Picture-Play Magazine (Sep 1927 - Feb 1928)

32 Photo by ApediL Too much secrecy sometimes hurts an actor. Francis X. Bushman refused for years to admit that he was a married man with children, with the result that the deception, when finally discovered by tlie fans, reacted against him. THIS is just between you and me. Confidentially, I wouldn't want it to go any further than the half million of us, for these are studio secrets more or less. I don't mean the scandals, divorces and other local difficulties. The morning papers usually cover those pretty thoroughly. But there are certain other things which, for various good reasons, it is thought best not to tell to the world at large. For one thing, the producers like to preserve an illusion in the public mind concerning certain players or pictures. Or perhaps a player, for his own reasons, wants to keep some phase of his off-screen life out of the public prints. Whatever the case may be, the secret or secrets that are to be guarded are labeled, "Not for publication." What is gained or lost by such a publicity barrier depends on how the particular case in question happens to work out. Holding out on the public is sometimes beneficial, but it can also prove to be very dangerous. Do )'0U remember, for instance, way back in the ver}.' beginning of movie publicity, when Francis X. Bushman refused to admit he was a married man with a brood of children? The matinee idol was laboring under the impression that domesticity would cramp his style with the little flapper fans. Time proved his fears to be groundless, silly, and really cjuite dangerous, for when the truth finally came out in print, the deception "Not for Keep it under your hat, but there are here of the movie world that are from time to for publication," as well as the reasons why By Ann he had practiced worked as a boomerang against, him. Again, it almost turned out unhappily when Gloria Swanson refused to allow her baby to be photographed for the world at large. The public is inclined to be suspicious of something withheld, and when Gloria shook a determined head at the camera men who came to publicize her infant daughter, absurd reports flew around. Gloria heard the silly rumoi's, but heeded them not. Instead of dashing out to the nearest expensive photographer and posing for a series of maternal studies, she still held her ground and her baby's privacy. As it happened, the world eventually began to respect her for it, but the result might hSve been just the opposite. "I don't want my little girl flaunted before the world until she is old enough to decide for herself whether she wants to be exploited in the newspapers," Gloria said. "I want her to feel that she is an individual — not merely the daughter of a well-known actress. Her life is her own, and I don't want it to be shaped for her before she herself has a chance to know what she wants to do with it." The sincerity of her motives finally won the world over to the fact that Gloria's baby was not for publication — an}' more than was Lon Chaney's real face. Gloria was fighting for personal privacy, Lon for professional privacy. He wanted to maintain an illusion about himself , and for that reason, did not want out-of-character pictures of himself to be seen in the prints. He wanted to be known, not as Lon Chaney, but as The Hujichbock of Notre Dame and The Spider and The Blackbird and TJic Monster. Forvears Metro-Goldwyn decided tliat too many dancing pictures offoan Crawford were creating tlie wrong impression, so now there are only a few for publication.