Motion Picture Magazine (Feb-Jul 1926)

Temperament " What is called temperament is usually bad manners. Real artists have no use for such subterfuge. Their work speaks for them" By Allan Dwan A FEW years ago, a famous movie vamp startled the world when it heard that her surroundings were as dark as her heart. It happened like this. The actress invited a group of newspaper men and women to take tea at her apartment in [Manhattan. When they arrived, they were admitted by a Nubian butler, head swathed in striped brocade, limbs quite bare, arms akimbo, and lips sealed. He took their wraps and silently ushered them into a dim saloon whose only light came from a translucent glass bowl held by a bronze monkey. The actress, draped in miles of black stuff, lay on a couch covered with velvet and fur. All the walls were covered with black. Tea was served in black cups and the reporters were not a little suspicious that they would be given ink instead of tea. The actress said little. Once in a while she spoke about her somber heart. Something like that, anyway. The story in the papers on the next day told about the lady's eccentricities, her morbid temperament that made her not only a vampire of the screen but a real vampire at heart, who preferred the horrible to the pleasant, death to life, destruction to creation. Some of them ridiculed her. Others felt sorry for her. But most of the people who read the story said "artistic temperament," shrugged their shoulders and turned to the next page where they became immediately engrossed in how a millionaire eloped with his laundress. J could mention several other stories of this elusive thing called temperament. That is, if I could find a real definite the ind tution.': Mr. Dwan goes with Gloria Swan: Gertrude Aster -i. The dictionary says vaguely, "temperament is ndual peculiarity of physical and mental constiThe movie fan defines it as the pyrotechnical display stars indulge in when something goes wrong. Mut to me, temperament seems nothing but bad temper and bad taste. /"* reat artists, and this goes for artists on the ^ screen as well, do not think of themselves as artists but as artisans. A woman novelist, 1 think it was Alice Duer Miller, said she would rather speak of her work than of her art. Most of the motion picture stars I have met or directed feel the same way. They come down to the studio to work, not to show off. That is why "artistic temperament" is so noticeably lacking among them. But the Hualler fry. Ah ! They have temperament enough to keep the Dupont works supplied with combustible material. They are ready to explode at every possible — and very often, impossible — opportunity. They love to rave and emote ; they speak of themselves as artists, and sav that their art comes before everything — even common sense, apparently. Here is a choice story I must pass on to you. It concerns a "French" actress who has acquired some fame on the screen but much more (Continued on paqc 121) r\ S3 ( pag\L