Photoplay (Jul-Dec 1922)

Hattie of Hollywood waited for him to descend first. He came down the ladder slowly, feeling for the rungs with his feet. He wasn't a young man. But he was exquisitely dressed; the creases in his trousers broke only a little just above the cream-colored spats; his coat fitted smoothly about shoulders and hips ... he was walking deliberately toward her; she would have fled had not Lucille's instruction lodged as a command in her brain and rooted her to this spot. . . . She noted the white edging of his tan waistcoat. And he could have worn that heavy silken tie but once. A single large pearl decorated it. She oughtn't to stare at him, of course, but seemed unable to help it. In a moment he wou'd be passing, would almost be brushing by her. A very handsome younger man was with him, a half step behind him. But no merely good-looking young man could draw her attention from that self-contained, world-weary countenance. HE was almost here. She would have liked to touch his sleeve as he passed. He was . . . stopping . . . turning those keenly impersonal eyes directly on her . . . taking her in from head to foot in shrewd appraisal. She seemed to have shrunk back against a chair; she felt it stopping her. Something had happened that couldn't possibly happen. De Brissac was going to speak to her. He'd order her away. What could she say? Her temples were pounding. There were noises in her brain. He said — "Did you want to see me?" She couldn't answer. She could hardly breathe. There was some dreadful mistake, of course. If only she could control herself. Tears were forming again in her eyes, and her lip was quivering. He took her shoulder and turned her to face a battery of lights. She shivered under his hand. The light blinded her. She must stop this trembling. She felt now rather than saw the eyes of both men studying her feet and ankles, her body, her hands and neck and head. De Brissac turned her head a little and then squinted first at one side of her face and then at the other. "It's for Mona?" asked the younger man, guardedly. De Brissac nodded brusquely. "May as well make the test right now," he said, with an inhalation that was almost a sigh. "God knows when I'd get it in tomorrow. Know anything about make-up?" Hattie must have shaken her head, for he added, turning to the young man — "Better make her up yourself, George.' I'll wait here. Don't take any more time than you have to." De Brissac would wait there . . . ! Hurrying after the young man she felt that she ought to explain. Of course, when they found out their mistake, there'd be a scene. Her teeth chattered as she tried to think it out . . . this was on those same dark stairs . . . but she couldn't think. The young man threw his arm carelessly about her shoulders by way of guiding her, and while the contact brought an alarming thrill she shrank away with a sudden tense resistance in every nerve. As he snapped on the lights in the dressing room he asked, with that same careless manner — "Did Cunningham Graham send you?" Her lips framed the single word, "No;" and after an appreciable lapse of silent time the sound came in a thin squeak. He 78 (Continued from page 32) set brusquely to work applying the grease paint. By this time she couldn't even have uttered that little word. He brought her a torn dress. There wasn't much of it. When she had put it on and stood before the mirror she was glad of the paint over her hot face. He knocked then, and came bustling in. "Oh," he cried, "you'll have to take off your shoes and stockings ! You're a beggar's daughter. Can't wear those!" And then, when she had obeyed, right there in front of him, with the door wide open, he let down her hair himself, placing the hairpins in a neat litt'.e pile on the wall PORTRAIT OF A DIRECTOR OF BATHING GIRL COMEDIES ON A WINDY DAY bench, and said, "Come along, my dear!" She found herself following him out there on the crowded floor. There were splinters and nails that hurt her feet. Terror was in her heart. And yet, herself believing from moment to moment that she would turn and flee, she went on. Meekly went on. And so she found herself in an alcove of scenery and light machines, that terrific white glare again blinding her eyes, de Brissac talking at her in a low persistent voice, cameras clicking. He said some dreadful things — called her an impostor; asked her profanely what she meant by coming in here and taking up his time; handled her as if she had been a mannequin, placing her in one posture after another. A bewildering fact was that when he had lashed her with his cutting tongue into actual sobbing, with tears falling hotly on her cheeks, he abruptly called out — "Camera !" — and the two men behind the tripods began their grinding. The feeling of personal exposure, mental and physical, had by this time gone far beyond any merely normal sense of insult. She felt utterly stripped and held up for a jeering world to see. She couldn't stop crying. Suddenly, then, he dismissed the camera men, patted her shoulder in a carelessly affectionate way, and said — "There, there, my dear! That's a1! of it. Looks very promising. Be here at the same time tomorrow evening and we'll run it off for you." But she couldn't stop crying. Already an active corner of her brain was sensing the situation in its proper workaday light. He had gone deliberately about it to make her cry, of course. She'd be all right in a little while, but for the present her nerves were gone. After the shock of that emotional exposure before all those men, the fact that he was walking slowly along with her, his arm about her, his hand still patting her bare shoulder, seemed hardly to have significance. She heard a friendly voice then. Lucille's voice. She had to wink those lights out of her eyes before she could see her. And de Brissac, with a final little pat, left them together. "What on earth !" said Lucille. "I've been looking all over for you, child: Kow'd you . . . what are you . . ." She held her at the length of both her arms and stared at her. "For the love of Mike, what happened?" BUT Hattie was sobbing. All the way to the stairs Lucille fired questions at her; finally, on a landing, shaking her. "What on earth is it? How did it happen?" "I d-d-don't know." "But what's the test for?" Hattie shook her head. "But don't you see, child, you've got de Brissac himself working over you — making a test of you — telling you to be here tomorrow night? My word! Of all the fool luck. . . ." It was in the subway that Hattie broke out moodily — "I don't know what to do." "Do? What do you mean?" "How can I go up there tomorrow night?" "How can you ..." Lucille's voice had a rasp of envy in it. "With de Brissac on your staff? Gee!" "But he'll find out the mistake." "What difference will that make, if the test turns out well?" "But the other girl—" "You can't talk to me, Hattie. I saw part of that test. And you can bet your sweet life de Brissac saw it too. Do you think he'd have said those nice things if— Oh, poof!" "What could I do ? I don't know anything about acting. Why — I couldn't — " "You don't have to know anything about acting, child ! You only have to photograph well. What's the director for? Do you suppose de Brissac would have worked like that on you?" . . . Lucille was growing rhetorical. . . . "Oh, don't be an idiot! What does Eva Eames know about acting? Two years ago she was in a high school in Atlanta. She's nineteen now and gets eight thousand a week ! What does Mary Milton know? Or Vane Heather? . . . My word! Of all the fool luck!" But gloom had settled on Hattie's fragile spirit. "I'll never get up there tomorrow night." "Don't be a fool!" "Look at tonight! I'll get the dickens. I don't know what I can say to them." "To who — your folks?" Hattie nodded mournfully. "The money'll listen good to them, won't it?" "You don't know Gran'ma," said Hattie, compressing her lips. "Don't make me laugh." But Hattie was shaking her head again. "You don't know Gran'ma," she repeated. — ^