Photoplay (Jul - Dec 1919)

52 music, and watch the dancint;,— not to be ilislracted by a silly girl waving to her friends in the audience!' ••That's all 1 ever iliii on ihe stage," concluded Elaine reminiscently. It wa.N in the cool drawinj^-room of the Hammerstein apartment off West Enil avenue in New York — a shady room in green, deep and long, with a baby-graml piano stretching its smooth shining surface over a space at the bay window, littered with much-thumbed music and pictures of little Elaine and bigger Elaine and present-day Elaine — not so very big either. And a portrait of •"The Age of Innocence" and some signed sea-and-lantlscapes and low comfortable chairs and a tall ticking clock — and Mrs. Hammerstein, mother of Elaine, who looks like her — adding an unconscious motherly touch to it. Mrs. Hammerstein may not look motherly, for she is very young indeed; but I suspect it is her careful supervision which has kept up Elaine's spirits in all this theatrical flurry the child h.:s been literally shoved into. But pictures — they are a little better, she thinks. "This wav I can have some personal and social side, too — I don't have to give every bit of myself to the public. In a way it's gratifying. 1 suppose, to be in demand — I have made personal appearances in conjunction with my picture, 'Wanted for Mur<ler' — isn't that an awful title? — in several Bowery theatres, 'and the fact was impressed upon me that the picture public make real idols of their stars. •"In a certain stuffy little theatre, jammed to the doors — I came out on the stage and there was so much noise I couldn't hear myself think, much less speak — and some little grimy girls in the first rows were huddled together two in a seat, with greasy paper bags about — they'd brought their lunches. There's something in that, besides curiosity — '' Elaine's blue eyes grew a shade darker and deeper. "It's different from the mere superficial enthusiasm of a stage audience. I appreciate it — I do, really." She has a cool little nose, lovely blue eyes, very black hair, and a full mouth that curls temperamentally. She's so young, yet. that she lacks the sympathy which makes for understanding of people and without which an imitation of life must be j)alpably an imitation. But her mother has that sympathy and a broad understanding — and when she's a little older I've no doubt Elaine will have it. too. Photoplay Magazine Selznick — who is starring her in a seres of eight productions the coming year — chose as the first. "The Country Cousin" — an adaptation of a stage play in which .Alexandra Carlisle and Eugene O'Brien appeared two years ago. Elaine will have a chance, in her future productions, to play what she pleases — and she pleases to do things with a little dash of comedy and not loo much "heavy stuff.'' "I had to emote in 'Wanted for Murder' and The Co-respondent' — and a little loving goes a long way with me." •'Yes," sai<l mother, "I don't want Elaine to have to do that sort of thing.'' "I liked belter the two I did with Robert Wanvick, 'The Mad Lover' and 'The Accidental Honeymoon.' I really liked those. I could be natural in them." She's going to work, hard, on these new pictures — if for no ' other reason than that they are a safe haven which will keep her off the stage. I think, however, she is beginning to take a pride in her work. To enjoy it; to thrill at the thought of thousands watching her shadow; and even taking a personal pleasure in the letters she gets. Any girl with her own fdm company at her age. beautiful — who didn't? At any rate, Elaine starts with little or no sentimentality, which is a good sign and a blessing, if she is to continue in the films. Too many young ladies, essaying the silent drama, are possessed of a sticky pulchritude, whereas Miss Hammerstein has wholesome intelligent good looks; an amazing ego which permits of nothing but praise of their performances — while Elaine hasn't even the usual self-confidence of a comparative novice. She is a type of young girlhood who is best fitted, perhaps, to act young girls; a girl you might .see in Euclid avenue, in Cleveland; a budding youngster on Chicago's Lake Shore Drive; or Elaine herself, on a horse in Central Park. And there's her mother. I should count a great deal of Elaine's mother. She is a confident prediction, a charming revelation of a matured Miss Hammerstein. With a pal and a mother like that she can't help but succeed. For the rest she was born in Xew York — her biography says 1897; she is the grand-daughter of the late Oscar, the impresario; she was educated in Amiitage College, Pennsylvania, and that was her life until her father decided she should, armed with the family tradition, seek a stage career. .__^ D Pcrcival Squarcjaw . the juvenile lead, um;? nothing but a perfectlyappointed Fierce-Barrow in >ccne? oi his picture^. The Cars of a Star Drcming by Irvine Metzl But on Sunday afternoons he can usually be found somewhere afield, cramped under his Teakettle Two, extractin)^ a grasshopper that has gummed up locomotion. .r -A