Picture Play Magazine (Mar-Aug 1921)

20 The Revelations wild romantic zest about married people's love-making as there is about an engaged couple's, but there's something awfully comfortable about it. "Gee, what a night I've had!" he ejaculated, when he came back from the pantry with the bread and half an apple pie. "We got way out there to the beach and found that the set was wrong ; according to the story, my house should have had two doors, and for some reason it had only one. No carpenters there — electricians all union men ; couldn't touch a hammer. So Bingham"— the assistant director — "and I fixed it, and he succeeded in dragging a saw across his wrist and cutting a vein or something; it looked as if he'd bleed to death before we could get him to a doctor. "Then we shot a few scenes, and were just getting into the swing of it, with the mob putting on a mutiny that was a peach, when all at once — blooey ! the lights went out. There was some hitch about fixing them, and Drake said he'd have to go to town for something or other, so Carol and I drove in with him, and then had an hour to kill. So we dropped in at that little theater next the hotel ; they were running my last picture, and she wanted to see it, to get what I'd been trying to tell her ; she works too fast — doesn't do a thing and then stop before she does another ; you know, I was trying to show her about it yesterday, but she's sort of dumb." "Sort of dumb!" If he'd said she was cross-eyed it couldn't have sounded sweeter to my ears. And so I heard the whole story of the evening's events, told as naturally and innocently as a boy explains why he's been late getting home from school. They'd gone over to the hotel for a sandwich, met Drake, and gone back to the beach to finish the mutiny ; when you've engaged a hundred extras and have to pay them no matter what happens, you work till you get through, no matter how late it is. "And Carol's in an awful jam, Sally." Hugh told me, over the last of the. pie. "She's in love with Dan Gardner, and he's crazy about her, but her mother says lie's nothing but a juvenile making three hundred a week, and the woods are full of 'em. She says they can't live on his salary, and that Carol ought to wait a while — the secret of it is that she wants Carol to sign a contract to star in bla-bla stuff ; curls and rags and pouts and smiles — she'd be nothing but an imitation of Mary Pickford, and a poor one at that. But her mother thinks it's her big chance. And it's in the contract that she's not to marry — personally I think Mrs. Burnet had that clause put in herself, for if Carol had a man's-size husband to look after her, Mother Burnet would be out of a job. These professional mothers make me sick !" "What does Carol say?" "Oh, she says she adores Dan, but doesn't dare disobey her mother. And she doesn't just know whether they could live on Dan's salary or not. She and Dan are coming over to-morrow — I thought you could help 'em out. I talked to her like a Dutch uncle at supper — told her how we were married when you were younger than she is — she's nearly twenty ! Remember how big two hundred a week looked to us when I first went into pictures? Why, we bought the flivver and began saving for a house — and were sorry Junior wasn't twins !" Indeed I did remember. And I .thanked Heaven that he couldn't see my tear-stained eyelids. Hugh turned out the light and put one arm around me, I gathered up the tail of his bath robe, and we slipped in to have a peek at Hughie before we went to bed. And, oh, how I wished I could tell every woman in the world not ever, ever to be jealous! ot a Star's Wife CHAPTER II. The next afternoon I learned the reason for Hugh's preoccupation of the last few days — and blushed to remember how readily I had accepted an imaginary affair with Carol Burnet as its cause. The company was making some scenes that Hugh wasn't in, so he and I were getting out his photographs. That's the most awful task, if a star's popular. Of course, many stars have their secretaries autograph and mail their pictures, but Hugh has always said, "If a person thinks enough of me to write for my picture, the least I can do is to scrawl my name on it myself." He had been so busy before we left New York that the requests had piled up dreadfully, so when we were leaving for Florida his secretary had jammed one large suit case full of the letters, and sent a great packing case full of pictures and photo mailers after us by express. So there we sat, Hugh scrawling, "Sincerely. Hugh Beresford," on picture after picture, and laying them near him to dry, while I addressed the photo mailers. Perhaps it was undignified of me to do that; I know several women, wives of stars and leading men, who think it's disgraceful of me to do such menial work. But I've always loved to work with Hugh, and intend to go right on doing it. "Feel like hearing my troubles, Sally?" Hugh asked, when we'd been at it about fifteen minutes. "Our troubles, dear," I corrected him, and he leaned over and dropped a kiss on the top of my head before he settled down to tell them. "It's this way," he began. "You know how it's been these last six months I've been with the Magda Film people ; they've found, especially since I did 'Heart o' Mine,' that they can coin money on films I do a lot of love-making in, and now they won't let me do anything else. My contract says that I can have a voice in selecting my stories — but you remember that thing I wanted to do, where the hero was a bum who made good — that was a peach of a role, and they turned it down for me and gave' it to Larry Lane, and the critics said that because of the story it made one of the biggest pictures of the year. Well, I'm sick of it !" "Yes, but what can you do? Your contract runs a year and a half longer," I reminded him. "Break it," he answered, leaving the photographs and beginning to tramp up and down the room. He waved his fountain pen around so that I trembled for the white suit he was wearing, but I wouldn't have interrupted him for a dozen suits' spotlessness. "I've got plenty of cause, and if I keep on this way I'll be nothing but a Simpering Susie till I'm too old to do anything else. Nobody'll believe I can act, though in the pictures where I've had a chance, things like those I used to do, I got corking good reviews. I can do something else than kiss the heroine and wear evening clothes, but they won't let me ! They say the public doesn't want anything else. Weil, I'm going to find out whether they do or not !" "How?" "By leaving them and signing up with some people I heard from the other day, The Independent Era Film Corporation. I didn't want to bother you with it till I'd investigated and found out whether they Avere reliable or not. They made me a pretty good proposition : they'd give me my own company, let me pick my stories, and back me. I wouldn't get the salary I do now, but I'd get a royalty on the pictures. What do you think?" Now, having his own company is the ideal of nearly every star. It's like giving the helper in a garage an establishment of his own, or letting a young lawyer hang up his own shingle. I knew what Hugh wanted me to say. and yet I hesitated.