Picture Play Magazine (Jul - Dec 1929)

94 Continued from page 74 Victor, beaming with pride, brought out three photographs — of Andrew, of Mrs. McLaglen, and of Sheila. Three hand-tinted photographs in heavy, carved frames that must have added considerably to the difficulty of packing. But there they were, accompanying the proud pater-familias on his travels, the first thing to be unpacked in his hotel room. Andrew, the nine-year-old boy, is a manly youngster, with sweet, brown eyes. Dark, and so good looking you surmised at once that he resembles his mother, rather than his famous father. The surmise proved at once to be correct. "This is my wife," said Victor, beaming. "She's the daughter of a British admiral." And Victor had reason to beam. If there's anything to that old theory that beautiful women marry homely men, here was example number one ! Mrs. McLaglen is beautiful and charming enough to be a star herself. "And this is Sheila," said Victor. Well, you've seen those precious five-year-olds whom you want to hug at sight? Sheila's one of them. Blonde, blue-eyed, another beauty like her mother. "Tell me about Sheila." "Oh, Sheila's a regular, little woman," said the proud parent, "with He's a Soft-Boiled Egg dozens of dolls that she mothers. And I had a little house built just for her." "A doll's house?" "Oh, no, a real house outside our own. A stucco house, with a redtiled roof. Big enough so that I can stand in it by stooping a little. It's a complete house, just as completely equipped as the one we live in ourselves, only smaller, of course. It has four rooms — sitting room, kitchen, bedroom, and bath. It has a real telephone, and Sheila just loves to phone in grown-up fashion to all her little friends. She carries on long conversations with Faith, Clive Brook's little girl. "She turns on her radio whenever she wants music, or plays a record on her own little phonograph. And she's the busiest, little housewife you ever saw, going around with a dust cloth ; everything in the house is simply spotless. She cleans it all by herself. "And you should see the way Sheila can cook. She has a little electric stove, and she gets batter from the cook and makes muffins, or hamburger steak which she fries. Sometimes I go in and have lunch with her, and she serves it with all the skill and aplomb in the world. "She takes her housekeeping very seriously. When I ring her doorbell, she doesn't allow me to say, 'Is Sheila there?' Oh, no, indeed. In her house she's not Sheila. She's the madame. I must say, 'Is Mrs. McLaglen in?' "So Sheila smiles like a regular hostess and says, 'Do come in. Won't you have a chair?' And the other day she said, very politely, 'Will you excuse me just a moment? I'm very busy just now.' And off she dashed to look at her meat cooking in the stove. "You can see how I'm trying +o bring up Sheila. Already she's completely sure of herself as mistr; js of the house. Even at the age of fiv she has learned to be a gracious r tess. And of course it is teacl her how to run a house — how to ccok, if she ever has to cook. She'll grow up to be a completely competent housewife." An intelligent father? Well, rather ! A man of the world, who speaks, literally, the king's English. The son of an Episcopal bishop — "Though you'd never know it to look at me," said Victor. Rather a different picture, isn't it, from the roughneck star of Fox films? From the man who got his professional start by boxing. Continued on page 111 Continued from page 3 sation of Europe is Anna May Wong. She is a big hit in pictures all over the Continent, but her social triumphs almost top her professional ones. "Anna May has become as inevitable a guest at all big functions as Fanny Ward and the Dolly sisters. She is pointed out to all tourists as one of the sights not to be missed. In fact, it wouldn't surprise me to find her in the next edition of Baedeker. If you know your Europe, you say 'As rare as a night when Anna May dines at home.' "I am awfully glad," Fanny went on earnestly. "It always seemed to me that Anna May didn't get half the breaks she deserved in Hollywood. Many a time I have seen her trying to swallow her disappointment at not getting a role. . She was a problem for the casting directors." "But why?" I asked. Anna May always gave capable performances. "Well," Fanny explained, "she just didn't fit into their cut-and-dried ideas of what a Chinese girl should be like — and you know how casting directors run to types rather than to ability. Anna May was too poised and gracious and she looked too chic. I remember when she was tested for Over the Teacups the part of a half-caste and was turned down. They said she didn't look foreign enough. So they took an American girl — shall we be generous and say of the peasant class? — and made her up to look more Chinese than any Chinese girl ever looked. "Anna May wanted to come home for a visit between pictures. She tried to book passage on the Graf Zeppelin, but couldn't induce any one to part with his reservation. She was a good sport about her disappointment, though. She gave a big luncheon for all the passengers just before the airship took off. "Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford are sailing soon for a vacation in Europe. Douglas Fairbanks will be pleased at Anna May's success in Europe. He is one of the few producers in Hollywood who ever gave her a good role." Fanny's preoccupation with Europe was ominous. Remembering how, unwarned, she had whisked me off from Hollywood to New York, I began to grow apprehensive. "Gertrude Lawrence finished 'The Battle of Paris' at the Paramount studio the other day and rushed off to a play in London. The parting was nothing short of tragic. Every one in the studio simply adores her." Hastily I tried to think of something to distract Fanny's mind from sailings. A moment later I was relieved. "They will all be coming back soon, though. Miss Lawrence is to do 'Candle Light' on Broadway, and another picture for Paramount, so we shall have her with us again. "And who do you suppose is in town?" she asked brightly, and I knew from the hurried way that she started gathering up her belongings, that she was about to rush me off to see one of her super-special favorites. "Estelle Taylor!" she announced with enthusiasm. "She is rehearsing a sketch for vaudeville. We'd better rush right over to her hotel now. Once she gets started on tour, she will be as lost to her friends as though she were exploring darkest Africa." But with Leatrice Joy, Mae Busch, Doris Kenyon, Irene Rich, and any number of others touring in vaudeville, their routes must cross sometimes. And what homesick Hollywood reunions there must be then !