Magazine (Jul - Dec 1929)

43 She Acts When She Chooses Alice Joyce is the only player who retires for long periods, and finds the public waiting for her when she comes back for an occasional picture. B? Alma Talle? IT is a dangerous thing for a star to take a long vacation, and then try to regain her pinnacle. Fame, popularity, box-office appeal — call it what you will — is evanescent. A star may have it to-day, but she dare not gamble on to-morrow. Many stars have tried, sometimes involuntarily, because of illness. Many more — women stars — after several years of marriage and domesticity, have changed their minds about retiring, and found, to their dismay, that the public had also changed its mind. A newer, younger public had grown up, with newer, younger idols. An erstwhile star, bored with inactivity, missing the adulation and the limelight to which she was once accustomed, tries to stage a comeback, and finds that her niche has not been waiting there, empty, for her return. Her successor has filled it. Theda Bara, heavy-eyed, voluptuously curved, once set the style in sirens. She was Cleopatra, 1915 model. Girls and boys, all over the country, learned about women from her. She married Charles Brabin and took a rest. And then she began to miss her career. She tried to step back into her place on the screen. "The Unchastened Woman" was to put her back on the main highway of fame, just where she left off. But it didn't. The public had changed its mind about sirens. Sirens were slim and subtle — svelte — mysterious. The public's idea of allure was ready to receive a new, modern type of siren. When Greta Garbo came along, she filled the niche once occupied by Theda. And so it goes. Lillian Walker, once farfamed for her dimples, was forced off the screen by an illness of several years. And when she at last recovered, her public had forgotten. Dimples were out of style. Sweetness was no longer in vogue. Such has been the history of film idols who tried to come back. Which makes it all the more amazing when there is an exception. Alice Joyce is one who has overridden all tradition, all precedent. Alice plays on the screen when the urge impels her. and then retires for months at a time, in the midst of her family, a happy wife and mother. Ten to fifteen years ago Miss Joyce was one of the Yitagraph galaxy of stars. Anita Stewart was another. Where is Anita now ? Occasionally she plays in a quickie. Ruth Roland and Pearl White were the reigning serial queens. Francis X. Bushman and Beverly Bayne were the first costarring team. Now, as screen idols, they are all but forgotten. Now and then a small role, or a lead in a minor picture. Some of the stars of that period have retained their positions — Mary Pickford, Co Miss Joyce has not tried to revive her early successful roles, but is willing to play the mother of grown boys and girls. rinne Griffith, the Talmadgcs. But they have never left the screen. They didn't drop out for a time, and then attempt to come hack where they had left off. Alice Joyce is almost unique in having achieved this. Some years ago she married Janus Regan and retired. She became the mother of a baby daughter. She might easily have passed into the limbo of forgotten idols. But she didn't. Suddenly her name was appearing again in casts. Alice Joyce was back on the screen, successfully. She has no contract. She works when she wants to — and whenever she wants to, hut not otherwise. Lucky? Of course. But perhaps it's more than that. Perhaps it's because that, in addition to being beautiful, Miss Joyce is wise. She does not, like Theda Bara, try to continue in the same sort of roles with which she made her fame. Miss Joyce is willing, for example, to play the mother of grown sons and daughters — the mother of Mary Brian, in "The Little French Girl." of Clara Bow, in "Dancing Mothers." of George Lewis, in "Thirteen Washington Square," of Barthclmess, in "The Noose." Miss Joyce does not stand still and let time march by her. She marches along with time, and is not, like some of her contemporaries, left behind in the procession. Whatever role she plays. Miss Joyceinvests with dignity, poise, sophistication. She has what is vulgarly known as "class." She has never "gone Hollywood." Lunching at the Ritz, for example, where I saw her, she wore, as usual, a severely tailored suit of brown tweed. No jewelry, no ruffles and beads and fur dangling all about her person. You should see most Christmas-tree-hung stars from Hollywood ! Miss Joyce is a little difficult to know well. She talks, yes — quietly, with dignity, and easily. She has too much poise to he shyly silent. But through all her conversation she is aloof, reserved. She gives von nothing of herself, really, nothing of that self buried down underneath. But. incongruously enough, she has the enthusiasms of a seventeen-year-old fan. Despite her sophistication, her social sureness. she is awed in the presence of the great. She described, for example, her recent stage venture in Los Angeles, when she appeared in "The Marriage Bed." It was her first professional experience on the t t stage, and naturally she was somewhat timid. "I've never been so terrified in my life." Photo by she said, "as I was one night when, at the beginning of a performance, another mem ber of the cast came into my dressing room Continued on page 106