Photoplay (Jan-Jun 1940)

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It was just the way she had dreamed it would be when she was a child and she had sung "Tosca" in the courtyard with little Albogen Arpad, the first youth ever to catch her romantic fancy. She stood alone on the large bare stage. Several gentlemen, the impresario and his associates and friends, were scattered through the first rows. The musicians played the introductory phrase of the aria. Then her voice 1 floated out over that theater and those men listening forgot to look indifferent. When she had finished, the impresario said: "You know 'Tosca!' Could you sing it here — in a week, say?" She did not think it necessary to explain that aria she had sung was the only part of the role she knew. After all she could go home and study. And she did study too, for four days and nights. Then she considered her progress with that impersonal attitude that always has been such a boon to her and decided it would be another week before she really would be ready. And she said this to the impresario. And he was impressed that anyone so beautiful and talented and young should have such clear purpose and wisdom. I HE same night Ilona sang at the little opera house, her name was heard in the cafes and coffeehouses. And the next morning Maria Komka, Ilona's childhood friend, hurried to the Wellers to see her. "You were so beautiful last night," she told her, "and you sang like an angel!" "What you say about me," Ilona answered, laughing, "I cannot trust. But what the newspapers say this morning and what my impresario says — that is important — that promises I will have money!" News of Ilona's success in the little opera house reached Felix Weingartner, the great Felix Weingartner who had studied with Wagner. He went to hear her. He asked her to come to see him at his big opera house. "I like you very much," he told her. "If you will learn German I will give you a contract." "Every day," Ilona answered him simply, "I have three hours for myself. Every day in those three hours I will do nothing but study German. That way it will not take too long." In everything she did now she was conscientious and painstaking. Her mother never had known her to be like this before — except for that short time when she had rehearsed for the chorus. And one day when Niklos Savozd called on Mrs. Hajmassey, she spoke of this to him. "It's always been Ilona's nature to be like quicksilver," she told him. "Now here . . . now there ... In the theater she is a stranger to herself. She finds nothing too much trouble! And nothing takes too long!" "When Ilona is in the theater," Niklos answered Mrs. Hajmassey gently, "it is the same with her as it is with you when you sit under your lamp with your needlework. In the theater Ilona is at home. So there is peace in her heart and she is able to work patiently. Try to understand this and be glad — since things are the way they are. . . ." Even when the divorce of Ilona and Niklos had been final for months they sought each other. And their voices still grew soft as they spoke each other's name. And they still found it important to tell each other everything that had happened while they were apart. Ilona counted the days it would take her to master German . . . and the days she must rehearse with Weingartner . . . and the days after that before she could be sure of a contract . . . For these days added together would bring her to the security that would allow her and Niklos to marry again. And Niklos' love for Ilona was no less than her love for him. It was Ilona he thought about until the end. He wrote her a note one day and sent it by a servant as it was his custom to do. He told her to be sure to hear Maria Nemeth sing and he told her how much he loved her. And it was his servant bringing back her answer who found him dead. All the people who knew Ilona and how she had built her life around Niklos were afraid to see her. Only her mother had the courage to go to her with that question others asked among themselves. "What will you do, my daughter?" Mrs. Hajmassey asked. "I was coming to you," Ilona answered, "to ask you that. . . ." "You will not believe me when I say this to you . . ." Mrs. Hajmassey made a supreme effort to keep her voice matter-of-fact. "But all this will not hurt so much when time has separated you from it. For that, my child, is a law of life. And if you can push time ahead HOW WELL DO YOU KNOW YOUR HOLLYWOOD? Check your answers to the statements on page 76 with these correct ones: 1. Robert Taylor 2. Greta Garbo 3. Ray Milland 4. Michael Curtiz, Gregory Ratoff 5. Dr. Francis Griffin 6. Metro-Gold wyn Mayer 7 Madeleine Carroll, Penny Singleton 8. Marlene Dietrich 9. Mary Martin 10 Edward G. Robinson of you with work, it will be so much the better." Work was her narcotic. Every week that year she sang two or three times. In Budapest and Vienna and Berlin they talked of her capacity for doing whatever had to be done. And when she was on the stage and when people were around her she was gay and volatile and laughing. "She does not grieve so much now," her father said, relieved. But her mother shook her head. "People affect her like wine," she told him. "I have seen her when she is alone and then it is different — then she sits very still." I HE German UFA company offered Ilona thirty thousand marks to make a picture for them. "For that money I cannot do it," she told the gentlemen who waited upon her. They protested. Times were not prosperous. This was all their company could afford. After all, she would have a very fine production. "The sum is enough," she interrupted, "but I want you to pay it in shillings or Austrian money." She was not naturally shrewd about affairs of this kind. But every word Niklos Savozd ever had said to her lived, clear and fresh, in her memory. So it was as if his great knowledge of finance — acquired through inheritance, study, and experience — had been grafted upon her artist's brain. The UFA gentlemen frowned. Even in an ugly woman they would have resented such acumen. Coldly they told her what she asked was out of the question, that they would not be permitted to pay her in anything but German currency. "And," Ilona says, "when they told me they would not be permitted to pay me in anything but marks, I knew I had been wise to ask what I had asked. And I bid them good day. But they had done me a great favor. They had given me the idea of being in a motion picture. And I wrote to the head of the Austrian Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer." George Cukor, one of the greatest directors in Hollywood, was in Vienna at this time. He saw Ilona's letter and went to the opera house to hear her. And that same night he telephoned Bob Ritchie and Benny Thau, two Metro executives, who were — by happy chance — in London. What he said isn't a matter of record, but the gist of it was, "I've got something here!" And the next time Ilona sang these three men were in the audience. "They wanted to give me a contract right away," she says, "So I went to London in an airplane and a contract was arranged. It was very simple. It was marvelous." THAT was the winter of 1936. For over a year Ilona had lived without the comfort of Niklos Savozd being in the world with her. There still were moments when the realization of her loss assaulted her. But slowly her response to life was coming to be quick and warm again. And because, following the romantic attachments of her youth and the excitements of her adolescence, a deep woman's love had stirred her soul there was an added quality about her. It was as if her beauty and her voice and her acting had been refined by the emotional fires she had come through. When Ilona returned from London after signing her Metro contract Maria Nemeth's name shone on the marquee of the Budapest opera house. That opera house held six thousand people; yet it was difficult to get tickets for this performance. Ilona was going. She never missed hearing Nemeth if she could help it. The performance was to be on Sunday. On Wednesday of the same week the impresario from the opera house called Ilona on the telephone . "Miss Hajmassey," he said, "Maria Nemeth is scheduled in 'Empress Josephine' on Sunday. . . ." "Yes, yes," Ilona told him, "I know. I am coming!" "Miss Hajmassey," the impresario interrupted, "Miss Nemeth is ill. She will be unable to appear. . . ." Ilona sympathized. "Everyone with tickets will be so sad. . . That day you are going to hear Maria Nemeth — you reach towards it, as if it was a bright star!" "Miss Hajmassey," the impresario began again, "I'm calling to ask you to take Miss Nemeth's place. . . ." "That is impossible! IMPOSSIBLE!" Ilona's voice shook. "She is the biggest star. . . Those people who have tickets to hear her, they would not have me! And I do not know one word of that part. . . ." But one hour later the score of "Empress Josephine" was strewn all over the salon of her little flat. The accompanist from the opera house was at the piano. She stood beside him. And over and over she sang the opening aria. 84 PHOTOPLAY