Picture Play Magazine (Mar-Jul 1929)

43 He Doesn't Like LiVer Ugh! Joseph Schildkraut cannot abide the "intimate anatomies of animals," but he likes red pajamas. Bach, great, deep books, and Jos and soft, gentle music. B$ Ann Silvester WITHOUT so much as batting an eyelash, Joseph Schildkraut will tell you that he is one of the most uninvited, unhonored, and un-Mammy-sung actors in Hollywood. But does he worry ? He does not ! Whenever any one throws one of those gigantic melees — otherwise a Hollywood party — he is seldom, if ever, invited — if he can get out of it. He says he just doesn't fit, and doesn't care. He does not like back slappers. No, he does not think the Los Angeles stage is beginning to rival the New York boards. He thinks it is terrible — very, very terrible. Not for any amount of money would he act before a Hollywood audience. He doesn't invite prop boys to lunch with him. He figures he would probably bore the prop boy. He does not approve of tbe accepted brand of temperament that countenances profanity and flying missiles. He does approve of temperament that allows for doing as one pleases, at the time place one feels like it. Morals he upholds. Conventions he abhors. He insists quite proudly that he is not a good fellow. "You see," he remarked suavely, "why I am not voted the most popular man in Hollywood." Saying things suavely is a little trick of his. It goes well with his Continentalism and dandiness. He is slender and dark in appearance. His hands are expressive. His eyes — he plays with his eyes so fluently that it isdifficult to distinguish their color. His press agent has them down as brown. Let it go at that. It is more important that he is foreign. Decidedly so. Never for a moment does his slight accent lapse, nor his rather startling flow of European observations. He is an easy man to interview, for the simple, journalistic reason that he is colorful. He goes to no little trouble to attend to that detail. In the background of his most casual moments lurks his Viennese birth, his stage plaudits as Liliom, his artistic reputation. A highly interesting man, this Mr. Schildkraut of the suave tongue and expressive eye, and with all his stressed eccentricities, very likable — which I am sure is not his intention, or desire. Hadn't he spent one hour, at the uninteresting Montmartre, impressing on me that he was not the kind of man that people liked? "I am shy," he observed with a slight arrogance that was anything but apposite, "and Hollywood does not understand shyness. People say I am, what do you call it, high-hat? That I dislike to mingle with the crowd, because I feel superior. That is not true." He paused to give to the waiter his order for avocado, with French dressing. In contrast to my liver arid Phofo by Freulioh eph Schildkraut sits in a corner at parties, he says, and is terrified when he sees some one approaching. bacon it seemed almost an elegant reproach, for which he offered no apology. "Liver ?" he echoed. "You could chase me with liver. I cannot abide the intimate anatomies of animals. "No," returning to himself as a more likely topic, "I do not feel superior to the crowd. I merely feel out of it. I am sure the things that interest me most would bore other people. I do not want to be a bore. So when my lovely wife insists that I accompany her to Hollywood gatherings, I seek out a quiet corner for myself, and am terrified when I see some one approaching." There was a slight pause for no particular reason. "How can I talk to people one meets at Hollywood parties? What do I know of box-office returns, of Mayfair dances, of good or bad gin? I have never had a drink in my life, I am totally at a loss in those charming little anecdotes one hears in Hollywood of being poisoned on a hair-tonic high ball, or being put to bed, drunk, in a stranger's house. I am almost ashamed of my lack of experience. But, oddly, I do not care to gain any. When some one offers me a tall, chilled glass I am loath to shake my head — but I manage to do it." Almost imperceptibly he sighed. "That is not the garden where my flowers grow," he murmured. I said, "What?" "That is not the garden where my flowers grow," he repeated, brightening to his theme. "No; my flowers grow in great, deep books, and soft, gentle music. The music of masters." His eyes were doing things now, narrowing and dreamily closing. "Music does terrific things to me. So do magnificent writings. I am never so much myself as when I am alone ■" Continued on page 109