Picture Play Magazine (Sep 1920 - Feb 1921)

30 Nazimova Speaks would be outwitted, for she has that superior sense cf humor which permits of satirizing herself. "You have read how I studied dancing." She shook her head with an amused smile. "I never studied dancing. And much has been written of my study of pantomime. Instinct, too. It is all instinct. You know Gertrude Hoffman, the dancer ? — a lovely woman. She asked me if she might do my sword dance. Did you see 'Eye for Eye'? Well, in that I did a sword dance. "Capallani — he is a Frenchman — he was my director then. One day he said, 'Madame, you are to do a sword dance in this scene.' "'A sword dance? — a sword dance? — my God, and what is a sword dance ?' " She imitated her look of puzzled wonder. "Then I thought — 'Urn, very well ; have you music?' No, he had no music. 'A drum?' No, there was no drum. 'Can some one beat on wood, then?' " she thumped vigorously on a table next the lounge. "Again, no. There was nothing to do but dance. I picked up a sword and I thought — r'l am an Oriental girl dancing with a sword which is to kill.' Very well !" Nazimova bounded from the lounge and glided in rhythmic motion about the dressing room, her body swaying, her arms weaving and curving, her fingers rippling on the air like petals. "Um-um-um-um urn la-la-la-la. All through the dance I hummed an Oriental song." Her hands fell to her sides, and she came back to the lounge. "That is the way I did my dance, and Gertrude Hoffman, lovely dancer, wanted to do 'Nazimova's Sword Dance' !" She suppressed a snicker. "Kosloff says I should have been a dancer. He means," she nodded, the laughter brimming to her lips. "He means, as an actress I am a great dancer. Maybe he's right." Referring to the creative instinct for acting and dancing, she gravely touched her forehead, "It is all here. All is mind." The remark suggested some new thought philosophy. "No, no ! No fads — no — no fads !" she protested, gesturing with her hands as if to ward off such an imputation. Then she paused, her eyebrows puckering quizzically. "I wonder if you mean what I mean — • about mind. You mean will power?" She awaited negation. "No, I have no will power — no will power. "I must see something first. ' I put a picture in my mind, and I concentrate so my body responds. First I see, then I feel, and then I am." Nazimova's protean power has often been the subject of critical dissertation. I spoke of the impression of height which she conveyed as Hedda Gabler on the stage. "Ah, Hedda, you remember Hedda, how tall she was? Yes, every one thought me very tall. I am five feet three inches. You know whv Hedda was tall? It was Her home is a stucco villa of mouth of L not the long gown nor the high-heeled shoes. I thought I was tall, and I zvas tall." She drew herself up majestically. "I moved as a tall woman would move. My hands — I thought they were long and slender, and ihey were. Yes, I believe they were long and slender. ."Look at that hand !" she exclaimed, thrusting a small, childish palm outward. "That is not a pretty hand. It is a stubby hand. It is not the hand of an artist. It is the hand of a workman. Yes, and it has worked." She spoke with musing tone, as she drew one palm slowly over the other. Nazimova does not speak with her voice alone, she speaks with her entire body. Each member vibrates in tune with the thought that sweeps across her mind. "No part of me is dead." She pressed a thumb and finger together as if testing their sentiency. "All is alive. All expresses. The first thing you learn in a Russian dramatic school is to come out of your corsets. You throw them away." She made a flinging gesture with a scarf in lieu of the abandoned garment. "You throw them away — and you never get them back again. Then you learn the five positions of the dance — nothing more. It is for grace." Again she sprang to the floor, this time to illustrate the "five positions." Her feet fluttered nimbly in the movements. As a sort of finale she swept the floor with the palms of her hands, her knees remaining rigid. Her suppleness indicated regular exercise. She smiled and shook her head. She took a perverse delight in refutation. "I ne-ver exercise. I don't walk, I don't ride horseback, I don't play golf or tennis. I do nothing except," she added whimsically, "I move my grand piano five times a week." She studied the palms of her hands, evidently in search of callouses, at the same time explaining that her life away from the studio was very simple. "I go from the studio to my home and from my home to the studio," indicating the monotony of the route with a motion of her arm. "That is all. I never go any place. It is not that I think people frivolous who go out. I think it nice. I wish sometimes I could. But I can't. I just stay at home and read. Every night I read before I sleep." Her home is a stucco villa of spacious rooms, located at the mouth of Laurel Canon. Among its objets d'art are two silver portraits of Mary Pickford, autographed, "To Alia— Affectionately, Mary" and "To Alia With My Love, Mary." Her interests are not restricted to motion pictures. Reference was made to the Russian situation. "I mustn't tell you what I think about Russia." She glanced down with an enigmatic smile at the green scarf which she was twisting between her fingers and over her knee. "No, I mustn't tell you. You might think Continued on page 90 spacious rooms located at the aurel Canon.