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14
Photo-Play Journal
THE old tale of the benevolent fairy godmother who gives the newborn baby three choices, or three blessings, is a universal nursery story which holds good everywhere — even in Mexico, where Virginia Lee was born. For there is no doubt but that one of these sprites presided over her cradle in the capital city of our Central American neighbor, since she has made three choices and her every selection has been fortunate.
First of all, Virginia Lee picked the one best bet in the father line: a motion picture actress cannot make a better selection in her paternal parent than having him engaged in one of the enterprises that take men to out-of-the-way foreign lands. Nothing could give a girl a better foundation for the flickering romances of the film than to be a member of the F. F. V. and to be born in the colorful atmosphere of a Central American city. To live in a hacienda, in a home with a patio, in an atmosphere of frijoles, tortillas and chile con carne — to have one's father the leader of the local group of gringos — besides the scenery, the brilliant sunlight and the colorful manners and customs of the land made famous by Villa and Carranza — where could a girl get a better start for pictures, especially when she had the added advantage of hearing the choicest traditions of the flowery South and of the still more flowery stepdaughter of Spain!
Until Virginia was eight, the Lees dwelt in
Three Choices
By GEORGE LANDY
Mexico City, and then migrated up into the wilds of Nipissing, Canada, where her father joined his own father in the management of the Miskomine silver mines. The only child of the mine-owner's family, surrounded by the love and affection naturally displayed for her by the scores of French-Canadians who worked in the mines and the forests that surrounded this typical backwoods camp — here was another period of her childhood that has given Virginia Lee a unique and valuable background, for which she again has her father to thank.
In Mexico, Virginia had been reared under the tutelage of an old Spanish nurse, who raised her in the strict manner of her kind ; she had spoken only Spanish, since her parents believed she could learn English later. In Canada, Virginia spoke only French ; so it was not until her twelfth birthday that she said her first words in English — when her family finally returned to their native state, after which they had named their daughter. With her parents back at home, Virginia was sent to school at St. Scholasticas Academy, a famous convent near New Orleans ; there she first learned to speak her native tongue and, learning it at such an age, she speaks it with a purity and an intonation that is veritable music to the Yankee ear. Added to her rare blonde beaut}" — you'll admit that this is the right phrase, since you've seen the illustrations for this story — this voice of hers will doubtless land her in "the speakies" before many more moons. Virginia Lee's second wise choice was in adopting a motionpicture career; although, for a time, it looked like she had made a flivver in this particular selection. When she first came to New York, she soon secured employment as an artist's model and posed for such well-known brush wielders as Penrhyn Stanlaws (himself a recent recruit to the screen), Clarence F. Underwood, James Montgomery