Modern Screen (Dec 1931 - Nov 1932 (assorted issues))

When Ann Dvorak was born her mother was just sixteen. No wonder, then, that "The Man of the Hour." It was all very wonderful. A year later my career was temporarily interrupted by the arrival of Ann on the morning of August 2, 1912, at the Murray Hills Sanitarium. Until Ann's actual arrival I hadn't been particularly thrilled over the idea of motherhood. But the moment they placed her in my arms, eight pounds of the cutest baby you ever saw, I knew nothing would ever again thrill me quite so much. When she was four weeks old I left the hospital, a skinny little sixteen-year-old girl with a bundle of baby in my arms and a keen longing to get her away to myself so I could play with her. The nurse who had attended me said something about, "It's a crime for one baby to be turned loose with another. But for heaven's sake," she added, "don't spoil her. When she yells ... let her yell." THE first night at home with our new toy, her father and I were petrified when Ann began to wail lustily. She was fed and dryly clothed. There was no earthly reason for her crying unless it was because we had turned out the light in her room. "Turn it on," her father said. "She'll wake the entire neighborhood. Poor baby." But even then Ann was more of a person than a mere baby to me. I went in the room and stood over her crib. Suddenly she stopped crying and stared at me as crossly as a four-week-old baby can. "Listen here, young lady," 1 said, smiling at her. "Haven't you any sense of humor?" You may not believe it but I swear she smiled right back at me. A toothless but a very regular grin. Ann was an amazingly good baby. No more trouble than a little pet pup. Very soon she learned to walk and never did she talk baby talk. Perhaps that is one reason she so soon in life became a separate personality to me. Her father and I were divorced when she was but four years old ; consequently Ann never really knew her real father. A year later I married my present husband, Mr. Pearson, who is the only father in her life. My second husband, though not an actor, was in sympathy with my career and I have been an actress throughout Ann's entire life, enjoyine mv work in the theatre immensely. (Left) Ann Dvorak's first screen appearancemany, many years ago. The picture was called "The Five Dollar Plate," with Herbert Rawlinson. Ann played a little kid in it. (Below) Ann at nine years. Her mother says Ann was always writing poetry and hiding it. They thought she'd be a writer instead of an actress. As a little girl of five, Ann loved to hear fairy tales. I would make up the most exaggerated stories about a little girl who was so well behaved and who ate vegetables, with the result that she grew up to be just like the girls in the fairy stories. Instantly, Ann would emulate that other little girl, eating every vegetable in sight and retiring promptly, hoping mother would think her even better than the girl in the story. It has always been possible to reach Ann through her imagination. I think that must have been the way Leslie Fenton won her love. He is an imaginative, colorful boy who does unexpected things like living the life of a native in the South Sea Islands. To Ann he must have seemed like a character out of a book. • When Ann was about six I was offered a road-show engagement and as it was impossible for my husband to keep his advertising job and take care of a small stepchild at the same time, I made arrangements to enter Ann as a kindergarten pupil at St. Catherine's Convent. Apprehensive about her reaction to our first separation, I made all sorts of elaborate plans of how I was going to take her to the school, let one of the sisters get her interested in some child's story, and then leave without her seeing me go. This was the first, and last, time I ever planned to fool Ann. She taught me a lesson ! When we reached the top step of the convent, this solemn, yet humorous and wholly independent little girl J2