Motion Picture Classic (Jan-Jun 1929)

Here are four men who've never had to complain of a femmefamine, but rather of the opposite; from the top and downward, they are: Ronald Colman, Richard Dix, Buddy Rogers and John Gilbert (HE case of Valentino proves," a critic wrote T I caustically at the time M of Rudie's death, "that American men have failed as lovers and husbands. It is a terrible indictment." When the handsome hero kisses the heroine on the screen, does every woman in the audience feel kissed? Are the ardent letters that make up so much of a film sheik's fan mail written by romantic schoolgirls or by faithful wives, mothers, school teachers, women of position and intelligence.' Are American women really starving for romance, hungry for love.' And when a woman meets a movie lover out of business hours, does she expect him to make love to her? If the experience of movie lovers is any indication, the answer is yes. Women do not separate the actor who has thrilled them with his photographic fervors, his camera kisses, from the man himself. \ ou may write of a romantic star that he is happily married and the father of a dozen children, and it makes no difference. You may photograph him in grubby sweater and corduroys, fishing or cutting his lawn, and it won't change the women. So far as they are concerned, he is the great lover, and when they meet him they look at him challengingly, coyly, ardently — hopefully. In fifteen j'ears of writing about the screen I have kno\\ ii them all, all the heart smashers, the romantic sheiks from 30 \\on^t Women From Maurice Costcllo This Has Been The By DOROTHY DONNELL Maurice Costello, of the dimples; Frances X. Bushman with his inches and wavy pompadour; Wally Reid and his heart-wrenching smile; Valentino with the smoldering flame that was in him; Richard Dix the he-man; John Gilbert of the flashing bold eyes; Ronald Colman with the dark suflPering look; Buddy Rogers whom the Greeks surely meant when they wrote of "the hyacinthine boy"; suave Nils Asther — all the handsome rest of them. They are as difi^erent as men could well be in temperament, tastes, personality, ways of thinking. One popular idol conceals a practical business outlook behind a melting dark glance, another is interested in gardening and can talk eloquently on the subject of cutworms and fertilizers. and a third — whose screen love-making is incendiary — is a blase bachelor. They work at love-making from nine to five, as another man with less perfect profile and less wavy hair works at the wholesale butter and egg business. But after business hours they are not allowed to drop their role. Wherever they go, whatever they do, they are expected to be the great lover still. 'Sure I'd like to marry," Richard Dix once told me bitterly, "but what chance have I got to meet any girls? All a movie star ever meets are movie fans. I'd like to know regular girls, girls outside the profession, the kind of girls other fellows my age are introduced to and call on and take out to parties. But no matter where I go it's just the same: we movie actors are different, fhey expect us to behave the way we do on the screen. We cant get acquainted with a girl normally, naturally. We're expected to be always acting." Buddy is Bewildered BUDDY ROGERS came to the screen fresh from college, fraternity dances, class tugs of war, exams. His almost immediate popularity did not go to his head because he had been something of a celebrity in college and had just exchanged one kind of fame for another. But the realization of the difFercnce was to come to him in another way. A studio friend told me that on his first big location trip Buddy and the rest of the cast were entertained at a dinner given by the townspeople. And at the close of the evening Buddy came to him. "I'm afraid those women thought I was awful