Picture Play Magazine (Sep 1920 - Feb 1921)

Her First Love Affair 41 old — -I suppose she felt that she could say anything she wanted to to me. That's the way with these youngsters. "You better look out !" I warned her, "or I'll tell what you were doing first time I saw you !" "Well, go on if you want to be mean!" said Bebe. "You weren't a Realart star then, not by a good ways ; you weren't any kind of a star. You were just the merest little bit of the Milky Way, and an awful cry-baby. And the next time I saw you, you weren't a star, either. You were just a little tomboy of twelve, riding a horse bareback, with your hair flying out behind. You were making the horse stand up on his hind legs so as to scare your poor, dear mamma, and your poor, dear mamma was dividing her worry between what the horse was doing and whether he was going to let you fall, and the fact that your hair wasn't combed. It was as if she had said, 'Well, if the child must fall and kill herself, why won't she at least be neat ?' " "Well, anyhow," exclaimed Bebe triumphantly, "all that proves that I've got some life in me, and that I'm not the die-away sort of person that first sentence sounds like !" "Oh, but you'd have liked the next thing that I was going to write," I retorted, "if only you had waited a minute ! You do cramp my style so — jumping in with your slang}' exclamations and everything, when I'm trying to make it all so pretty for you. You don't know that I know it, but I do, because your mother told me long before ever you or motion pictures were thought of. You're a descendant of the family of the Empress Josephine, wife of Napoleon Bonaparte ! But what's the use of printing that, after you've gone and spoiled it all by using that awful word 'Bunk' ! Can't you remember you're a picture queen, and the descendant of a real queen's family?" > "Well, I'll try," said Bebe meekly, "but not while I'm eating American ice cream. Come on, let's go for a ride in my new machine!" And she jumped up from the table, dragging me away from those delicious strawberries and cakes. We nearly hit a traffic cop at the next corner, but didn't turn around. "Oh, look and see what we did !" cried Bebe. "I can't ! See if we've killed him !" "You can't kill a traffic cop !" I answered scornfully. "Did you ever hear of it's being done? You can't kill a cop unless you shoot him through and through !" "No, but we might take a wheel off him !" answered Bebe. All of which is of no importance in a dramatic interview except as it goes to show that, for speed, the Photo bj Northland Stndios She has wonderful brown eyes and red lips inherited from her Spanish ancestors. Empress Josephine and her family, Bebe's ancestors, had nothing at all on Bebe. "Where were we?" asked Bebe. "Why, I don't think we've even begun !" I answered in an injured tone. "You wouldn't let me !" "Begin at the beginning." suggested Bebe. "Which shows that you know nothing about the art of interviewing," I answered loftily. "That isn't the way it's done." "But I'll tell you something kinda interesting about my early childhood," wheedled Bebe, "stuff I've never told a living soul before. I'll tell you about my first love affair, when I was seven — and he won my heart by wearing a stiff collar \" What woman ever resisted the lure of a love story, even one connected with an unromantic stiff collar? "Well, you see it was this way," began Bebe, giving the car a lurch as we went around a corner that led down a long street and out into the sweet country, which was still green and flowery, though the California summer was beginning to send its hot breath over the fields. "I lived with my grandmother out on a ranch in Glendale, near Los Angeles, two whole years. I was in the long-legged, string}' stage between child parts and young girls, and mother thought I'd better get some schooling. I adored my grandmother, and do yet. She's just the grandest grandmother — I can see now why they call 'em grand, all right "