Pauline Frederick : on and off the stage (1940)

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Elizabeth 173 over the part during the remaining tour of the play. In this play the vicious, cunning side of the character of Queen Elizabeth is emphasized, without the softer side ever showing through as it did in the love scenes which she had with Essex in the former play. To play a part in which the audience must hate you or you have failed in your portrayal, is not easy nor pleasant. Pauline felt that the more the audience loathed her, the better she had succeeded, and when she came on to take her curtain calls, if the gallery hissed and booed, she knew she had done a good job. When, after several curtain calls, she finally broke away from the character of Elizabeth and smiled, the contrast was so definite that oh's and ah's could be heard all through the audience. Following " Elizabeth the Queen," Pauline made a film for Paramount entitled " Wayward." In this she was a thoroughly unpleasant mother-in-law. It was the story of a chorus girl — played by Nancy Carroll — who marries the son of a haughty dowager and becomes the focal point for a considerable amount of domestic misunderstanding. Richard Arlen played the son. Pauline wore a white wig in this production to give her the age and severity necessary for the portrayal of the cold, calculating mother-in-law. Also, one suspects, this wearing of the white wig was a concession to her longing to have white hair like her mother's! It was not a pleasant part and while her histrionic ability enabled her to portray it to the full, it, unfortunately, placed upon her the worst curse of Hollywood — that of typing actors and actresses. From now on she was invariably cast as a scheming mother or mother-in-law. Nor did it rest with Hollywood but followed her to the stage also, and the same year she played a similar role in " When the Bough Breaks " in New York. It was neither a good play nor a good part.