Photoplay (May 1921)

VAMPS OF ALL TIMES As seen when a modern spotlight is turned upon ancient legends. I. LILITH TO Lilith must be accorded the distinction of being the first Vamp on record. A close-up of this distinguished lady is difficult, if not impossilile, because at the time when she carried on her vamping operations, the camera had not been invented. But we get a good deal of backstairs gossip about her in the traditions of the Jews, the Chaldeans, the Babylonians, the Assyrians, Arabs, Singhalese and even the Italians. And most of this gossi|3 is decidedly malicious, as gossip about Vamps is apt to be. According to these tales — of which the origin is lost in the mist of the early morning of the world — Lilith started out as a respectable woman. She was Adam's first wife, or passed as such. She was created at the same time as Adam, and in the same way, whatever way that may ha\-e been. But all authorities agree that she was not an afterthought; that she was not fashioned from a rib, nor abstracted from Adam's side as he slept the sleep of the just under the shade of the tamarind tree. From all accounts, Lilith began her married life by being the first misunderstood wife in the long record of misunderstood wi\ es. The misunderstanding arose out of her relati\e .social position. Adam, it appears, showed a man-like inclination to assert himself as the head of the house. To this point of view Lilith took exceptions, at first wheedling, then firmly insistent and finally \iolent. In the course of one of the curtain lectures to which the first of men was subjf^cted from time to time, Lilith astonished and pained her husband by dropping the mask of vamphood and revealing herself in her true colors. Registering for the first time the utmost scorn instead of flirtatious persuasion, she uttered a terrible spell. We have no means of knowing just how this sjiell was worded; but we know that even while Adam gasped at the unaccustomed avowal on his wife's presumably rouged lips, things began to happen to Lilith with appalling rapidity and portent. The "things" were a ])air of bat-like wing. that grew out of her rounded shoulders. In a few minutes these wdngs attained to enormous size and strength. Then, with a sideways look of hatred comliined with a tantalizing smile, Lilith lilted herself ofT her rosy feet and flapped away in the direction of the Red Sea. By that simple By SVETOZAR TONJOROFF and logical act she pro\ed plainly that she was no Vamp in name only, but a real, full-grown night-flying \J Vampire of the kind that ftA \^ j stand no nonsense. ' ^ If Adam at first cherished the fond delusion that Lilith was playing a practical joke on him, he soon found out his bitter mistake. Day followed day, and night followed night, but there came no Lilith back to share hisi repose under the tamarind tree. We can imagine the di.stress that descended like a cloud upon the life of the first ancestor of the Adams family as he strained his eyes, at twilight after twilight, for a glimpse of a returning and repentant Lilith. We can imagine, e\ en, that there were moments when he would ha\e forgiven all and surrendered all rather than lead the lonely existence to which the first lady of the human race had reduced him by her exigent conduct. What lowered lights and soft, slow music there might have been if the lady had changed her mind and returned to her bereft home. • But she did nothing of thep sort. Adam, after turningi the matter o\ er in his mindi for a long time, finally sworel out a warrant for the fugitive and gave it to three angels to serve. Knowingi well his erring wife's ^ amp-! ing capacities, he evidently feared to entrust the task to a single angel, no matter how unsusceptible he may ha\e been. The angels, we are told, had a hard time finding Lilith — not that she attempted to e\'ade ser\ ice, as later Vamps have done, but just because she did not know that any legal steps had been taken to restore her to Adam's arms. ■ Finally, one] nighi, while they were flying over tht Red Sea, they heard a sad, long-drawn wail over the waters. In a moment they came upon Lilith, hovering over the waters like the lost soul that she was on the way to become. The angels informed her that they had come to take hei back to her sorrowing husband. "Not on your tintype," replied Lilith — or words to the some general effect. "Me and Adam are through. Nothing doin^ on the sob-stufl." By using that, or similar language, Lilith demonstrated hoi ability to call a spade a spade when off stage. The angels had never been treated with such contumely before. Not content with being rude to her husband's mesiL