Picture-Play Magazine (Jul - Dec 1929)

It's LoVe He Wants Ivan Lebedeff, widely experienced in Continental sophistication, thinks that a foreigner is doomed to tragedy if he seeks true love in Hollywood. Read his story and decide if you agree with him. By Helen Louise Walker Glory, power, Lebedeff has had now considers I HAVE experienced glory, and I know that it is cheap. I have had power, even unto life and death over my fellow beings, and I know that there is too much pain in it for any human being to bear. I have had wealth, and its loss has taught me how trivial it is in comparison to the things which make up human reality." Thus Ivan Lebedeff, born a Russian aristocrat under the czar's regime, erstwhile Russian officer, decorated many times for gallantry, one-time dictator of Odessa, jfood administrator, financier, writer, philosopher, sophisticate— now an actor. Even in Hollywood, the last stand of adventurers, where a colorful past is the rule rather than the exception, Ivan Lebedeff is a romantic figure. Handsome, dark, suave, his heel-clicking entrance into a room causes a distinct flutter among the ladies and a slight stiffening of masculine spines. And as he proceeds on his round of hand-kissing, whispers may be heard, sibilantly following him, "Who is that man?" "Oh, don't you know? That's Lebedeff. They say he is a real count— — " It is just this knack of kissing hands so convincingly, of embellishing dinner tables, of lending an aura of Continental sophistication to a gathering, that has kept Lebedeff in a position of local prominence through a succession of the unluckiest professional breaks imaginable. He has the ability to make people like him and to register vividly upon their consciousness. Sophisticated people — people who count — have cultivated him and deftly exploited him socially through a period of professional obscurity. After two years with Ufa in Germany. Lebedeff came to America about three years ago, to be discovered by D. W. Griffith, who pronounced him "one of the most powerful men I have ever seen on the screen." Griffith, it is said, fought hard to obtain the leading role in "The Sorrows of Satan" for his protege, but the producers of that picture felt that an unknown player in the title role would reduce the boxoffice value. So, after the manner of picture-makers, a compromise was effected which created a second part, almost equal to that of Satan himself, for Ivan. As was to be expected, this did not work out so well, and Ivan's seventeen weeks' work on the picture was cut to almost nothing in the final version. He was under personal contract to Griffith during a long period of inactivity while wealth — Ivan them all and them dross. Photo by Autre; that director broke with Paramount and dickered for new connections. When Griffith signed with United Artists, one of the stipulations of his contract was that he should not have any players under personal contract. Released, Lebedeff dickered too, and ended by going to DeMille — a short time before that producer-director gave up his studio and released his contract players. Followed a series of near-clicks — important roles which he nearly got, pictures which were shelved, interest taken in him by important persons who slipped from importance at the crucial moment. He was signed, or almost signed, for a dozen things which did not materialize. Again and again success was almost in his grasp — and dissolved as he tried1 to tighten his hold upon it. Gradually there came to be a more or less steady and unspectacular demand for him in character roles of the romanticheavy type. Then came talking pictures and recessional for most of the accented foreign players. But not for the Russian anomaly who is Lebedeff. His voice reproduces well, and his trace of accent exactly suits his exotic, foreign personality. The demand for him is growing in leaps and bounds and, as I write, he has signed a contract with RKO. And why not ? Foreign players were capitalized in silent pictures because they were "different." A trace of accent in the talking medium only emphasizes that same valuable "difference." Lebedeff is one of Hollywood's most colorful personalities. His English, though it betrays his foreign birth, is fluent and he talks brilliantly. Harrowing experiences during the war have left their mark upon him, and when he speaks of them there is a look in his eyes of a man who has seen humanity at its lowest, as well as at its noblest. One gathers that a glimpse of the depths leaves scars that a look at the heights will not heal. A connoisseur of living, he gives you to understand that pictures for him are no last resort of an impoverished nobleman. He is here because he likes it. He avers that he has been offered commercial positions, which would be far more lucrative than he imagines pictures will ever be for him. "But why should I force myself to sit at a desk and be bored for any money?" he shrugs. Fatuous though this may sound in print, it is convincing when Lebedeff tells it to you, gazing at the smoke of his cigarette through halfclosed eyes. "I do not want much money," he says. "I was born to money, and I know that when you have too much, it is worse for you — for your Continued on page 115