The Photo-Play Journal (Jul 1919-Feb 1921)

16 PHOTO-PLAY JOURNAL July, igig WILL confess that when the editor wired me in his coy way, "get interview Lila Lee," I was not without misgivings. The lofty disdain of the average telegram for prepositions irritated me, and the more I thought, the less able I seemed to figure out anything that would be suitable as the subject of an interview with this muchwritten-about little Paramount star. It's easy enough for an editor just to lean back in his Louis XV easy chair and dictate those succinct little telegrams, I thought, bitterly, but how would he like having to get out and corral these stars and NAIL THEM DOWN TO facts! And how did he expect a fifteen-year-old girl would be able to talk to me anyway? I imagined the inane sort of conversation we would hold and took a queer mournful sort of pleasure in talking to myself as Lila Lee and then answering as my distraught self. "Qh, so you're the interviewer," she would Say. "Yes," modestly from me. "I like interviews," from her. "So do I," from me — with hngers carefully crossed. "I like movie work," from her. "Ah," from me, — and so on, a weary twenty minutes drag of banalities. "Why, I shall probably have to talk to her about dolls and playhouses," I said to myself. "She's under sixteen — and it makes me feel a hundred at least. . . ." But this absurd idea of mortals that they must eat to live, drove me forth upon my quest. It wouldn't do to keep the editor waiting— or he might return the compliment to me. I found that little Miss Lee Lad just returned from New York and, luckily, though not yet working on her new picture, was at the Lasky studio when I called. I was taken to her dressing room, which is really quite a cozy little place, with a chaise longue, or whatever you call it, of wicker, and nice paper on the walls. The cretonne was very artistic — not at all the nursery variety — I had expected the kind with figures of Mother Goose and Mary's Little Lamb on it, you know. Instead, it was of the pastel colors carefully blended — not a jarring note. There were flowers on the dressing table and a canary hung by the window — a few good Japanese prints were the only pictures, except one on her table — which I was told afterwards was Miss Lee's mother — one of her most cherished possessions. Minnie was with Lila when I went in. Minnie, be it known, is inseparable from her charge, being a pleasant, middle-aged lady with a watchful eye against any attempt of an outsider to become over-familiar with Miss Lee. Lila is a slender slip of a girl, dark, with masses of black, glossy hair and an oval face that is all lovely curves and contours. She has that olive complexion through which the ruby shows upon her cheeks in delicate shades like old Burgundy wine. Her lips, too, are full and red and she has the most deliciously retrousse nose imaginable. Her eyes are big and have those "unfathomable depths" of which our best little writers love to speak. Were she some ten years older she would be known as the girl with the Madonna face — as it is, she is just "pretty Lila Lee" — typical American girl of the best type. I didn't see that picture of her mother, — it was turned away from me and somehow I hadn't quite the courage to ask to see it, but I knew intuitively that it was the face of a beautiful woman. Gus Edwards, the well-known song writer and vaudeville producer, must have realized the beauty she would become when he discovered her as a little tot playing in the streets of a small New Jersev town, some years ago, and placed her at once in one of his revues. . . . Lila Lee She entered the room from another apartment, with her lips parted over perfect and pearl-white teeth : "Enter Lila Lee, laughingly," she observed. So I took that as a heading for my story — not because it means anything, but because it sounded rather apt. "That sounds quite — theatrical," she went on. "But then I've been on the stage a good part of my life, you see." "Which couldn't be a very long time," I suggested. "About eight vears — I started vounsr." "I can see that," I returned, reclining upon the wicker thing with its Gallic title, while Lila dropped into a pile of cushions. "What shall we talk about? New York?" she asked. "What about New York ?" I asked, hopefully. "Ooh ! I've just come from there. I was glad to go and glad to get back. So glad I just — cried. California gets into your system, you know." "So the Chamber of Commerce reports," I muttered. But Lila Lee was still in New York, in the spirit at least. "I haven't forgotten those days on the stage," she reminisced, "and that means New York, of course. So many people I used to know before ever we went out on the road are there, and it was such fun seeing them all. "It was because of the 'flu' that I was able to take the trip at all and I had expected to get to New York much before the epidemic. It got ahead of me, though, so when we arrived the city was fairly quiet. It seemed a whirlwind of excitement, though, after California. There was a lot of shopping to be done, and I was kept pretty busv running around to the shops. "Oh, there's no place like it — California is wonderful, but it's New York that I like best. It's so gay and big." Just then her big eyes grew serious and after a moment she said: "But it is sad, too. The wounded men from over there. Oh, it brings tears to your eyes all the time, but also it makes you so proud to be an American. We can't ever do enough for those boys, can we ?" "No," I agreed, fervently, "we can't." "Wonderful, wonderful boys," she mused, her eyes just a little moist. "Such fine, clean fellows and some of them looked so lonely. It makes me happy when I think — well, some of them are going to like my pictures and be amused by my acting — and I will be doing a little something for them — very little, maybe, but something. Don't you think so?" "Decidedly," I affirmed. "You're doing a lot. All the picture people are and the theatrical people. They've been doing a lot — ever since war began. There's a mighty big medal coming to the show folk for their generositv and loyalty and kind heartedness. I can tell you." "It's strange how New York had changed just in the few months while I was away. It wasn't the same. And those wonderful davs when peace was declared — or the armistice was signed — I am so happy I was there then." "See here. Miss Lee," I said, suddenly, "You don't talk like a child." "I'm not a child," she retorted indignantly. "I'm a star and I'm all grown up. See?" She got up and twirled about. "Don't I look grown up ?" "You do and you don't," I replied, ambiguously. Indeed Lila is a paradox. She's a big girl and she's a little one ; a young lady and — a very young girl. Withal she is charm, the charm of youth personified, as others have said before me. "So you're happy in pictures?" "Who wouldn't be ?" she looked at me out of her big eyes, naively. "I'm happy because (Continued on page 48)