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520 MOTION PICTURES I922-I945
discovered that they were talking about what they wanted to do first when they got to Hollywood. I said the answer was easy: it was to meet Clark Gable. Thev insisted that wasn't it at all. Finally I wormed it out of them: the very first thing they wanted was "to be made up by Max Factor"! Thus the influence of movie stars!
After the Mussolini conference and the Ambassador's dinner our affairs could be wound up quickly as far as personal conferences on the revised understanding were concerned, and we made ready to leave on Wednesday. But it must be recorded that in the course of drawing up the new decree to replace the confiscatory decree of October there was a hitch.
It seems Mussolini later discovered that an unlimited import privilege was illegal and hence that a definite number had to be fixed. This word, relayed to us via the Embassy and the State Department after our return, was disturbing. During a subsequent Board meeting, a telephone message came through from Washington that Mussolini was willing for me to fix the number. I turned from the phone, reported this to the Board members, and suggested that we say 250. This was instantly approved, and I asked the State Department to advise the Italian Government that we understood the difficulties and would be perfectly satisfied to have the terms limit the imported films to 250 and the revenue to be taken out to 20,000,000 lire, with no camouflaged exchange. Thus was our mission completed.
But I must go back to Rome to recount the other most significant experience of that 1936 trip. That experience was our private audience with Pope Pius XI, then nearing the end of his life but spiritually and mentally vigorous. The audience was arranged by Count Galleazzi for noon on Tuesday, November 17. The day before, we were told that Mrs. Hays might also go if she wished, which pleased us both. We were given essential information as to apparel and custom, the count bringing Mrs. Hays the mantilla which she would wear.
On the way to the Vatican, Count Galleazzi told us that he would interpret, since the Holy Father did not speak English, though he could understand it. What was more important, he told me that, contrary to usual custom, I was free to ask questions as well as to answer them and to carry on the interview in a perfectly natural manner. This pleased
e greatly.
The approach to the Vatican, its courts and halls, the Swiss guards, the various officials and functionaries in impressive dress, the many rooms through which we passed, the great group of people in an outer room— this, to an American who grew up in an Indiana village and attended a simple little Presbyterian church, was all most impressive, clothed with the stately dignity of a great spiritual tradition.
Finally reaching the secretary's room adjoining the private office of