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

N o v e in b e y . i yjo inind the necessity to be up and doing ; to waste none of the precious moments, which, once lost can never be regained. It has taught me to know people better than any school could have done ; I have learned from my associations with fine actors who were also fine men and women, the things to avoid and the things to cultivate. So I have progressed, I feel ; I know I have enjoyed it and that in my heart I feel I have benefited by everything I have seen and heard that was worth the seeing and hearing. "I love sport. 1 like to ride, drive a car, play tennis, golf, polo. 1 love to read — yes, I confess it — fairy tales are still dear to me. You see, I will not give up all my childhood and I hope I never shall. Years do not count. It is what we fee], and within our own souls we must keep alive the spark of sweetness and childish gentleness and fancy. All men and women, it seems to me, in my brief experience, are really children — as Elbert Hubbard used to say — 'in the kindergarten of God !' "I love to dream ; my castles in Spain are real enough ; they radiate and glow with noontide glory. They touched the clouds, their spires sweep the skies. There is all one's life in a dream castle. Its inhabitants are one's thoughts, soaring to empyrean heights ; and it can never crumble to dust while we keep our thoughts aloft, attuned to the infinite glories of life in its perfect sense. "I am not a philosopher," she laughed. "I am a child turned woman within a short span of time. Yet I do think a lot ; I do read much — and out of it all I have perhaps evolved my own philosophy. We can never go far astray if we keep our hearts swept clean of the debris of useless thoughts and desires and train our minds to reach out for all that is best and finest in what we know as Life." Such is Lila Lee, the woman. Lila Lee's leap to fame is a romance in itself. It happened this way. One day, about nine years ago, a small girl-child was busily playing in the streets of Union Hill, New Jersey. She had just learned a new game, "Ring Around A Ros}." It was a dandy game and she and the other children in Union Hill liked to play it on the big smooth asphalt middle of their street — there being no other available place quite so alluring. Above is a snap of I Ala Lee taken when she vuas appearing on the vaudeville stage Then along came a man in an auto, a man in despair of ever finding the exact type of child he needed for his new "song revue" in vaudeville, which was to open that very night. His name was Gus Edwards, and he had been writing songs about "School Days" and "When We Were a Couple of Kids" so long that he seemed to know childhood like a veritable Father Goose. At any rate, he knew Lila Lee for the very type he needed the moment he spied her playing "Ring Around A Rosy." "Do you want to go on the stage, little girl ?" he asked. "Yeth, but I mutht athk my mummy," was the instant reply. And so it was that after "mummy's" consent has been won, Lila Lee, or "Cuddles," as she was known on the vaudeville stage, began her long association with the Edward's, to whom she soon became a real daughter in all but name. On one memorable occasion in Rochester, Cuddles struck the only real snag of her entire vaudeville career — this was when the city officials took it into their stupid grown-up heads to forbid her appearance on the grounds of too extreme youthfulness. Then it was that "Cuddles" displayed her latent "temperament." Temperament that refused to be appeased by offers of lollipops, ice cream or even fat gold watches. Evidently she thought that while she was at it she might as well do the thing thoroughly. Even David Belasco, who happened to be trying out a play in Rochester that evening, and who had become a good friend of Cuddles, was unable to appease her. "Don't crv any more, Cuddles," he said at last, "and I will make you a very wonderful promise. I'll make you a star the day you are sixteen." But Fate willed it otherwise, and it is Jesse L. Lasky, not Mr. Belasco, who brought Lila Lee to stardom. Mr. Lasky had been looking for a new star — a star who would possess the triple gifts of beauty, youth and undeniable talent. It meant months of hopeless (Continued on page 58)