Photoplay (Jul - Dec 1938)

EflUL 3HT LI preceding evening and then asked abruptly. "How about that property of mine? You have it?" I started to hand over the key and then changed my mind. In a bantering tone, I told him he would have to identify it. To my utter amazement, he asked for his stickpin! hi I PICKED up this key on the floor right after you'd left," I told him, "and when you said that you'd lost something, I naturally supposed this was it. I know nothing about your stickpin." He pulled the car into a parking place at the curb, took the key from me and turned it over in his fingers, looking at it from all sides. "There's a number stamped on it," he said, indicating the numeral "5," "but no name of any bank. Do you have any idea where this lockbox is located?" "Yes," I said, "I have." "Where?" "I don't think I have the right to tell you." He frowned. "You see," I went on, "I fibbed to you. I'm Claire Bell. I work for Mr. Foley. This morning . . . well, anyway, something happened which makes me think that key fits a certain lockbox. I should have told Mr. Foley, but I didn't because of what you said over the phone." Gravely he handed the key back to me, slipped the car in gear, and said, "All right, lef s eat." He drove me to a little restaurant, a place I'd never known existed, where we had wonderful food and an atmosphere of delightful privacy. All during the meal I could see that he was studying me and I managed to get over some of my tonguetied awkwardness and chat with him. As the waiter brought coffee, there was a lull in the conversation, a lull which gradually developed into one of those silences which grow in magnitude until one, in place of casually searching for something to say, frantically calls one tentative subject after another to mind, only to reject it as being altogether inane. And, as is so frequently the case, this silence was broken by both of us starting to talk at once, but my words died on the tip of my tongue when I heard what Bruce Eaton had to say. "I'm going to quit pictures." It was a simple announcement, evidently marking a decision which he had reached after those seconds of silent deliberation. "You're quitting pictures!" He nodded. "But," I said, "you can't. Why, good Lord, your public wouldn't let you. You couldn't afford to, you're right at the peak of your earning capacity. You're box-office, you're . . . you're . . . you're everything." oEEING the sadness of his smile, I suddenly realized what it must mean to a star to forfeit everything that success in the pictures stands for — not that it's usually the result of renunciation, because in most instances it isn't. Fame is fleeting and public favor is fickle. At one moment a man finds himself the recipient of public adulation; cafes consider his patronage an honor; people push and jostle each other, trying to get close enough to get his autograph. Then abruptly, and within a few short months, he is forgotten, shunned by those who once fawned on him. His brother actors, who are themselves wooing the goddess of Success, cannot afford to contact the aura of failure. He seemed to be reading my mind. He said, "An acting career is for the most part like a skyrocket. You go up with a blaze of glory, and come down a dead stick. There are a very few who have learned how to stay up. Their careers are permanent. They shoot up into the zenith of stars and remain as luminous balloons — character actors who lend a certain dignity to the profession and give a touch of reality to any play in which they appear." "Are you going to be one of those?" I asked. He shook his head. "I'm afraid not. Woodley Page is one." I nodded. "And Woodley Page," he went on, "gave me my start. It was through him I was picked from the extras and given my big chance. And now Woodley Page is at the turning point of his own career. Not that the public is tiring of him, because the public will never tire of him as an actor. But an old scandal is about to drag him into the slime of the public cesspool which is aired on the front pages of our newspapers every day. People will read about it with eager avidity. Every man, woman and child in the United States will know of it. There's a sadistic something which makes the public delight in tearing down actors whom it has built up." "And what has this to do with you?" I asked. "I," he said, slowly, "can prevent it," and then added, after a moment, "at the cost of my own career. But my career is probably at its zenith. Tomorrow, next week, or next month may start the decline. My fan mail will start falling off. I'll be given parts in one or two pictures which will be mechanical repetitions of some of my former successes. Perhaps I'll be cast in an unfortunate part and . . . but there's no need to portray it by successive steps. You know it— that is, if you know anything about pictures." I tried to hold his eyes with mine. "All right," I told him, "your career may be at its zenith, but you're not on the road down. I know a little something about pictures. I think I see them through the eyes of the average fan, but I think perhaps I've analyzed my feelings a little more accurately than the average fan does — or are you interested?" "Very much," he said, and his eyes showed that he was. "I come in contact with a world of selfishness," I said. "I'm romantic in my thoughts. I have ideals. It's a struggle to keep those ideals. I meet young men who turn out to be selfish and artificial, young men who have adopted a pose of cheap cynicism because they think that is modern sophistication. The everyday world about me is filled with cheap, sordid realism, a synthetic, cheap selfishness which masquerades as sophistication — I can't keep my ideals living in continuous contact with such an environment. "I go to a movie. I see you on the screen. You represent the personification of my ideals. I know that you're not real. I know that you're an artificial personage. I know you personally have magnetism, charm and character. I know that on the screen you're appearing in parts which have been created by the brains of many authors. But your personality and charm make those parts seem real to me. The critics with their sneering sophistication say that these plays are box-office, that they're hokum. To me they're not hokum. They're the food which keeps my ideals alive. The parts you take would be meaningless unless you took them. If it weren't for you, I'd see only a series of situations written by authors and projected on a screen. The minute you enter the picture, it all becomes real to me. I lose myself in the picture. You arouse my sense of illusion." "If I go," he said, "there'll be someone else to take my place," and his smile was wistful. Before I realized what I was saying, I blurted out, "No one can ever take your place with me." And, suddenly realizing what I had said, felt my cheeks flush crimson. His hand came across the table to rest on mine. "I'm sorry, Miss Bell," he said, in a voice vibrant with sincerity, "and thanks for giving me faith in myself and in what I stand for at a time when I need it — but there's no alternative. It's either Woodley Page's career or mine." "What can you do?" I asked. "I can stand between him and what's coming," he said. "I can take the blame." I TOOK the key to the safe-deposit box from my purse. "Does that," I asked, holding it between my thumb and forefinger, "have anything to do with it?" He said, thoughtfully, "I think that may have a great deal to do with it. It goes back many years, when Woodley Page was a star and when a young woman, whose name I won't mention, was numbered among the first five at the box office. It was at a time when Hollywood hadn't acquired the moral stamina it has now. People were dealing with something new, and, particularly, people didn't know how to take success. They couldn't understand the skyrocket sweep of surging power which jerked an actor up from oblivion to the dizzy heights. "This actress became involved in a situation from which Woodley Page, who was young, and romantic, and indiscreet, tried to extricate her. Letters and messages changed hands. "Woodley Page went on to success. The actress made several attempts to come back and (Continued on page 80) 3i