Picture Play Magazine (Sep 1925 - Feb 1926)

66 Welcoming Back Ethel Clayton one extreme or its opposite. There are the stars who, despite retirement and some adversities, retain namevalue and when they come hack are ahle to obtain virtually their own specifications as to salary, type of work, and the like. And there are the others who face actual obstacles and rebuffs. Hers, however, lacks the news value of the favorite who is lured back, nor is it couched in tragic terms. "I have had disappointments, but I had saved enough money to live on comfortably, so that I faced no privation," she explained her quiet life during the past couple of years. "No, I cannot say that my friends in the profession forgot me, as I understand some of the stars of yesterday claim to have been treated. I have never had many intimates, but my casual friends remember me kindly. At least, they are always lovely to me when we chance to meet, and every one has always said, 'I hope you will come back soon.' " Seven years ago she and her husband, Joseph Kauffman, signed a Paramount contract by the terms of which he was to direct her. His death left her, except for her mother and brother, more completely alone than I have ever seen any young and pretty woman. For seven years she has remained so faithful to his memory that she seldom accepts masculine attentions. Occasionally she is seen with a party at the theater, but there seems to be no room for men, either as suitors or as friends, in her small world. "No, I do not feel myself bound to him in the sense of vows," she replied, slowly, to my comment on her constancy. "It is just that I cannot feel an interest in any other man. Perhaps some day I shall care again, but I doubt it. I have too fine a standard by which to judge. He was a very stern man, but the kindest that ever lived. And when a love like this holds your heart, you cannot make yourself feel an affection for another." After his death she came West alone, grief-stricken and not much caring what happened to her career, to fulfill her share of the contract. For four years she remained a Paramount lesser luminary, continually presented in roles which gave her little opportunity to display any real ability, whether or not she then possessed it, other than that of looking sweet and pretty under the lights so carefully arranged to bring out her blond hair. Of all the pictures she made, I recall only one, "Women's Weapons," with Elliott Dexter, a story of a wife's competition with the traditional vamp, but done in a delicious light vein just barely undertoned with a suggestion of pathos. Because she was very tractable and easy to handle, she did not get the best stories in the studio grab bag. One official said to her in farewell, "I don't think you've been fairly treated in the stories selected for you, but you raised no fuss, and I had no authority to interfere." The fighting stars cause the most rumpus, and win the stigma of temperament, but perhaps in the long run assertiveness pays, for at least they demand recognition of certain rights which, if ignored, in time will cause their own dethronement. Ethel Clayton saw where she was ..drifting, but hers ( a passive, and in a way a timid, nature ; she is one of those women who, though seeing vaguely that things are not going exactly right, do not exactly know what to do about it, or if they do know, hesitate to cause a row. "But my contract with Robertson-Cole was really what finished me," she said, thoughtfully going back over the career of eleven years in the movies which threatened for a time to end so ingloriously. "I was to do six pictures. After three had been completed, I saw that as a star I was about ruined, and obtained mv release. But the damage had been done. I received a few freelance offers, at fairly good pay, but stuff that they would not have dared offer me a few years before. "I had been so long with Paramount, and before had had my husband to guide me in business affairs, and was a little wary of managers, so I felt ineffectual when I started to look for work. I am rather shy about meeting a number of strange people — it is so difficult, not only obtaining the contract, but becoming acquainted with the personalities you must associate with, and gradually learning to' fit into a new environment. An unfortunate trait, but I cannot help being that way. "I did make a stab or two, but" — she shrugged and her mouth trembled, a little mannerism, I believe unconscious, whenever her emotions are affected — "nobody wanted me. They were not discourteous to me, they had not forgotten me ; they merely seemed to think that as a public favorite my day was over and that I had no possibilities as a dramatic actress. "It is not a happy thought, that one can no longer be of service . . . that there is no place for one in a work to which one has given years of real effort. . . . But there are things in life beside the movies. I had my music, books, and gardening, and poking into first one fad and then another — learning to read horoscopes, numerology, all those things. There's little truth in them, but they're amusing, to while away time. "I grew restless, though, and felt that it was useless to throw away my life, to continue a lonely, dragging existence. So I started an Orpheum tour which lasted only five weeks, as I lost mv voice in the 'screaming scene' in the sketch." B. P. Schulberg, scouting for "names," decided that Ethel Clayton's retained some box-office value and signed her for "The Mansion of Aching Hearts." Mention it in a whisper, please. It was one of those rather awful things, but it served as news that she was again working. It is curious that in the queer world of motion-picture production, a talent, no matter how worthy, is treated with little respect unless it is employed ; the mere announcement that a player is working for one producer is sufficient to arouse the others' interest. So again offers began to reach her, and of these she accepted the mother role in "Wings of Youth." Since completing "Lightnin'," she has been inactive. True, she has had no offers, but she will when these two films are released. She realizes, too, now that she has this good start again, that she must be a trifle selective as to roles. "The age of the character means nothing to me, so long as it is an acting role. Give me," her eyes flashed with laughter, "a dramatic part or give me — numerology. I will play a great-grandmother if the lady has something interesting happen to her. "I prefer playing comedy, when it has that light, sophisticated touch. It was delightful, doing the comic widow in 'Lightnin'.' I always wanted to do such things, when I was on contract, and was invariably promised them, but seldom given the opportunity. 'Why can't some of these highbrow writers they are now lassoing for the pictures give us humorous stories of mothers? Why must mothers always weep, or else go to the other extreme of jazz in an effort to keep up with the younger generation? There is so much delicate and charming humor in the life of a woman in the early thirties which could be transferred subtly to the screen." Her keen interest in the changes which each season brings into pictures, and which she has fanned by continuous attendance at the Los Angeles theaters, makes it seem that it was but yesterday that she said good-by Continued on page 110