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

tirely free from a fly in its ointment. For there was Ralph Forbes — This earlier romance had long since drifted definitely into the Dead Sea of forgotten affections. But Ruth had done nothing about trimming sail, or dropping the pilot. There had been no need — until now. So it occurred that these charming people — Ralph, Ruth and George — found themselves webbed in adjacent corners of as perfect a triangle as any movie ever pictured. It was a Difficult Situation. And rapidly became untenable. Cultivated, highly civilized gentlefolk, all three shrank from enmeshment in a Page One scandal. Yet there had to be a show-down. And there was. Don't be so naive as to believe that these three were all little pals together ! A condition existed that required some confronting. It was up to George. And he didn't duck. That's not the Irish way. The two men met in an almost casual fashion. That was because they are civilized. But way down deep, cave-man lava must have seethed and bubbled threateningly. It was a pretty tense interview. It must have been. Yet, on the surface, all that occurred was a statement of the facts by George, a complete understanding on Ralph's part, and as graceful an exit as the blond Briton ever contrived on stage or screen. "It's not your fault," he told George, "it's not anyone's fault." As simple as that. And Reno readied the road. Ruth went abroad and stayed — well, too long to suit George. When she sailed away she told him : "Maybe we'll change our minds, you and I. We'll see whether it lasts. If it doesn't, let's tell one another. If it does. ..." George went on a vaudeville tour with Loretta Young. Quite a test in itself. The name of the sketch was "The Honeymoon." While he played at love on the stage, his heart kept longing for the real honeymoon. George is twenty-nine, come the March day of the good Saint Padraic. Ruth is a year or so his senior. There's not enough difference to count. What's a month here or there ? But there be those who wonder why Brent failed to yield to the lure of the Malibu mermaids, those curveful sirens among the Hollywood ingenues. No laggard in love, this lad Brent. He's been places aplenty. One isn't born possessing a way with the ladies. That's 46 (Above, left and right) Ruth and George in "The Rich Are Always With Us" and in "The Crash." For his role in the first-named, leading man Brent had to get Miss Chatterton's O. K. as well as Warners. He got it, all right. Cupid had something to do with it. acquired. And the reasons j for his final choice has many | a damsel wondering. "Of course they're charm' ing kids, those Hollywood youngsters, every one of 'em," said George. "But for the love of Saint Keven, what would a man do with one as a wife? She'd be in your lap — figuratively and literally — from dawn 'til dark. You'd not be able to call your soul 1 your own. And, saving their presence, it's not to be expected that kids in their 'teens can possibly possess the ! worldly knowledge, experience, or any of the qualities \ which make a woman companionable twentyfour hours in | the day. Their attractions are for the very young — or the very old. I'm not in either category. I'VE told you once, and here it is again — in Ruth I've found every single thing a man might seek in a woman. So far as I'm concerned she has everything. Beauty, of course. And a mentality that shines with the brilliance of a silver dollar in the sun. She's not the all-possessive, clinging-vine type. And she has real honor in the masculine sense of the word. She has a code of ethics such as I never found in any woman. "She has natural dignity and innate refinement. Her natural culture has been augmented by her faculty for surrounding herself with life's finer things. She won't tolerate anything cheap or common. There's no vulgarity, no rough stuff, on the set of a Chatterton picture. "That, by the way, may be why some persons consider her 'difficult' to get on with. She isn't. You can get a pretty good estimate of character from those in close daily contact. Ruth is adored by every servant in the house and there's not a studio employee who doesn't swear by her. "There's none of that 'Hi, kid' business in Ruth, but I've yet to meet anyone she hasn't treated with courtesy." Somehow, a picture recurs of the lovely Ruth, gently sophisticate, mentally brilliant, glamorous, beautiful, presiding at a board spread with snowy linen in a perfectly appointed room, hostess to her friends and her husband's. And George, dark and flashing, trigger-quick at repartee, a genial host because he loves good company like the laird of an Irish manor. Perhaps, from opposite ends of the long, glistening table, their eyes will meet. And all the world that sees will know that in the perfect understanding, the love that has lasted, these two have found their happy ending.