Picture Play Magazine (Sep 1923 - Feb 1924)

Milady — from Jamaica An exotic, with a background of social distinction, is Aileen Pringle. By Elza Schallert IN a tall Flemish chair at the end of a long, narrow dining board she sat, Milady from Jamaica. Her parted .raven hair was drawn in a straight line to the nape of her neck. Jet pendants swung in circlets of brilliants from her ears. Russian perfume scented the warm air. Ropes of silken fringe dropping from her black gown shimmered in the white sunlight that gleamed through stately glass doors of a picturesque salon in one of Hollywood's hillside villas. "A Velasquez painting — a nocturne by ■" Thus I mused over Aileen Pringle, a new exotic type who has been disturbing the equilibrium of Hollywood, and who threatens to establish a vogue, even as did Barbara La Marr and Nita Naldi — a girl who deserted a brilliant society career to try for cinema honors — and Elinor' Glyn's one and only protegee since Gloria Swanson. It is she whom Elinor Glyn has selected to portray that choicest heroine— The Lady — in "Three Weeks." Certainly, a distinction for a newcomer. And one that Madame Glyn feels is not without honor because to her The Lady of her novel is a "sacred soul child" and worthy to be portrayed only by a gentlewoman. But then, it must be stated in Mis's Pringle's favor that she has been and is a lady, and has had the cultural background that tradition and madame demand as a qualification to the coveted title. European education— travel — being the wife of an enormously wealthy Jamaican planter — a leader in the continental social life of the island — enjoying" the luxuries that riches can buy. All that sort of thing has been Miss Pringle's life. Perhaps you know her on the screen. Perhaps not. Idle first work that won her recognition was the role of the half-caste Eurasian girl in "The Tiger's Claw," starring Jack Holt. Then followed bits at Goldwyn's as Lady Robert Ure in "The Christian" and Mrs. Schuyler Peabody, a society woman, in. "The Stranger's Banquet." And the next part of any consequence was an aristocratic crook in "Souls for Sale." You may not even recall the character. There were just three shots of her in the act of perpetrating a very slick badger game on Lew Cody in India. But they were impressive enough to catch the contract eye of Goldwyn's and she was promptly signed by them for five years, and as the Princess Ebali in "In the Palace of the King," she will make her debut as a member of the Goldwyn stock company. Of course, there are any number of players who have recently been signed by various companies in Hollywood, as members of stock companies, whom you probably will never hear from. Just as others before them have been signed' and have made a slow and uneventful fade-out from the screen. But I believe the case of Aileen Pringle will be different. Because she herself is different. Her unusual life has stamped, her with distinction. It has given her poise, savoir-faire, assurance, discrimination in the choice of her associates, the ability to recognize and select "powers," and an air and a manner that make people and "powers" take notice of her. "I am not one of the 'gah-gah' girls who accept any and every condition that is thrust upon them with a curtsy and a 'Yes, Mr. Smith,' and an 'Oh, certainly, Mr. Jones,' she tells you. "I feel that I am an intelligent woman," she continues, flipping the ashes from a cigarette and dropping her classic head, against the back of the chair, "and that I should always be able to discuss things pertaining to my work intelligently with intelligent men under whose jurisdiction such matters fall. I have always found that it is not difficult to achieve results when you have contact with intelligent people. "I may sound, tyrannical. But I am not, I assure you. I am humble. That is one of the many things pictures have taught me." "Humble?" I queried. "Then you played 'extras ?' " "No, never!" She punctuated this by crashing .out the life of the cigarette. "I figured that once an extra, always an extra. Besides I had had stage experience. Played in 'The Green Goddess' with George Arliss. ' And I felt it shouldn't be necessary, therefore, for me to join the ranks of 'extras.' "Oh, I don't deny that I had a rather lonesome time of it for three years, but I was determined to make a go of pictures, so I sort of hung on until I got what I wanted. Of course, I never wanted for food or clothes, so I wasn't handicapped for the necessities of life. But I lived* simply in. a New York apartment with one maid, and then gradually came westward." An apartment and a maid! What luxurious equipment with which to fight the picture game. How different from the lot of the average girl who has the cinema bug. But, of course, Aileen Pringle isn't an average girl. And like Pola Negri who can talk about her art. with a very big A, she can refer to herself as "an intelligent woman" and "a lady" and get away with it. I was wondering as she lighted the seventh or eighth cigarette, delicately touching her lower lip with a black kerchief, whether she didn't miss the glittering social life she had in Jamaica. "Not at all \" She surprised, me. I was hoping she'd get sentimental about her seventeen servants, titled friends, and the polo games and tennis teas that were given at her pretentious estate. . . In Hollywood she has only four servants. A colored' chauffeur who speaks good English, a cook and a house and a personal maid. She intimated hers was a lowly opinion of people who discussed their servants. So like Elinor Glyn's lady ! "Society is a superficial life. All the time I was 'first lady' on the island, I was hungering to create something artistic that expressed all the thoughts and emotions I felt. I always wanted to act. The desire was like a burning fever within me. But pictures have satisfied it. So you see I have no repressions. There is nothing I would rather do in the whole world than have a picture career." We went upstairs to powder our noses. I needed Continued on pa^e 96