Photoplay (Jan - Jun 1931)

A G reat T, rouper Comes to Ton wn THE fire, the beauty, the oi living is still a part of Marjorie Rambeau. Marjorie Rambeau, one of the most glamorous actn who ever stepped before Footlights, whoso vividness shot Roman candle-like into tindark sky of the theatrical profession only to be clouded by hitter scandal, is in Hollywood. They said ah, what didn't they say about Marjorie Rambeaul A certain strange quality that bespeaks the soul of an artist surrounded her like a sable eoat. During her first days on Broadway sin was dynamite. When she appeared before an audience she touched it like an electric shock. When she walked upon the stage she glowed with an inner fire. Lessei actors, knowing the power of her art, were afraid to appear in the same cast with her. She was known as •The Yellow Peril." No woman, so dominant, so vital, so truly feminine, could have dodged the darts of sip. So they said that unhappy habits had ruined many a contract for her. There was that fatal night when the curtain was rung down at the opening performance of "The Road Together." THERE were alienation of affection suits. She spent money|as she spent her energies. Her brilliance made the tongues wag. She was, somehow, destined for it, as was Jeanne Eagels. If you look back over her life you will realize the inevitable. For she was plunged, as a child, into an experience so stirring, so active, that anything she did later could but pale into insignificance. In 1898 a golden cloud fell across the world. Thousands of men and women began the trek to Alaska and along with them went little Marjorie, her mother, who had just completed a medical course and had conceived the idea of opening a hospital in Nome, and her grandmother. The hospital was not such a success. Those hardy pioneers had no time for illness. It was effeminate to go to a hospital. You worked for your gold. You stopped only for death. But Marjorie found ways of occupying herself. Her hair was cut short, she wore box's clothes and no one suspected By E I a i )i c O g (/ c ti Marjorie Rambeau, unbowed by time and the tongue of scandal, begins a new and vivid life in the studios that she was a little girl. She I to appear in gathering pl.o e> with her small ba and croon a tune for miners. \\ hen it was finished she would throw her cap on the tloor ami if they liked the song anil wanted more tinmen WOtlld fling gold into the cap. Those were protli. days. The pockets oi Marjorie's trousers bulged. How could she be content, after that, with a humdrum life? It was to the theater and its excitement that she turned next. THEY had thought her a little boy in Alaska, but in Portland where she began her theatrical career they believed her a woman grown. She was twelve years old when she played the role of L<uniUc. Buxom, beautiful, in a gown which now is almost too small for her, she died nightly for love. The magic of her art next found a place in stock companies and then on Broadway. Long runs in "1 :h," "Antonia." "Cheating Cheaters" and many, many others made Marjorie Rambeau loved and feared. It was she who, at last, introduced the idea of "guest star" in stock companies. She played in the larger Middle-Western cities and in the West and her fame spread throughout the United States. Everything that she touched became alive. Everything that she did was "good copy" for the newspapers. Her name was flung across the front pages of the world. 1 now she has come to Hollywood. You would think, perhaps, that such a woman would have spent herself. You would imagine that she has given all she has to give. But you would be mistaken. Marjorie Rambeau, in her forties, is as vital and alive as she was when she was Broadway's "Yellow Peril." Her eyes sparkle. Her face [please tcrn to pagi 120 ] ■