The New Movie Magazine (Dec 1929-May 1930)

The Tragedies and Joys of Bessie Love's Career Triangle, so I was very much Miss Somebody. I shall never forget that original visit to another studio. Harry McCoy took me around. Introduced me tc Louise Fazenda, Mabel Normand, Chester Conklin, Ford Sterling, Phyllis Haver and Marie Prevost. The way they nudged on another; their side-glances; their whispers; their very evident interest, almost awe, showed me definitely that they considered me important. Now, I don't suppose there's a person in the world who doesn't really like to be considered important; I frankly was getting my first taste of the subtle flattery which comes with fame. I enjoyed it. It was the awakening of a first self-confidence. Suddenly, being a player assumed a new importance. Two years rolled by. I had been made a star after my first few pictures. My contract had been torn up three times. I was now getting considerable money. I also had my diploma from high school. That little loneliness which came from being the last adopted baby in a grown-up family had left me time to study. I wore my dear crescent pin. I sometimes still wear it. D. W. Griffith left the company. That automatically severed my connection. I re-signed. It was a mistake. Bad pictures. Instead of the latest find of D. W. Griffith, I was just a star who had to make good pictures. There is no use to go into the details. They were largely technical. But I felt they were not living up to the contract, so I left them. Pathe believed my side of the story. They signed me. \/J Y first trip to New York City. ***■ Here was my opportunity to study other women, to learn from their dress, to purchase some for myself from the exclusive shops on Fifth Avenue. We stayed at the Biltmore. It was like a page from a fairy story. Yet it was the little things which thrilled me. A nicknack from a cosmetic store. A bunch of violets out of season. Irene Castle, Fanny Ward and Frank Keenan were the Pathe stars of that day. They were all so sweet to me. Frank Keenan taught me little tricks for the camera. "Listen. Don't let them turn your face away from the camera. Step back so you get the inning." Florida! I remember when I firsF went to see D. W. Griffith, there had been a company working in Florida. Mother had said, "A profession which gives you travel can't be so bad. Travel means education." Now / was going to Florida. I was going to travel. I felt of my little crescent pin and thought that even the principal would approve of this side of my profession. I fear the picture, itself, had little place in my thoughts as the train spun us through the Southern states. The trees, the country-side, the transition from rustic brown leaves — it was fall — to green ones. Ah, the first trip. Hpw much more it means than those that come thereafter. I suppose all youth, whether it be spent in the movies, in schools or in farmhouses, passes through the same phases. I returned to California and began to wonder just what life had to offer. At this time, I had no real reason for such agnosticism. I was now with Vitagraph on the West Coast. My salary was huge even for that period of pictures. I had bought a ranch in Tulare County; we owned our home. My pictures were as good as other stars' pictures. But I was growing up. I suffered from mental growing pains. For every bit of happiness and joy I saw around me, I found someone who was miserable, unhappy, to offset it. Was there anything to this hereafter business? What did work, success, fame, money, matter if we were just so many pebbles whirling through eternity without any definite rhythm behind us? I did not think to reverse my adolescent deductions — to remember that for every bit of misery I found, there '^9p ' was happiness somewhere to offset it. QUll ■J-Ofca I DON'T know what might have happened to me who had always been so placid, so much the taking-f orgranted person, if we hadn't gone to the big trees in northern California to make "The Little Boss." I was walking down the street with Wallace MacDonald, who played the lead opposite me, discussing my feelings about the futility of existence, when for no reason at all, a child dashed across the road and handed me a single, tiny violet. She did not know me. There was no possible motive. I looked at the flower; I looked into the innocent eyes of the youngster; I saw the hope and the joy of young life dancing within them/ She dashed along, skipping; Wally and I walked into the lanes beneath the great trees, with their stateliness of. red trunks rising so straightforward above us. I looked at the tiny flower ; I breathed the majesty about me. Nature — trees — did being away from man if for only a moment bring out this feeling? And suddenly I knew The talkies brought Bessie Love bock to success after screen oblivion seemed just ahead. "Broadway Melody" made her one of the most sought after young actresses of 1929. "There must be something, Wally." It was the turning point from adolescent unrest to womanly, mature thinking. T WAS making big money but noth■*■ ing else. I do not blame the profession; I blame myself. I was making bad pictures. Suffering from lack of self-confidence. I did not struggle for good stories, good directors, good casts. I accepted things as they came and paid the penalty. It was only at rare times that I mustered the courage to fight. I remember I had been in the projection room with David Smith, who was directing; W. S. Smith, who was the studio, and the cameraman, to look at a test for a prospective leading man for myself. I didn't like him. I said (Continued on page 110) managing 80