Picture Play Magazine (Mar-Aug 1926)

48 Over the Teacups Photo by Arthur J. Zellner Clamorous as the welcome for other stars may be, New Yorkers always stage something special in the way of a riot over Mary Pickford and Husband Doug. of that rust-proof paint they put on iron fences. "Even in that gathering of beauties, there was one slim little girl who was so utterly dazzling and lovely that every one went around clutching their friends and asking, 'Who is she?' Late in the evening, she came up and asked me if I wasn't ever going to recognize her. It was Edith Allen, the girl who played in 'Scaramouche' so long ago. She has been threatening to come back to pictures for months, but her social life occupies too much of her time. If she doesn't settle down to work in pictures pretty soon, though, I'm going to start a campaign to kidnap her and lock her in a studio." Before I had a chance to ask Fanny if she didn't think it was a strange coincidence that on the very day that Pauline Garon and Lowell Sherman got married, Pauline started a picture called The Virgin Wife,' and if it was true that Lowell Sherman was at last playing a hero role — in 'Hello, New York' — and if she didn't think that Rudolph Valentino had won the bad-manners sweep stakes of the world by denying that he intended to marry Pola Negri after Pola herself had loudly proclaimed it, she launched into an enthusiastic recital. "I suppose you will tell me that I am only about ten years behind the times when I tell you that I have been quite swept off my feet by Mr. and Mrs. Fairbanks. All right — go ahead. I can stand any amount of kidding. I've never really known them before. I had just met them casually with mobs of other people. But I went up to see them the other day and had a long talk with Mrs. Fairbanks — see how I am bearing up under the strain of not calling her 'Mary' — and I found her as utterly delightful as Lillian Gish had always told me I would. "She showed me a telegram from Ernst Lubitsch in which he said that he considered her new picture, 'Sparrows,' one of the eight wonders of the world, no less. 'I really ought to die right now,' she told me, 'because at last I've made a picture that my most critical friends like. It's never happened before. Even Charlie likes it.' "Every few minutes we would mention some one whose name would remind her of some funny impersonation that Mr. Fairbanks does, and she would call him away from a business conference in the next room to do it for us. He would come bounding in — he is quite the most alive-looking human being you ever saw — and perform for us until we were weak and gasping from laughter. "Mrs. Fairbanks has none of the exuding, magnetic warmth that is typical of actresses. Hers is the more subtle appeal of perfect naturalness and sincerity. I love her voice. It is a confiding little voice with a sort of startled breathlessness about it. It doesn't matter much what she talks about — it ail seems awfully important and quite friendly and companionable. "She has an amusing, terse way of expressing herself. She told me that they expected to be abroad for almost a year, and that she didn't suppose she'd enjoy it much, as she gets so homesick for the sound of American voices. 'But every woman has some cross to bear,' she philosophized. 'Some husbands neglect their wives and some drink ; mine likes to travel.' She plans to do a lot of shopping here in New York, because she says that Mr. Fairbanks would never be content to linger in Paris while she gloried in exploring the treasures of the French millinery and dress shops. "Of course, people have simply besieged them with requests to appear at charity balls and benefits and things like that while they are in New York. And Mrs. Fairbanks' explanation of why she doesn't like to do it seems to me a brilliant example of modesty and outspokenness — if there is such a word. 'It takes six months or more of planning, with a lot of help from Continued on page 98 Photo by Henry. Waxman Gertrude Olmstead, flashing a big solitaire, arrived in New York to play opposite Milton Sills in "Puppets."