Picture Play Magazine (Sep 1921 - Feb 1922)

The Revelations of a Star's Wife The fifth installment of a true story about motion-picture players which tells for the first time the real story of the romance of one of the most prominent screen vampires and a popular young juvenile. ILLUSTRATED BY EDGAR FRANKLIN WITTMACK CHAPTER X. CLAUDIA DORVENN, I could shake you to think you don't go on the stage!" I told my lovely hostess, when she joined me on the south terrace the next noon. "Your looks are simply wasted on the screen !" "Don't encourage me," she answered, stretching out in a long wicker chair and staring down across the rose gardens. "I want to do it so much, but I simply haven't any voice for stage work, you know; I couldn't be heard back of the third row. I'm studying all the time, of course, but — oh, my dear!" I/, turned as she leaped to her ■•^^^'just in time to see my young son plunge headlong into the shallow pool, on the edge of which he had . been sitting dangling his bare feet in the water, and trying to scoop up a goldfish in the big water-lily pad which he held. He landed on all fours, staggered to his feet, and then, as Claudia and I dashed to the water's edge, he laughingly made his way among the water lilies to the very center of the pool and stood there shouting gleefully at WHAT HAS GONE BEFORE. THERE is no class of people more misunderstood by the public than the very motion-picture stars they love the most, the author of this amazing narrative discovered soon after her husband went into motion pictures. At first it amused her to hear the comments on the life of motion-picture players that were made by the people who did not really know them. But later on the realization came to her that the great public only believed lies about motion-picture players because they did not know the truth. So she started this gripping series of disclosures about motion-picture life as she has known it, determined to give fans a true picture of the people they admired. Hugh Beresford — the name she has given her famous husband — depends on her so much for advice and sympathy and helpful suggestions that his friends too fall into the habit of making her their confidante. There was Danny Gardner, for instance, who fell in love with Hugh's leading woman. He thought his life was wrecked when her mother persuaded her to give him up, but Sally — who is telling the story — decided to try her hand at matchmaking and invited him to join her and Hugh at the home of Claudia Dorvenn, who had proved not to be the vampire that the screen and many rumors had painted her. New stories of prominent film players are constantly being interwoven in this narrative, as their lives touch those of Sally and Hugh. Even if you have missed the opening installments, read the story now. You may find your favorite in this and succeeding parts of the story. cooed at him in a low, warm voice with a hint of laughter in it, that made Hughie gurgle with delight. She caught up two or three of the gorgeous lilies and tossed them to him, and he shouted joyously and tossed them back. His mutiny had turned into a game, but he didn't know it. She praised him extravagantly, and he beamed with pride and splashed so hard that he nearly lost his balance. Then, quite suddenly, she lost interest in him. She turned away, picked a great yellow rose from the bush beside her, and devoted all her attention to it. Hughie didn't care for this at all. He shouted to her, threw the lilies around, and waited for her to laugh, but she didn't even see him. He shouted again, but she gave no sign that she had heard. Finall}^ half anxious and half disgusted, he went stumbling through the lily pads to where she sat, put his damp little arms around her neck, and tried to wheedle her into being friendly again. "Oh, you darling infant!" she cried, catching him up in her arms, "I adore you — and how I wish vou belons^ed to me !" us. "Junior, come back here this instant!" I commanded. But young as he was, he must have realized my impotence to make him mind, for he just planted his sturdy little legs wide apart and defied me, for the first time in his life. Hugh could have made him mind, I'm sure, but Hugh had driven to the railway station to meet Danny Gardner. Claudia and I stood there staring at each other, trying not to encourage Junior by laughing at him, and thoroughly disgusted with our inability to handle the situation. "We'll have to get him out at once, or he'll be chilled through, even though the day is so warm," I declared. "I'll just have to wade in after him, I suppose." "No — wait a minute; you needn't do that — it would ruin your gorgeous frock, and I know a better way, I think," Claudia cut in, as I sat down on the grass and began to untie one pump. And there followed one of the funniest scenes I've ever played audience to — it was delicious. For Claudia Dorvenn, famous on several continents as one of the most beguiling vampires on the screen, knelt down on the wide marble rim that encircled the pool and devoted all her artistry to enticing that two-year-old son of mine back to dry land. She held out her hands and coaxed, cajoled, and And just then Hugh and Danny came upon us, throitgh the clematis-hung arbor. They had seen the whole thing. So that was how Danny and Claudia met — she with my bedraggled son clinging to her neck, so that her eyes met Danny's over Junior's dripping curls. And when I saw how Danny's face lighted up, and how Claudia's eyes widened, I felt exactly like Old Lady Fate. Our gorgeous vampire was going to have a beau at last, like any dear little covtntry girl I Hugh had had Danny bring him the script of his first picture — the continuity writer had just finished with it — and Hugh and I wanted to go over it together. So we were busy most of the time, and Claudia, with Danny and Jimior, wandered through the gorgeous gardens or went motoring. It was heavenly vveather, and if there ever was a more perfect setting for a love affair, I don't know what it could have been. "You ought to call this place 'Garden of Eden,' Claudia," Hugh told her, one evening, when we were having dinner out in the pergola that faced the hills. "It is almost perfect enough for that, isn't it?" she agreed. "And yet I want to get out of it to-night. There's going to be a dance at that big hotel in Lenox, really a gorgeous affair for charity, with a lot of the diplomats and other summer people as gttests, and I thought — that is, I wondered "