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JUNE 1922
THE PICTUREGOE-R
25
ridden friend had a becoming pink tinge in her cheeks and a brightness about her eyes that I had never seen before.
" I never thought I could do it," she said, almost triumphantly.
Now she rides and walks with me all over the countryside, and she has thrown away all her headache cures and nerve tonics.
And, what is more, she looks much prettier on the screen now that the open air has brought the glow of health to her face. I discovered long ago that fitness is a mighty important factor where film work is concerned. Few people can deceive the camera successfully, for the lens relentlessly records a tired expression and exposes the lack of vitality that an unnatural life brings in its train.
Swimming has always been a favourite hobby of mine, which may sound a quaint admission from a one-time bathing nymph. But, although the director of sea-shore comedies bellows through his megaphone, " Don't go iear the water, ladies ! " most of us ■vho have flickered across the screen, iirmed pnly with a shoulder-strap, a lurbelow and a smile, in reality love he water.
Swimming, I am certain, does more jo make the figure graceful and supple han a score of beauty parlours. And, vhere figures are concerned, a bathing irl has, you must admit, a certain imount of right to air an opinion. For 'e cannot camouflage our figures with |rell-cut gowns. A one-piece bathinglit is an acid test of shapeliness, and ;e have to study the question of hysical culture very seriously to jitain our slender appearance.
I once found the ability to swim, however, of more value to me than the cultivation of gracefulness. It was whilst we were filming Moonlight Follies. I was carrying out some stunts for the camera in a swimmingpool on the Coffin Estate, California, when King Baggot, the assistant director, who was leaning over the edge directing me, fell into the water.
The unexpectedness of his fall resulted in his head striking the stone bottom of the pool.
He floated to the surface practically unconscious.
He was a big man, and it required all my strength to hold his head above the water and
swim with him to the side. • I
was pretty well exhausted
when the alarmed members of
the company pulled us both
out. If I had not been able to swim,
it is very possible that a tragedy
would have shadowed the taking of
Moonlight Follies.
When my mind is wearied by the racket of the film studios, I get into my old sports clothes and, with a gun under my arm, go for a hunting expedition in the woods.
I can hear the hyper-sensitive saying —
" But how cruel to go out maiming birds and rabbits for the sake of amusement ! "
But it may comfort these critics to know that I very seldom hit anything. It is because I like the places where my hunting takes place — in the woods and fields where the quietude brings a new freshness to the mind and body — that I pose as a modern Diana.
I prefer to roam about the woods by myself on such expeditions. Once I went out with a shooting party, and I was terrified most of the time. Some of the amateur members of the party flourished their guns
{Continued on page 64.
'* The woman who cannot ride is to be pitied. The man who said 'My kingdom for a horse I ' knew something."