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49
When They Were Matinee Idols
By Caroline Bell.
Above, is the Noah Beery of to-day; below, he appears in one of his roles as a popular stage hero of some fifteen years ago.
LIFE presents much that annoys me, but f or one thing I am thankful: that I was not a young lady attending theaters twenty or so years ago, when a number of our presentday character actors were matinee idols.
Of course, I muse curiously, it would be nice to see J. Farrell MacDonald with a lot of hair, and Cecil B.*De Mille with a curly lock draped over one eye, and Noah Beery with his face clean and himself all got up in a grand, gold-braided uniform. And I might get a kick, just once, out of the novelty of watching Bob Edeson stalk onto the stage and exclaim in ringing, stentorian tones,
"I cherish you Your lips are
sacred to me Merely permit me
to kiss your finger tips
But, girls, for steady movie diet, how would that compare with the redpepper, spicy love-making of our modern school?
Right, Robert Edeson in a love scene from "Soldiers of Fortune, " a stage hit of twenty-five years ago. The center oval, above, shows him to-day.
Edward Martindel, then and now. Below, as the hero in "The Alaskan" in 1907; above, as himself in 1926.
Twenty years ago, a tempestuous Valentino love scene would have been hissed off the stage by a shocked audience as an indecent exhibition. For, like styles in clothes, the fashions in heroes have changed considerably, as a morning of reminiscence with the matinee idols of yesterday revealed.
What a paragon was the hero of twenty years ago ! Manly, made of stern and noble stuff, weakness was a vice foreign to his nature. He was a Rock of Gibraltar, whose strength might be relied upon in any emergency, who thought and acted with swift certainty. A chivalrous, humble soul, who worshiped womanhood, asked only to serve meekly, protected the weak, and was kind to dumb animals. The conqueror always, superior to the clinging, though often robust, vine, but abject in humility before her gentleness and purity. He awakened her admiration, her awe.
Now, the hero is a boy, one who appeals to her maternal sympathy. He cries, forlorn and misunderstood, and