Paramount Press Books (1919)

ELSIE FERGUSON A Psychological Analysis of the Beautiful Artcraft Star BY Baron Dewitz “A Mine of Human Emotion and Poetry * * * Veined With Glittering Ore -Bodies of Talent * * * The Complexities of Whose Nature are Legion * * * The Idol of Motion Picture Fans.** ELSIE FERGUSON is an earnest seeker for completeness in everything. In any part she may be playing ; in her wardrobe, in her household affairs, in her relation to friends and acquaintances, in her attitude to the public, in all her undertakings, big or little, in her every pastime and pleasure. She is insatiable on this point. It is not a whim of hers, nor even an idea. It is born and bred in her. It is the foundation of her make-up as a human being, as a woman and as an artist, and it is hard to say which of these elements predominates in her. If Elsie Ferguson makes up her mind that a thing is worth while, you may be certain that she will not stop half-way. Whatever she touches is done thoroughly from the ground up or not done at all. She does not shirk. She does not cut the corners to “get there.” The easiest way out is not hers unless it happens to be the only logical way out. Dilletantism she abhors. Amateurism sickens her. This natural craving for completeness, added to a keen sense of duty, instilled into her during childhood, are the elements that have enabled Elsie Ferguson to earn her way to preeminence on a clean-cut basis of merit and perseverance. She is a mine of human emotion and poetry and the wisdom that comes from sagely unlearning all one has learned. A mine veined with glittering ore-bodies of talent ; a mine dotted with rare nuggets of possibilities, lightly touched ; a mine streaked with the glancing metal of a strange and fascinating competence ; a mine well exploited but only partly explored. As an artist she stands in a class by herself. The conceit and selfglorification and hauteur «<-> p«-©rrai ent in stellar women are deterrents pleasantly unknown to her. She is an ardent and humble working student in the great domains of art and she appears to be conscious all the time that the true master must be a learner and a student and a worker always to maintain preeminence. She does not look without for approbation. She looks within herself and is content with what she finds there. The cheap candy of a momentary popular vogue does not tempt her. Look at that face ! It isn’t American at all. Not to an eye who has seen the world. The tumult and noise of New York was merely the earthquake that brought Elsie, the fee, to the surface in a vision bursting radiantly through the roaring vapors. Miss Ferguson hails from somewhere in the Romance Ages when monks wrote Latin with goose-quills and men wore scale armour and women were graciously homely and noble and gentle. In her mellow, rapt voice nestles an echo of the troubadour trumpet, and certainly not the screech of our society woman. The gentle poetry of her face, now calm, now arduous, is the kind that turned the cavaliers of yore into crusaders and handed real manhood down to us. The aspect of her figure, even the strangely swaying walk and listless gestures, belong in a royal w lien ladies rode on palfreys, richly caparisoned escorted by falconeers and launched the hooded hawk from the glove. The complexities of her nature are legion. She has in her the tender, lyric vein of a de Musset and the graceful distinction of an Alma Tadema, but she has also the practical grasp and plenty of “pep” and “punch” when her pulse is more than normally active. She has in her the sweet melancholy of a great composer and the human appeal of noble effort, and she is mystically related to the powers that rule in Ultima Thule. All these contradictory elements, and many more, are kept in bounds and ruled over the scepter of a personality that looks before it steps, but never looks behind, that peers pensively into the future over the shattered temples of the past. She seldom mislays her scepter. That is why all who know her love her, and all who see her in motion pictures admire while they reverence her art. 3