Cinema Art (November 1926)

CINEMA ART Jett a Qoiidal—(oof and c .’Mysterious Of An Intensely Emotional Temperament, This French Actress Avoids Both Society and Publicity By CHARLES J. DURANTZ I NSCRUTABLE and silent as the Sphinx; aloof, shunning alike the interest of the curious and the adoration of fans; living alone, and apart from others of her profession —thus might be described Jetta Goudal—the enigma of Hollywood. Few persons with whom the world comes into familiar contact are able, as Miss Goudal is, to exude that complete state of mysticism and sense of aloofness that leaves a vast audi- ence of admirers spellbound and conscious of a power they cannot quite fathom. Hollywood loves its mysteries with the same fervor that Paris adores its burlesque duellings in the secluded nooks of the Bois. Both are things to intrigue the fancy, to speculate upon and perhaps to fill those idle hours at the dinner table where rumors share equally in importance with good food. Jetta Goudal is the riddle that stumps the wits of the screen intellectuals sitting through the boresome teas and the elaborate dinners that occasionally punctuate the routine of Holly- wood’s hard-working stars. It is not that her charming presence at these harmless affairs provokes discussion, for Miss Goudal, strangely, never attends any func- tions, no matter how illustrious and enter- taining are the hosts and guests. She prefers —and in this one respect she deliberately vio- lates the tradition of her profession—to stay at home where a wise personal maid sits in judgment upon the timid voices that come over the telephone. It so happens that if the voices are not just right or their missions of little importance, the suave apologist for Miss Goudal explains them away nicely, leaving more persons to ponder the enigma. This would lead even the most skeptical to the belief that the title she has earned has some reason for its exist- ence. T HE riddle of what she does with her spare time after studio hours is perhaps nobody’s business, and because the highly emotional little French actress hardly ever talks about herself or the matter on hand a mystery of great depth is unconsciously estab- lished, and one that many a Sherlock Holmes of the screen capital has tried to solve in vain. She occupies an elaborate suite of rooms at an exclusive hotel to which she hurries when her day’s work is done, like any other average person, and there she stays until it is time to go to work again. In any other walk of life this retiring dis- position—for such it really is—would go un- noticed, and many nice things would be said about it, but in Hollywood customs are very different, and the person who retires with the setting sun is given less notice than those who don’t retire at all. For purely professional reasons it is impor- tant that one half of the motion picture profes- sion knows in exact detail just what the other half is thinking of and doing. The reason being that actors and actresses, if they want to live in permanence, must never fall behind in the fads and eccentricities of their rivals; every player must watch the other to see that some new technique is not developed which would leave him or her far behind in the frantic race for film honors. The trouble with Jetta Goudal, her critics believe, is that she fails to give away enough of her trade secrets to enable her many satellites among the profession to copy them and perhaps be- come able enigmas themselves. C LOSE analysis of Miss Goudal reveals that she is a conflict of temperaments within herself—one part of her nature has exactly fitted her to bear the significant titles of “firebrand” and “the cocktail of emotion” —the latter term was invented by Cecil B. DeMille in describing her; the other part of her nature is a sensitive form of modesty that is largely responsible for her peculiar aversion to society. These diverse and unmated qualities are suitable ingredients for a deep, unsolvable mystery, but two things more above all else have established her fame as an enigma and these things are her eyes. She has the most emotional and expressive eyes on the screen. Without doubt these eyes have en- abled her to bring to-the films a new technique in acting—a method of emotional expression that differs from the exaggerated movements of the old stage, that consists in saying it with the eyes instead of with the voice and hands. Jetta Goudal is as unlike the average star as it is possible to conceive of an actress being— she is not of the standard type of beauty that American artists have immortalized on the covers of magazines. She is anything but a type—Miss Goudal is different. The reason for the difference is easy to see; it is in her eyes—eyes that curse you, pity you, love and caress you according to their moods. Their large retinae seem to hold all of the sorrow and joy, innocence and sophis- tication possible, while her material body moves gracefully and alertly. A CTRESSES achieve stardom in many ways. Gloria Swanson, it will be re- membered, was an unknown bathing beauty working for Mack Sennett when Cecil B. De- Mille saw great possibilities in the manner in which she leaned against a door—an insignifi- cant gesture of hopelessness and despair at what she considered was her inability to pro- gress faster. Mr. DeMille saw genius budding in that unconscious pose, even as he recognized the motion picture possibilities in the vivacity of Leatrice Joy; the imagination of Jeanie Mc- Pherson and the Americanism of William Boyd. Miss Goudal lacks the bombastic physical emotionalism of Miss Joy, for she is a slender and nervous type; she doesn’t possess the easy, languorous carriage of a Gloria Swan- son ; the sense of humor of a Marie Prevost, or the ethereality of a Lillian Gish—yet she has a good percentage of each of those quali- ties where they are the most easily seen—in her eyes. M iss Goudal’s eyes are by far the largest of any in Hollywood, and anyone seeing her for the first time is made to feel Dat they domi- nate her features completely and almost to the exclusion of all the other features in her har- moniously-moulded face. This inclination to exaggerate her eyes is due, in part, to their unusual brilliance and animation. They reflect the duality of her nature, for one moment they are literally blazing with high-lights as some tempestuous mood possesses her; the next they are dull and spiritless as they mirror the meek and sensitive part of her nature. Jetta Goudal can speak an entire oration with her eyes, and an oration, by the way, that includes many finer shadings of ex- pression than the written or spoken word is capable of. M ISS GOUDAL is a distinctively differ- ent type. She has brown hair, brown eyes, with straight black eyelashes and eye- brows. Those unusual points of difference are augmented by an oval face and an unusu- ally erect carriage which gives her the air of a medieval princess. When she first arrived in Hollywood from a rather average success on the stage, Mr. De- Mille looked into those dark, round eyes and found something that was startlingly new, and in a city where newness is at a premium this was a discovery worth prompt decision. Miss Goudal was hired on the spot and her first great chance came in support of Rod La Rocque in “The Coming of Amos.” It is interesting to know just what it was that Mr. DeMille saw on the occasion of his meeting with the star. “My impression of Miss Goudal,” he said, “was that she was out of keeping with the spirit of the motion picture world and that she belonged to some more romantic age; her mannerisms and odd forms of speech seemed to suggest to me one of the great women of mystery who every now and then crop up in history. I recall vividly that I was disturbed and uneasy when those eyes first turned upon me. I felt as if a battery of powerful search- lights were hunting me out and when I finally recovered I knew that Jetta Goudal had some- thing no other actress of my acquaintance had —eyes. “With her the organ of sight is more than a matter of mere seeing—it is her stock in trade, much as others of our famous actresses have certain physical attributes upon which they depend for success.” Miss Goudal was born in beautiful Ver- sailles, France, and fifteen years later, despite the stern objections of her father, a Parisian lawyer, she left the classrooms at the Sorbonne and joined a traveling repertoire stock com- pany playing such famous old classics as “Sappho” and “L’Aiglon.” The strong personal force that always animated her served her in such good stead that within eight months she was playing leading roles in the company’s dramatic presentations. H ER dramatic ability was earning her con- siderable praise from widely separated Jf (Continued on page 47) Page Eighteen