Picture-Play Magazine (Mar-Aug 1926)

An Innocent Abroad 27 Filmtown had come to accept Mary's seclusion as a perennial situation. She would grow old and die without being seen, save in quick glimpses on her way to and from the studio— a vague, unreal little figure. With the exception of Universal studio people, Hollywood had known her only on the screen. Until recently she was as much a quaint dream girl to filmtown as to her fans. Living in the heart of Hollywood, she has followed not one path prescribed for its stars. She has never owned an automobile, or a fur coat, or jewelry, save for a string of tiny seed pearls and a turquoise ring which she wears, child fashion, on her middle finger. Because her parents had and have still the MiddleWestern, small-town fear of the theatrical influence, her life has been the most secluded of any motion-picture player's. Hollywood offered their little girl a glorious opportunity, but Hollywood was also an octopus, its claws sheathed in deceptive velvet and strung with bright gems, that might snatch her into an embrace which would strangle the quality they wanted her never to lose. Hoping to keep her a child always, they determined to shelter her from any possibility of harm. This sweet, wholesome couple believe what they read in the newspapers, and the papers tell about such horrible things. And some of them are true. They thought that all of them were true. So Mary seldom went anywhere except to the movies and church and to interview-luncheons occasionally, which her mother chaperoned. She worked, she was driven home in a studio car, had her dinner, and went straight to bed. Always frail, her health must be guarded. She read books selected for her that might entertain or amuse or instruct her, without revealing the sordidness of life from which her parents wished to shield her. It was not an unhappy life for her, as she knew no other. And so, in tireless work at putting her vague feelings into the form of acting, in simple amusements, Mary has drifted into girlhood without losing her childish appeal. Her salary has been small. A short time ago Universal, in a magnanimous mood, tore up her rather unfair contract and presented her with a nice new one at an increased figure. When it was agreed she might have more liberty, she promised her mother and Mr. Laemmle that she wouldn't think of a romance for years and years. A number of events have conspired together to introduce Hollywood's dream girl to society. The look of girlish freshness that Mary Philbin bears is genuine. Except for having put up her curls she is the same Mary Philbin that she was five years ago. The realization that she was growing up without the good times enjoyed by the youth of the community, the slight flare of independence with which she asked for a good time, her new contract, the success which is predicted for "Stella Maris," all have been influential in winning for her the measure of freedom now allowed. Girls don't have debuts any more, I know. At sixteen they start jazzing around. The ceremonious panoply of an older-day convention is gone. But I remember my elder sister's debut : the rustling of the dowagers' silks, the pomp of it all. Crouching on the stair landing in my flannel nightie, I felt the oppressive solemnity of an instantaneous gulf separating me from that winsome, demure girl, so suddenly grown up. I recall that scene now when I see Mary Philbin. Perhaps because of the suddenness of her emergence from the pages of a book where, to my mind, she has always seemed to belong, it strikes me as a jolt that she" is officially "out" in society — or whatever you call social contact nowadays. Mrs. Ernst Lubitsch sponsored her introduction. Charming, witty, clever, and — most important of all — a gentlewoman, Mrs. Lubitsch has [Continued on page 98]