Picture-Play Magazine (Sep 1927 - Feb 1928)

23 Goldwyn's Face? does, in the inteiview below, take up the cudgels disagreement with the Samuel Goldwyn company. Reid A sad voice — the voice of a person who has suffererl acutely. We sat at lunch on the balcony of¥ the living room, with Hollywood shimmering in the heat beneath us. Miss Bennett's manner is mild, almost benign. It is impossible to imagine any one wanting to persecute this epitome of gentleness. With as much tact as possible, I broached the subject of her trouble with the Goldwyn company. She says what she has to say very well, talking in completely formulated ideas and sentences, defending herself from untruths and injustices. "One thing," she said, "has always annoyed me. That is, for people to say that I was 'made overnight,' that I sprang from nowhere into the fame that 'Stella Dallas' brought me. Why, I was a star with Essanay when Gloria Swanson hadn't yet been heard of. I starred in four stage plays on Broadway. For years I worked in stock. To get the part of Stella, I waited eleven months. I took thirteen tests. I refused other engagements while waiting. And then, finally, started to work at exactly half the salary I had been getting on the stage. "No, my success in that film was no 'lucky break.' To give a fine performance, an actress must have either unbounded experience, technique, or inspiration. It so happened that I had ^ all three. That is why I could give Stella Dallas to the world as I did." Her voice did not veer from the smooth, soft tone in which she had greeted me. She is tranquil even in indignation. "Of course, I have had only that one good picture. All the others since have been made without much consideration for me — with the exception of 'Mother Machree.' But I notice now that for that they are hilling three names instead of just mine, which means they are building up the other parts of the film in the cutting." I believe, by the way, that the basis of Miss Bennett's trouble with Mr. Goldwyn was a dispute over how she was to be billed for her films. "The last two weeks of '.Stella Dallas,' " she continued, "were made miserable for me, because of a misunderstanding with Mr. Goldwyn's partner. Ah, they were unkind to me, but m}' heart forgave them readily. I have been hurt so much, yet when people injure me, I want only to show them their' error, as one does with children. I used to go in to see that man and be faced with his deliberate injustice, yet I always felt like taking him by the hand, as I would a child, and showing him the way." . ^ Her black eyebrows arched in the But she bears no malice, she says, a'^ainst any who have been unjust to her. center, accentuating the sadness of her face. "At eight o'clock on the first day of 'Stella,' I had buried my son. The day before, I had been in the hospital, singing him to what I thought was sleep, but what was really his passing. In the morning, I placed him to rest, and that evening I was in make-up, at work. "Unkind stories were printed saying that I had kept my boy hidden, or that I had introduced him as my brother, so that people might think me younger. Untruths — all untruths ! Why, every one in Hollywood knew my son — as my son, too. I took him everywhere with me. Every one loved him. I was very proud of him." Her green eyes clouded and darkened and, for the only time during the interview, her voice faintly broke. She paused a moment, looking out over the valley, and then continued. "You know what happened when 'Stella Dallas' was released. The world proclaimed me. And yet Mr. Goldwyn contended later that my name did not rate major billing, that I was an excellent actress but not a star What, I ask you, makes a star but an excellent actress? "They apparently thought they must discipline me. Discipline me, who had never had anything from producers and directors and actors — from anv She feels that she should have been made a star after the ,p'.o\rld-wide acclaim she received in "Stella Dallas." Continued on page 96