Picture-Play Magazine (Sep 1921 - Feb 1922)

"The Nice Girl" The interviewer never really appreciated that that was a complimentary term until she met Lois Wilson. By Celia Brynn IF Lois Wilson had been just a civilian whose (inly acquaintance with the screen was gained from a fifty-cent seat in a movie theater, I most certainly would have been prejudiced by the description of her which was giA'en me. "She's a nice girl," some one had said earnestly. Now to my mind there's only one thing more insipid that can be said about a person of the feminine gender, and that is, "She's a szccct girl !" It's like damning a man's character by remarking of him that "He means well." But, since Lois, Wilson is in the movies, I can vouch for it that the much-abused adjective by which she was described is as much of an honor as a Phi Beta Kappa key in college circles. When you hear such appellations as "fresh young thing," "sophisticated," "idiot child," and "absolutely impossible," you begin to appreciate terminology that hints of a friendly and normal personality. You know without being further enlightened that the "nice" girl doesn't quarrel with her leading man about close-ups, that she doesn't go out on wild parties, and that she probably has a mother and a younger sister.y and maybe a small brother whom she takes to school every day before coming to the studio. It means further that the studio force like her and respect her, and that when you meet her you will ])e agreeably surprised and unconditionally sorry that you had let yourself be prejudiced by a measly little adjective. All of which applies to the wav I felt about Lois before and after meeting. I found a quiet. ])rown-e3-ed girl with soft, wavy hair and skin of a slight olive tint. She was much younger than I had exjiected her to be, for the screen brings out a certain maturity of contour and expression which one misses when face to face with her. Indeed it was hard to visualize her as the heroine of Barrie's "What Every Vv'oman Knows." I could not reconcile her quiet but evident girlishness with' Maggie Shayuc, the wise little woman who knows everything about her husband, including his faults and how' to cure them. We talked about the picture, I enthusiastically, Lois regretfully. She had loved working in it, she told me, she had lost herself in the part so completely, and she thought William De ]\lille had done a piece of beautifully artistic work in his conception and direction of the famous stage play. But — this with a sigh — the criti'^s had not been kind. They had failed, almost unanimously, to catch the subtleties which Mr. De ]\Iille had tried to imprison on the silver sheet. Her regret was entirely unselfish. For her own part in the picture, Photo by Edwin Bower Hesser Lois Wilson is a quiet, broxvn-eyed girl witli soft, wavy hair and skin of a slight olive tint. as well as that of Conrad Nagel's, the critics had had nothing but praise. The old adage of speaking of angels and hearing the immediate rustle of their wings proved true just then, for Conrad Nagel himself appeared at the door of the publicity office where Lois and I were chatting, and headed in our direction. "Ah, talking to our little foreigner?" he asked me. Lois blushed, and struck at him with her hat. Ii was evident that Conrad was an accomplished tease, and that his voung leading woman was accustomed to being the target of his pleasantries. "Didn't you know that she is a foreigner?" he went on seriously. "Fact, I assure you. She was born in Georgia, and when she first came to Lasky's cotild hardly speak a word of English. But now you can understand almost everything she says." Lois turned the point of the conversation away from herself by asking how the baby was. It was an effective Continued on page 101