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Does a
Mother-Complex
Threaten Swanson Career?
G'
LORIA
Swanson will never have a baby!"
Wallace Beery told me this during a heart-toheart talk, years ago. He spoke wistfully, for he had recently divorced the budding star and one of his grounds — along with "desertion" — had been that his wife did not wantchildren.
Barely twenty, athirst for an exciting life and burning with a determination' to win film fame, Gloria felt no urge for motherhood then. But now, twelve years later, a mothercomplex is threatening Gloria Swanson' s career!
"I am going to have another baby!" she cried excitedly to the London press last February. "Isn't it wonderful?"
It was the cry of a woman who cannot imagine a greater thrill than motherhood.
She has developed a veritable passion for children and has expressed a desire for a large family. The question arises: Does this desire mean that Gloria now would rather be a mother than a screen star? Her friends think it does — and would not be surprised if Gloria should soon leave the screen. Particularly since the baby born to her and Michael Farmer in London on April 5 was a girl — when she had been hoping for a boy, "so I could name it Michael"!
During the intervening years since she and Wallace Beery went their separate ways, Gloria has touched every point in a woman's experience. She has won world fame such as few other women have attained. She has triumphed spectacularly — and
44
I
she has been near failure. She has made fortunes — and she has been in debt almost a million dollars. She has married and been divorced, she has had a daughter and has adopted a son. Yet, just before she left for Europe in December with her new husband, Michael Farmer, Gloria told a friend that no fame or fortune or any other experience had ever given her the sheer joy that she felt when she knew she was to have another baby. She had never longed for anything more.
Pities Childless Women
AM thrilled to tears," she said, "and I find myself looking at other women who have not known motherhood, with a feeling of pity. I would gladly sacrifice everything I have ever gained, rather than relinquish this precious hope."
Though the coming baby was a secret that Hollywood wasn't sure it knew, she talked freely about it to intimate friends. Indeed, she would scarcely talk about anything else. She urged her bachelorgirl acquaintances to marry as quickly as possible in order to share her joy in bringing a child into the world. "If you don't hurry up," she warned them, as of the most terrible tragedy conceivable, "it may be too late for you to have any children of your own at all!"
Despite four marriages and three divorces before her thirty-second birthday (which, by the way, she celebrated on March 27 in Paris), Gloria firmly believes in marriage, believes it should be the foundation of every
woman's life. (Continued on
Gloria, thrilled by new motherhood, is in a mood to leave the screen and devote her life to her children, say her friends — and point to evidence supporting their claim!
By MAUDE CHEATHAM
page 68)