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Nazimova Speaks
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"Come in here and sit down, please," she invited, whisking a scarf from off a wicker chair. Circling around the room, she finally settled in the cushions of a lounge. She had not given an interview for — a year ? — um, much longer. She was sorry — a sly twinkle notwithstanding. It was not that she sought to mystify the public, but after those interviews the public knew her no better.
"Oh, they had kindly motives," she interposed hastily. "One said I was young, sweet, and pretty !" She pursed her lips in a droll pucker characteristic of her humorous mood. "Can you blame me for not receiving more?" She laughed and shrugged her shoulders.
Nazimova is not young, neither is she old. She is of no age — or of any. Her beauty cannot be termed beauty, since it matches no standard. She is a unique masterpiece of life, blending the dreamy mysticism of the East with the
''He means, as an actress I am a great dancer."
Print is drab pigment for painting her personality:
prosaic culture of the West. Her eyes are of Oriental shape, elongating to mere slits of black gleam, heavily fringed with lashes, and again blazing wide in a purple radiance. The slender black brows, lifted high above the eyes, have a reptilian animation. While her pronunciation is perfect, her voice is colored with foreign nuances — high-pitched notes, fluting inflection, and stressed accents. It has the cadence of a viol, now vibrant, rich, and low; now mounting to a thin, high strain. She speaks, as she acts, with gestures, shrugs, and facial expressiveness.
Nazimova possesses versatility in its true sense — a capacity for protracted labor. Over in Russia and even in this country, before she emerged from the foreign theater, she would write dialogue, compose music, direct plays in which she appeared, and actually sew her own costumes. Affluence has not vitiated this indefatigable energy. Nazimova not only stars in her pictures ; she virtually creates them. Even when the photographing has been completed her work is not over. She arrives at the studio at eight o'clock in the morning and works sometimes until four the next morning supervising the cutting and assembling. Recently she decided that she also would supervise the making of prints because she had seen some defective tinting in "The Heart of a Child" which she thought detracted from the general impression. Even the queen bee, Mary Pickford. cannot match Nazimova for industriousness. In reply to my queries, she reluctantly admitted her versatility.
"Yes, it is true I sometimes design my sets. Yes. I have a little to do with the continuity — and I codirect my pictures. I have composed music, too. And I play the violin and piano, and I dance. But I'm just a dabbler — just a dabbler." She nodded quickly, with a shrug of deprecation.
"You know," she added with a waggish moue, "things often appear great — when a star does them."
Nazimova is an amused spectator of herself. She seems to take a positive glee in mocking Madame Nazimova. Any interviewer expecting to make light of Nazimova's greatness