Motion Picture Magazine (Feb-Jul 1920)

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Hydroelectric Engineer Accountant and Auditor ^...Telephone Engineer Bookkeeper _.Telegraph Engineer Stenographer ^..Wireless Operator Fire Insurance Expert ..Architect_ Sanitary Engineer «_..Building Contractor ^...Civil Engineer ^...Structural Engineer ^..Mechanical Engineer '^..Shop Superintendent |^«Steam Engineer J^... Draftsman and Designer Common School Branches ....Photoplay Writer ....Foreman's Training ....Employment Manager Course .-...Master Plumber Heating & Vent. Engineer Automobile Engineer Automobile Repairman Airplane Mechanic ..General Education Course Name fri Address WlOO Some Claytonesque Conceptions (Continued from page 53) I cant tell you about it now. It is a story that will appeal — as it appealed to me." The great grey eyes gazed thoughtfully into the glowing embers. You know how becomingly Ethel Clayton does her hair — the side part, and wavy puff above her forehead, the two cute curly puffs over each ear. It all caught the fire devils which danced in the darkest part of the big living room, while her parrot chattered, "Pretty, pretty, pretty." "Good taste that bird," I thought. The girl wore a blue dress with an embroidered white vest and collar, a tiny black silk bow fastening it to the round Eton collar. One very white hand with its diamond and platinum circlet and oblong watch on the half-bare arm, served to remind me of her widowhood, for these were gifts from the man she loved. She turned about with a sudden change of thought. "I get weary of Hollywood, altho I like living in California. When it palls too much on me, I gather up father and mother and drive off somewhere. Right after my husband's death, when I thought I could not take interest in anything again, I came West with my seamstress, chauffeur and brother Donald. We had my big Pierce Arrow, which, when packed, weighed three tons. It took us a month to cross the continent. It saved my reason, and my ability to keep on working. "I never knew there were such places as we saw in Arizona. You think of the Indian as unkempt, dirty, living in a smoky teepee. So did I, until I saw villages of eggshell white houses, with their picturesque walls wonderfully decorated in odd blues or yellows — many of them having strange decorations, stories of the tribe. I could not believe I was in America. One morning we came suddenly upon such a village, set in the grandeur of mountains and sunrises, sage-brush and cactus palms. At the well stood a girl, her legs wound in white cloth. She wore a short skirt, beaded and embroidered, a loose white blouse, strings of beads, while around her head was fastened a hand-loom shawl, the head band about her forehead letting the draperies fall over her shoulder, on which she carried a water jug. It was a bit of a Bible story come to life. "Every three months I have a trip. I get restless. This fall I bundled up mother and brother — father was East — and we traveled Northward, exploring. We had had no food for twenty-four hours when we reached a place called Delta in northern California. It was a little construction camp — two saloons and a house in which the wife of the foreman lived. She was our good angel. I bought bacon, butter and coffee at the company storehouse. The butter alone cost $2.50! The woman let me cook on her little stove. I have never enjoyed a meal at the Ritz as I did that 'chow' in a shack far from civilization." "You'll be doing Europe next I suppose?" "Plans are all made," confessed Ethel, picking up Mitzie, who had been yelping crossly over her indifference to his waving plume of a tail. "I'll go to New York by train and buy a new car there. We will travel light and camp out a lot. It is really the only way to see the country. I have eight months more under this contract, and if all goes well, I hope to work only another year after that. With what I have been able to scrape and invest, I figure we can live comfortably, altho I shall not be wealthy. I want a home in which to keep my husband's little son, age nine, and my little niece. Besides, I may adopt a girl of my own. Tolstoy," she said with a smile, "has said it is a greater work to raise children whom one has not borne and to do it well, than to love and rear one's own. That's a theory upon which I shall work anyway. My little son is at a military school. I want him to have discipline and proper training until I can look after him." Lucky kiddies ! With her beautiful disposition, her acquired self-control, and her love of culture, those youngsters will have a mother to be loved ardently. "Are stories of the screen improving?" I asked. "Getting, worse all the time," said Miss Clayton, positively. "All the good things, novels, Saturday Evening Post stories, other really good magazine tales have been used. I would rather play light comedy (one feels that, for Ethel has a lurking twinkle at each lip corner, serious tho her eyes may be), than the heavy stuff they buy for me. I hear that I am to do 'Shulamite.' I'm not keen on that ! "The trouble with our modern story is that the American public seems to demand boy and girl affairs, ending happily. To the European, the time before marriage is utterly uninteresting. They are all alike. It is the readjustment of conditions for the boy and girl after the ceremony which will count. We act and react — begin to live after we marry, not before. We shall not take great pictures until we escape from trite subjects. We need to deal with live issues in married life. Great novelists abroad realize this." "And you think you'll not miss the stage and screen when you settle down to mothering the little kiddies? Dont you think of marrying again?" We were on dangerous ground, but the kindly attitude of the star had made us bold. "I feel that I want to be free ! If my husband had lived, everything would have been different. I cannot imagine loving another man. I want to give the children educational advantages abroad. My time will be occupied with them. And I have so much to do for father, mother and Donald. A man might be a disturbing influence in such a complete family — I have known them to upset things !" She laughed until white teeth gleamed in the firelight. "You see, I began to work very early and so I am going to retire before any one wants me to. "It's a big responsibility to raise a girl now. I am thinking of that. It will take more thought for the girl than for the boy. People say that dangers lurk everywhere for the girl, that if she is an actress she cant stay straight. I dont see why. The world is not growing worse. I know that as a girl, I was often in unclean atmospheres, but it never made me unclean. The great thing is, to have self-respect and a conscience like an alarm clock — that's my solution of the social problem." Yes, Miss Clayton holds herself aloof, she is not given to great intimacies, but always she is approachable, cordial and as for copy ... we had chatted of plays, politics, religion, morals, the lack of selfrespect in the rising generation, the necessity of character building, and always the quaintly beautiful theories of Ethel iose to the fore. Clever Ethel. Dont you say so?