Picture Play Magazine (Mar-Aug 1926)

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34 If John Gilbert Had His Way This vibrant young actor, who is so much in the foreground now, takes an unusuallyearnest attitude toward his career, and is refreshingly frank in expressing his views. By Sally Benson NOT so very many years ago, when people distinguished between their best clothes and their everyday clothes, the expression, "dressing for an accident," was in popular use. It meant that, Sunday or not, the petticoat, chemise, and slip that you had on w ere impeccably clean and uncomfortably starched, stockings neatly darned, and, in fact, your whole effect, both inside and out, so exquisite as to invite being knocked down and run over by a passing hansom. The idea evidently was that even though the crowd would gather at first only out of horror and curiosity, they would, at the sight of so much irreproachable lingerie, remain to applaud and to admire. But now that most of us have no "best," and have settled down in a practical way to doing pretty much as we please, it seems a little unfair that the movingpicture stars alone should still have to wear that "opento-the-public" sign. Even the most efficient of us don't always have our breakfast dishes washed and the beds made when the early-morning caller arrives. And yet, in spite of the close and sometimes embarrassing scrutiny they must endure, moving-picture people seem to accept it with praiseworthy good nature, or possibly it is just resignation. But John Gilbert, that newest star, who since "The Big Parade" and "The Merry Widow" has taken on the dimensions of a planet, refuses to follow the course so placidly taken by his predecessors. "In the first place," he told me, "I don't want to be a star. A star is always a hero, and there is not a great deal for a hero to do but to go wearily about his business of fighting vice and triumphing with virtue. And that isn't real. No one is eternally good or consistently bad, and I don't want to be either. "In the second place, a star doesn't always have the best acting parts. His popularity cannot be jeopardized by showing him in an unfavorable light. Now, if I could have had my choice, I shouldn't have chosen to be an actor, anyway. I'd rather be a director. But as long as I seem to have fallen into the part, I want to do it up right. "I want the public to go to see me act because they like my work, not because they like me as a person. They have no possible opportunity of knowing what I am really like, and I don't want to play a part for them except on the screen. The " rest of the time I want to act as naturally as I can, and just go about my business. "John Barrymore is my idea of a real actor. You hear very little about his private life. You may approve of him or you may disapprove, but you all go to see him. You don't go to see John Barrymore, the man ; you go to see John Barrymore, the actor. You know he is a good one, and that whether or not you like his taste in ties, the money you spend to see him is well spent because he knows his work and gives the best that is in him. "I'd like the public to treat me with that same unbiased respect. I'd like them to go to see my pictures, whether I was playing hero, villain, or a character role, simply because they would know that no matter what part I took, I'd be actor enough to do it well. "Somehow I cannot coax myself into the state of mind that would make an event of the combing of my hair, or of any other trivial thing connected with me personally. I can't think why my private life should interest any one. "I have had innumerable people ask me whether I ■ will or will 'not be divorced. My answer is that I can be divorced and still be a good actor ; I can wear beltedin coats and white ties and be a superb actor ; I can be rude to old ladies and unkind to animals and be the greatest actor the world has ever known. "The only thing that really bothers me is that I may not be even a passably good actor, and I'd like a chance to find that out. "And in doing so, I don't want to have to imitate a mode of thinking and acting which is foreign to me. What possible difference can it make to any one whether or not I am a gentleman ? It's nonsense to try to pretend that an actor is a gentleman. Why, some of us come from the gutter. That's why we are able to give vent to our feelings and emotions as a real gentleman never could. We can imitate some o£ the. surface manners of gentlemen, but that's all. • "I've heard that people say that I am . too/passionate, too sensuous in my love-making. When I have made love passionately on the screen, it has been because I was taking the part of a man who .would do just that. In 'The Merry Widow' I am a spoiled, ardent young prince. I see a girl who suits me, and I reach out to take her. I am no shy country boy with his first sweetheart, neither am I very respectful to women, so I act accordingly. But when I fall in love with this one girl, my attitude changes, and my love-making becomes more real. "In 'The Big Parade' I had a chance to get away from the sensuous type of role that had usually been allotted to me. "Moving-picture actors are taken too personally by their audiences. Stage stars used to be, but they seem to have found a way out of it. I wonder if better pictures with better parts in them would help, or if, after all, people are only interested in personalities on the screen. ' "Irving Thalberg and King Vidor put all their hopes into 'The Big Parade.' We knew we had something good, and we wanted to get it over to an audience. And perhaps if we can get a few more like it, the -film will become the thing, and what the various members, of the cast say to their mothers, brothers, sisters, wives, or husbands will become a matter of total unimportance." "Stop, stop, Mr. Gilbert," I said. "You make it sound like Sir Thomas More's 'Utopia,' and you know what happened to him — his head was chopped off by his contemporaries." "Maybe it is treason," he answered. "But even if I do get my come uppance for it, I'm not afraid. You see, I have been broke before — just after I left Brulator as director for Hope Hampton — so broke, in fact, that it holds no terrors for me now. So if I do get into trouble and stage a flop, I'll only be back where I started from." "Never mind," I told him. "No matter what you say, it won't make a particle of difference. You can't come between people and their details. No one cares Continued on page 107