Picture Play Magazine (Sep 1925 - Feb 1926)

68 The New Gloria — Will She Continue to Conquer? An intimate talk with Gloria Swanson about her past success, her present outlook on life, and her future hopes. By Myrtle Gebhart A SLIM little figure clad in pajamas dashed from the set, grasped the shoulders of a tall, goodlooking man, and swung him around and around in a dizzy dance. "You'll forget your exercises, will you? You did not do them fifty times each, this morning," she cried. "For two cents, I would make you do the whole rigmarole right now, before everybody." "Yes? And if you are not polite to me, I shall not give you the 'pwesent' Baby Gloria sent you." Taking a bill folder from his pocket he opened it, displaying two sprigs of wilted honeysuckle. "She ran after me, as I was leaving the house. One for you and one for me. However, if you intend to be cranky," he paused, banter in his blue eyes, "I wonder which of these young ladies would like " "You dare give my baby's flower to another woman ! Just try it !" Tightly clenched fists beat against his chest, as a pointed, oval face laughed into his, and the girl rescued the sprig of honeysuckle, tucking it into the pocket of the pajama suit which she had been wearing for a scene under the blazing lights. "They play like that all the time, Gloria and Henry," said Anthony Jowit,t, who is the leading man in Gloria's new picture. A smile beamed upon every face in the circle about them. "Rene Hubert, the designer, and I have been staying out at the house for ten days, and when you live with people you get to know them. "I've heard it said that Gloria has changed. As to that, I can't say, as I've known her only a short while. But she is the best little sport ever, constantly bubbling with humor. She and Henry are always kidding and teasing. It's difficult for me to credit those stories that Gloria was once haughty and aloof." I used to go to interview Gloria Swanson when occasion demanded, feeling that, given half a chance at knowing her, I might like her well. Now I haunt her set at the Paramount studio because of the comradely fun that is always going on there. I manage to get myself invited to luncheon more often than professional associa-' tion necessitates, and Gloria is too cordial, in her new happiness which she likes to share with ever)' friend, to hesitate. Her parties, at her big home in Beverly Hills, are delightful. Why? Because there is a new Gloria romping like a child in an exuberance of spirit and a natural spontaneity through the first genuine happiness of her life. Because the coldly chiseled, perfectly modeled, brilliantly polished diamond of yesterday has been warmed to a glowing and vibrant life by the sunshine of ^n understanding comradeship. Love, in one way, has matured her, but also has made her infinitely more childish and lovable and human than I ever imagined she could be. Luncheon with her "gang" is a charming hour. Henry, the marquis, whom Hollywood expected to be swanky and who turned out to be a regular good fellow and boyishly eager to make friends, Tony Jowitt, and Rene Hubert, and Allan Dwan, and a couple of others — always a crowd of jovial spirits. Gloria's fingers dance a tattoo on the white cloth, in that sheer, quivering happiness that cannot be stilled. Her eyes sparkle ; she "makes faces" into Henry's twinkling eyes. Everybody talks at once. Sallies fly across the table, and among them Henry's witty comments, bred of the humor, no doubt, which he inherits from the Irish side of his family. Where is the Gloria of yesterday, gracious but cold, secretive behind an outward manner of suavity? The Gloria who posed just a little, and had definite ideas on professional subjects but when those most intimate to her were broached shut up like a clam — a glistening surface of carefully polished charm which lacked a human note? She has gone and got herself buried, and my prayer is that she will not be resurrected. I have always fancied that I saw a wist fulness flickering across her face that no amount of acting could quite blot out. It was the little girl in Gloria that wanted to come out and play, unfettered, and was afraid to, because nobody just exactly understood. And ridicule would have hurt, awfully. She was, as I see her now, in the light of a new understanding, a sensitive woman shielding the hurts that life had dealt her behind a mask of pretended indifference. Because she had pride, and that graven immobility which was her soldier-father's gift to her, she drew a curtain over her real self and imagined herself, and became outwardly, what she thought she wanted to be : an odd, arresting figure symbolical of luxury and money waste and perfumed silk that the tied-to-the-rut hearts long for, a woman incapable of much depth or human feeling. Perhaps she is right when she says her real self is this new and impish and lovable Gloria, somehow childlike and appealing. I spent several days with them at Coronado, where scenes for "The Coast of Folly" were shot along the beach and in old Balboa Park, at San Diego, with its tropical blooms and its tangled verdure and its hot, beating sun. And, whenever I can sneak away from work, I am to be found on her set, or among her crowd at luncheon in the dining room once reserved for Cecil B. De Mille's noon-time confabs with his staff. That used to be an austere place, where you spoke in a hesitant, hushed tone, or awaited The Presence a little nervously. Now the gang rushes up the stairs, pell-mell, Gloria pulling Henry along, and everything under the sun comes up for quick, laughing discussion. One day I spoke aloud my wonderment at this change. "Gloria, I used to admire you for having battled your way ahead, and I liked you, in general, but I didn't think I should ever get to know you. I ourzled over what manner of woman lived behind dtac impersonal and sometimes cynical attitude, if a human being who felt as the rest of us was animate behind that shell that you seemed to draw between yourself and all except your most intimate friends." We chanced to be alone after luncheon, the men having been sent off that we might talk seriously, something impossible when that gay banter that now surrounds Gloria is going on. Her eyes met mine squarely, as she thought a moment and said : "That interests me, what you say. People are so seldom frank. I wondered what they honestly thought of me. . . . There is a lot of truth in your idea and yet I have not changed. It is just that now I feel a sense of freedom I haven't had in years, for that matter,