Photoplay (Jul-Dec 1930)

Most Disliked i Man in jHoUywoocf i By Elaine Ogden WITHOUT Ivan Lebedeff no Hollywood social gathering is a complete success. It is not that he's the life of the party — far from it. Russian aristocrats just don't put on ladies' hats, break out into burlesque spring dances and do card tricks. Rather, Ivan accomplishes some highly skilled magic upon every room he enters. He is surrounded with a glamorous, continental air. Your old parlor stops being just a parlor when Ivan enters and takes on the color of a high-ceilinged, crystal-chandeliered reception hall that might be a part of a European castle. Lebedeff is always included at the exclusive Pickfair parties. He is one of Dolores Del Rio's favorite guests. Embryonic social leaders vie for his presence. The best invitations are always to be found in his mail box. He is a picturesque figure, striding up and down the boulevards of Hollywood, for he is tall, handsome, hatless and yet he carries a cane. , No Hollywood premiere is quite complete without Ivan's white tic and monocle. At the luncheon table, the banquet board and the tea cart he can be uttcrlx depended upon for doing the right thing. Accomplished, amusing, charming. And yet, in spite of all this, or rather, perhaps, because of it, he is the most disliked man in Hollywood I He is instantly hated by every good old one hundred per cent American male in the country. When Ivan appears on the screen, boy friends begin belittling him. And when he is admitted to a room in Hollywood the men in the place find they have important engagements which must be kept. On the way home they say to their wives or sweethearts or both, "Now what do you see in a man like that? He's a conceited fellow, besides being a fool. That hand kissing stuff — now isn't that absurd? How can you fall for it?'' And the lady sighs romantically and is glad she had that manicure before Ivan kisse<l her hand. But there is more than meets the eye in all this deep seated male dislike. There is a story so flush with excitement, so breathless, so colorful that mere words don't do it justice. And the re This sort of thing makes men gnaw their whiskers at the sight of Ivan Lebedeff. Ivan, Betty Compson and Johnny Harron in a scene from "Street Girl" Men Hate Him, Women Are Fascinated — but Ivan Lebedeff Just Doesn't Care suits of this story on Ivan, himself, is a case D for the smart psychologist. Ivan has had everything and lost it and had it again only to lose it. He was the most glorious hero of the hour in Russia, a veritable Lindbergh (heralded with waving flags and martial music and the adoring eyes of women) who might have become the highest officer in the Ru.ssian army. .'^nd then came the Revolution and the horror he saw, the horror he was forced to perpetrate left him as he is. For he has tasted the bitter tedium of power, he has known the hollow glorv of adulation. He has been fantastically rich, and equally poor. BITS of things — pictures that have painted themselves dramatically upon the canvas of his mind. Horror. Terror. Pain. The evacuation of Odessa. Mothers snatched from their children. Wives watching their husbands shot down before them. Starvation. Death. Human beings turned animal. And a beautiful woman in sables standing on a wharf screaming hysterically, begging anyone to take her, to jelease her from it. Again, a picture. He, the sole dictator of a town once ruled by Bolshevists. He, with three hundred men holding the city with an iron hand for three days. Being forced to deal with well beloved friends as he did with the revolutionists. Watching a hundred or more lined up against a wall to be shot down by a sputtering machine gun. He has seen life in its most sordid version. Intellects smashed by horror. Brave men turned into whimpering boys. Nobly born women ready to exchange kisses with blackguards to be released from animal sufTering. After the Revolution he found himself in Constantinople and, by sheer luck, made a fortune, only to lose it all again in N'ienna. He has been involved in scandal, given the highest acclaim and has lived like a prince and a beggar. [ PLEASE TURN TC P.^OE 88 J 7.3