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By GLADYS HALL
that I was dramatic. Then people laughed at me once, and their laughter has raised walls around me from which I shall never escape. I am absolutely the prisoner of my own gestures and facial expressions. And this doesn't affect just my professional lite; it also affects my personal life.
"I never go to parties. I haven't bought an evening gown for four years. That's because of my reputation for not being good-looking or attractive. I just think, as I think on the screen, 'Oh, well, what's the use?' It I ever do go to a party, I usually sneak in the back door and leave by the same route. One reason why I enjoy being with the children so much is because I know that they are not critical of my looks. They like my looks. They never laugh at me, but only with me. Oh, yes, people tell me not to be silly and that I'd be 'nice and popular' if I'd just go places. But I don't knoooow; I don't like to run such risks — "
Chevalier Has to Keep Smiling
/^HEVALIER told me, only rev^> cently, "I am happy about the making of 'The Merry Widow,' but betore I made this picture, which is my best, I wanted to get away trom the limitations of 'The Smiling Lieutenant' and the la-la type of thing. I wanted to get away from the jailyard of the spotlight, of being the
Garbo is a prisoner of isolation. She must constantly be on guard against the limelight. Once Greta steps out of her legend she becomes a prisoner at bay
break is considered impossible. People would say, if I ever did escape, 'It must have been someone who looks like Mary Brian!' Even the tabloids would turn me down, I know. And I'm afraid that even the columnists would snub me.
"I never get invited to funny parties, like week-ends on yachts and penthouse goings-on — not unless the places bristle with chaperons and everyone plays tick-tack-toe when I am in sight. No one ever 'insults' me. If a 'good story' is being told and I put in an appearance, voices are lowered and the story ends. It's awfully tiresome, sometimes, to be a prisoner in a rock-candv house. It gets sticky. And it's worse than tiresome — it's professionally destructive. I never get an opportunity to be anything but an innocuous little ingenue on the screen."
In a good many cases, these prisoners of their reputations suffer professionally even more than they do personally. I shall always remember Constance Talmadge's telling me how she got down on her knees to Joseph Schenck a few years ago and begged him, with tears in her eyes, to let her make "The Last of Mrs. Cheyney." But no, Connie" was a comedienne, a particular kind of comedienne. And a comedienne she must remain, or else. . . . Connie chose the "or else."
Zasu Pitts once said to me, "Von Stroheim used to think
Irene Dunne would like to escape from the "perfect ladv" roles —
and she would like to prove to the world that marriages can be
happy in Hollywood
eternal vaudevilhan. I wanted to create different characters, serious characters. But non! I am the prisoner of the spotlight and it mus' turn on and on and I mus' sing and dance. . . ."
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