Photoplay (Jul-Dec 1938)

GOOSE / / REACHES THIRTY affairs, multiple husbands, nothing in her life to titillate that portion of the gossip-loving public with juicy speculation. She is not given to romantic attitudes or postures. She does not seek to evade the press or the photographers, neither does she court them; she takes it all in stride. She wasn't born in Algeria or on a ship in the high seas during a typhoon. Nobody has tried to kidnap her or steal her jewels. She has had no extra-curricular adventures, and the hot breath of scandal has never even fanned the back of her neck. People suspect her of having brains. The "Golden Goose" has a perfectly vile disposition until she gets her coffee in the morning. She wakes up looking like a peeled egg, in her own words; gradually, features begin to dawn, especially eyes, and within an hour she has a face. Everybody leaves her strictly alone before coffee, and, if she is going to the studio, it is safer to attempt no airy persiflage whatever, before or after. She thinks a lot about what she is going to do in various scenes — and not at all about makeup, hair or costume. She lets somebody else worry about the decorations. It is her mind she takes in hand, figuring the best way to reveal to the audience every pronoun and preposition that will go through it, and every scheme and device of the character. Bette not only thinks all this out, but she transposes so she is thinking her character's thoughts as her character would think them. This business of "being" the role, "living the part," it is called, is not taken, by her, very seriously. She remarked once that the idea is comparable with saying a good painter has to be a bouquet of marigolds before he can paint it. She can make lightning transitions on the set, from side-line joking with the crew, straight into an emotional scene. Above all things, she detests a "fuzzy" performance. A good deal of unknown quantity called feeling, or emotion, or inspiration, goes into her scenes, but it is governed by considerable impersonal calculation to make every move of her body and every one of her crystalline clear features cut a mark on the film as sharp as an etching. She does not hold with those who consider her Mildred ("Of Human Bondage") or her Julie ("Jezebel") to be isolated case histories. She contends they have in them a universal quality; that they are not women invented, they are women recognized. She says every man has known some woman, at some time, who was quite a bit like Mildred or Julie, whether he wants to admit it or not. They probably gave him some pretty bad moments— even, perhaps, some pretty good ones; anyway, he isn't liable to forget them. And most women have shared traits with Julie and Mildred whether or not they will admit it. If they saw their own lives mirrored on a screen they might be somewhat shocked in places, particularly if their impulses were clearly pictured. Bette has no inhibitions about revealing women to themselves; thinks they like it. An astonishing number of them write to her for advice concerning their most intimate problems, tossing discretion to the winds. Bette's driving mania for perfection will let her off from nothing. She says some of her work could slide and nobody would know it. But she would. She (Continued on page 84) The "Golden Goose" of the Nelson family has a few odd quirks in her character, concerning cigarette butts and such; but as for her aims — well, they're typical of the girl whom people openly suspect of "having brains" II V,