Picture Play Magazine (Sep 1921 - Feb 1922)

The Revelations of a Star's Wife A real story of motion-picture people, disclosing the high lights of their careers off the screen. ILLUSTRATED BY EDGAR FRANKLIN WITTMACK CHAPTER XV. FOR one horrible instant the world ttirned black before me. I couldn't think, couldn't move. Then I heard Benito say, "Ah, Hugh — you are just in time for the end of a lesson in acting ; Mrs. Sally has been helping Mary and me out. Will you join us while we run through it again?" I sank into a chair and tried frantically to get a grip on myself. What would Hugh think — what could he think? He and Jack Bingham, the newspaper man — I suppose I can call him that, though it seems as though a man in so low a business as his should not be so dignified— came down into the room. Bingham slouched into a corner of the davenport opposite me ; I realized that I was being subjected to a scrutiny as keen as it was merciless. But Hugh came straight over to me, sat down on the arm of my chair, and slipped one arm around my shoulders. The blessed relief of that moment was almost too much for me. I leaned my head back against his arm and rul^bed my cheek against the rough tweed of his coat sleeve. Never had Hugh been dearer to me than at that moment. He had told me once that I never could know what my itnquestioning faith meant to him. Now I understood. But that shrewd-eyed, thin-lipped man across from me didn't understand. I knew that he was rejoicing over this bit of good luck ; that he would go back to the office of his sensation-seeking slander sheet and write an insinuating, vile story, which, without saying anything incriminating enough to permit us to sue him for liljel, would smirch Hugh's name and mine forever. I cotJd almost tell how he would word it. There would be no mention of Mary's presence, of course. A well-known star who had recently formed his own company, after being for several years imder contract with one of the best known of the big producing organizations, had gone unexpectedly into the apartment of one of Broadway's famous beauties — there might be a bit of salacious comment on his going there — and had found his wife in the arms of a handsome young man hitherto known for his ability as an artist, now famous as the result of his work in the first picture in which he had appeared. There would' be other bits of information that would place Hugh and Benito and me in the minds of all those who were at all acquainted with the motion-picture industry. The incident would expand into wild rumors. They would go everywhere. Decent people, overhearing them, wouldn't want to go to see Hugh any more, wouldn't feel the same about him. And there would be no way to prevent this ! It seemed to me that I would go mad if something wasn't done at once to prevent this impending calamity. And the tenseness of Hugh's arm behind my head told me that he realized the situation as well as I did. Benito was chatting with Bingham about his new picture, trying to appear at ease, but the man hardly took his eyes from my face. Desperately I looked away, and caught Mary's eye. I suppose my distress must have been all too apparent ; she shook her head at me commiseratingly, and gave me a little smile that tried to be reassuring. I wanted to shriek with hysterical laughter. I had tried to help her — and this was what had happened ! She got up then, and sauntered over to the davenport, where Bingham sat smoking and sipping the high ball which the maid had brought him. "How's the world treating you, Jack?" she asked familiarly. That surprised me ; I hadn't known that they knew each other. "Oh, so-so," he answered indifferently. "Been running any fake contests lately?" she asked nonchalantly as she crossed her knees and swung one foot lazily. He jerked around to stare -at her, his expression changing instantly. I would not have thought it possible tor complacency to change to apprehension so quickly. "Fake contests — what do you mean?" he snarled. "Oh, just the kind you've put on before — to get girls to come from little coimtry towns to the big cities, thinking they're going to get into the movies, only to find that they — that they " Her voice thickened as if she spoke with tremendous effort; she looked at Benito for a long moment, and her hands fluttered a little in her lap as if they yearned to go out to him and knew that they must not. I have never seen an expression of more complete adoration in any one's eyes than was in Mary Sorello's at that moment. Benito's eyes widened with understanding, and he leaned toward her unconsciously, I am sure, but she turned away and faced Bingham again. What Has Gone Before. "We are so used to portraying the very essence of life on the screen," a prominent actress once told Sally Beresford, the name the writer of this amazing narrative has assumed to conceal her real idcntit}-, "that in our own lives we find ourselves living hard and fast, doing the dramatic thing rather than the wise one, and rarely stopping along the way just to contemplate the joys and beauties our li\es afiford us. It's people like you, Sally — people who understand us, and 3'et can give us the counsel of levellieadcd people from the outside world that save us from doing foolish things sometimes." That is the part Sally Beresford plays to nearly all of the nlaA'ers she meets, that of sympathetic friend, confidante and counselor. Her husfjand stands first, of course, for theirs is a real partnership — and much of her time is taken up in helping him with various details of production. But through working with him and being with him, she is thrown into contact with the most pathetic, the most bizarre, the most talented, and most lieautiful, and a few of the most sinister and degrading people before the public to-day. Many of them you know through their work on the screen — but this is the first time that the real inside story of their lives has been told by one who knows them. No one she ever met in the motion-picture studios was more interesting to Sally than Armand Benito, an artist dilettante who was given a serious interest in life when he made a sensational success as a motion-picture actor. He tried to persuade Sally to play opposite him in a picture, but she was determined that Mary Sorello, a friend in distress should get the part. To humor Benito, however, Sally consented to rehearse some scenes with him. Her husband entered the room with one of the most sensational newspaper men in town just as Benito was making love to her. This installment continues the story from that point.