It took nine tailors (1948)

23: Fine Feathers /^"N ILENT pictures reached their peak during the years 1925 \3§Nk to 1928. Some of the hits were The Big Parade, with John }Sy}/ Gilbert; Beau Geste, with Ronald Colman; The Sea Beast, starring John Barrymore; What Price Glory? with Victor McLaglen and Edmund Lowe; Seventh Heaven, with Janet Gaynor and Charles Farrell; and It, starring Clara Bow. During those years I was a star in twelve silent pictures in which I portrayed practically the same character that had been created for me by Chaplin in A Woman of Paris. Such typing is one of Hollywood's great faults. The studios' and the producers hold desperately to formulas— not only for stories but also for actors. I became standardized— like Theda Bara's vamp, Chaplin's tramp, William S. Hart's two-gun sheriff, or Mack Sennett's cops. My identifying traits were the roving eye, the cynical smile, and the immaculate dress suit. It was the job of the Paramount publicity department to keep the public aware of my special qualifications for stardom, and they did their damnedest. In thousands of photographs, cartoons, and caricatures printed in newspapers and magazines I saw myself depicted as a sort of supersophisticate. There were also hundreds of articles and interviews with titles like "The Sophisticated Mr. Menjou," "Menjou, the Ladies' Man," "Menjou, the Gentle Cynic," "Menjou, the Parisien." In English, French, Spanish, German, and a dozen other languages Menjou the man was analyzed and dissected, but he always turned out to be that fellow I portrayed on the screen. Nor were the publicity boys satisfied to have me merely a gay 179