The New Movie Magazine (Dec 1929-May 1930)

The New Movie Magazine The Best Story About Mary Pickford Ever Written (Continued from page 26) to see that he didn't have the equipment to deal squarely. What he did didn't seem wrong to him. It was just smart-dealing, self-protection, getting a little bit the better of the other fellow. That was the best he knew. I don't blame him any more. I am sorry for him. And when not so long ago he had to come back and needed help, when the results of his mistake had caught up with him, I was able to give it gladly — without any sense of triumph. "No one, perhaps, is naturally patient and forgiving and forbearing. Yet every woman has to learn to be all these things. IT has been the same about some of the girls in pictures who are foolish, careless of their reputations and their ways of living. I used to be critical of them and angry because their actions cast a shadow upon the whole motion picture industry and cost the rest of us both our good name and our profits. "But since my great sorrow came to me, I do not feel that way. I remember all that I had in my life. My mother's continual and constant guiding and protection from the time I could think. I remember how she watched over me and tried to show me with love and wisdom the better path to take at every crossroads. At times in my life when I was on the verge of making mistakes, terrible mistakes, she was always within reach to give me understanding, companionship, all the results of her great experience of life and knowledge of people. "Yet I know that I am not the woman I wish I might be, not as fine as she was. "Then what can be expected of girls without fathers and mothers, without homes and care? I am sorry for them, for the rest of us. I pray that they will grow to see things differently. I pray daily that the heart of the world may grow softer and that "man's inhumanity to man" may be changed to man's brotherhood. I don't believe it is possible to show too much love in this world. Everyone needs it so. If we could do away with all greed and envy and revenge, don't you think the world would be a better place? And can't we each try to do away with it in our own hearts?" She turned that strangely luminous gaze of hers upon me— there is a violet light under the hazel of Mary's eyes that is unlike anything I have ever seen in any other woman's eyes. With all their softness, they carry a conviction. Mary Pickford would be a crusader, never a martyr. Essentially modern as she is, with a super-developed sense of humor that is a natural Pickford characteristic and which has been cultivated by years of marriage to the film colony's most accomplished practical joker, Mary is nevertheless a timeless person. By that I mean that her most marked traits are those which have been in the nature of all women, all good women, since time began. She has a clean something about her that nothing can change. It is the same quality that made Lindbergh stand out. Mary herself doesn't talk about it much, but she believes absolutely and devotedly in prayer. In God, as a loving father, and not as some theological principle or distant force. As she has grown older, the religious side of her nature has become intensified. ONCE when she was desperately unhappy, she said to me, "I couldn't go on if I didn't believe in God." I reminded her of that the other afternoon when we sat over the teacups in her pink and crystal boudoir. "Do you still feel that way?" I said. She thought a moment. "Yes, more than ever. You see, if you believe in a purpose back of the scheme of things, it makes you able to endure. If you believe that everything works out in time, that sorrows and troubles are just passing tests, to strengthen and broaden and teach you, they don't seem so bad. It is useless and senseless suffering that breed rebellion and bitterness. "I know now that things do work out, in time. I know that we are given some sort of protection, in that everything passes. We grow more and more simple, as we grow deeper and deeper into the the meaning of life. We regard the inevitable with some serenity, without the constant protest and restless anguish of extreme youth, which has not yet been taught the eternal law of compensation. "The greatest lesson in the world to me is to learn to be happy in adversity. Once, I wanted everything just right, before I could be happy. I was always planning — when this comes true, when I have done so-and-so, when I have more money, when mother is well again, when I have made a great picture — then I will be happy. Now I know that the time never comes in anyone's life when the scheme of things is absolute perfection, when everything is exactly as we wish it. "And so I have learned to be happy for every beautiful thing that comes to me. To realize that there are 'a number of things' always, and that most of them are good, and I don't lose the joy they might give me because some one other thing isn't just as I would have it. ALL living is a continual adjustment. And I know, too, that we most often defeat ourselves. We think someone else does it, or some outside circumstance, or some difficulty. But it isn't so. We defeat ourselves, because of our wrong mental attitude toward things. It isn't the thing that happens that is important. It's what we think about it, our reaction to it. It isn't the other person who matters — what he does or what he thinks about us. It is what we think about him. The whole game is in our own hands, and we throw it away so many times." I remembered then something which Charlie Paddock, the great runner, once told me about Mary. It was the night before the finals in the Olympic games in 1924. Charlie was facing the toughest competition of (Continued on page 108) « a scenario of comfort for men (Choose your own theme sons) Time Any morning Place . In front of your shaving mirror Cast You, in person (Author's note: In the midst of comedy and slapstick, we present this moving drama of home life — unique, with a cast of only one man. Our dear, clever Public will readily see that this is a new-fashioned picture in spite of its MORAL which is — "There's shaving comfort in that thar jar!") ACTION — CAMERA — MICROPHONE You enter, yawning. Rub your bristly beard. Scowl darkly. Mutter. Open the medicine chest. Pick up jar of "Vaseline" Jelly. Look dubious. Open it and spread a little over your beard. Get out shaving cream and apply in your customary fashion. Still look unconvinced. Start to shave. Look surprised. Try another stroke. Register "What! No razor pull?" Whistle theme song and finish shaving. Dry face. Feel it. SMOOTH. No soreness. Looks fine, too. Express delight. Exit, still whistling theme song. « Step right up, boys, and join the "Vaseline" cast — buy a jar or tube for your personal use. And remember when you buy that the trade mark Vaseline on the label is your assurance that you dre getting the genuine product of the Chesebrough Mfg. Co., Cons'd, 17 State Street, INeW /OrK. © CbesebrouEh Mf«. Co.. Conu'd. 1930 Vaseline REG U S PAT OFF PETROLEUM JELLY 107