Motion Picture Classic (Jul-Dec 1928)

the Lowdoivn /^^ ^ Divorce ^ ^ Woodbury Jaime del Rio, Dolores' divorced husband Dolores del Rio Endorses an Old American Custom By ELISABETH GOLDBECK Edwin Carewe, ber discoverer and director TWO years ago Dolores del Rio, her husband's arm about her, said with very genuine dismay. "I think the mos' horrible thing in American life is divorce. I don' understan' ! How can people do it ?" But even as she spoke, divorce was beginning its insidious work. Dolores could hardly speak English then. Yet already she was acutely aware of divorce. It was one of the first English words she learned. And the germ had been planted in her protesting mind. Jaime del Rio warmly echoed her sentiments— or rather, she echoed his. For in those days Dolores was a docile wife who thought what she was told. And so they were very happy. It took just a little over two years for. the germ to develop. The other day Dolores, vivid, buoyant, and immensely articulate, cried, "I have just gotten a divorce, and I have never been so happy I" A continent lay between her and her husband. She stood in the sun, in the brilliant, careless costume of a gypsy. As she talked, her rich coloring and lively expression reflected the lightness of her heart. She forgot that she was just as happy two years ago — but for different reasons. That was before .she knew anything about emancipated women. Before she had known the intoxication of celebrity and adulation. Before unsettling triumphs had encouraged her ego. Then she was content to be what she had been since the age of fifteen — the beautiful and obedient wife of a Latin husband. This delightful state of things continued for some time after Edwin Carewe brought her to Hollywood as his pet and particular discovery. Jaimie was then absorbed in the career that was in store for his wife.. He left his work and came to Hollywood with her. He hovered about her, interpreted her thoughts (which were his thoughts), extolled her charms. He vould talk for hours of the way she photo graphed, the special quality of her skin, the types she would like to play, all the details of her screen life. He was all interest and solicitude. And he talked lightly of divorce, as something he regarded with disfavor, but which was so far outside the sphere of his own life that it could be looked upon tolerantly. Scrambled Families P\OLORES observed it with more •^ horror. "Why," she in.sisted. "everyone in America has been divorced two or three times ! Their children have several different fathers. They are all mixed up! I want to know how the women feel when they meet the men they were married to. How they feel toward the women their husbands marry. And how the children feel toward all their different parents. I jost cannot imagine doing such a thing!'' She was determined to sift the matter to the bottom, and had already begun to make extensive research among the divorcees she had met. What appalled her sensitive Latin soul most of all was that no one seemed to mind in the least being questioned on this delicate topic. In fact, they rather insisted on discussing it. When' I talked with her the other day, she didn't wait to be que.stioned. but poured out the story of her own divorce in a torrent of eager words. "How changed I am ! I am a different person entirely. I have given up all my oldfashioned ideas and have become just like an American woman !" She clutched her stomach. "Not only myself, but even my stomach has changed completely. When I first came I couldn't eat American food. It seemed tasteless, and didn't satisfy me. But I learned to love it. And now when I go to a Mexican restaurant, the food — my own food ! — makes me terribly sick !" (Continued on page 72) 23 Kussell Hall