Picture-Play Magazine (Sep 1926 - Feb 1927)

74 A Houri Without a Harem Estelle Taylor's appearance is decidedly Oriental, but her mind is pure American; the charm of her personality is like the weave of old tapestry, but her repartee is twentieth century. By Violet Dare ALANGOROUS, voluptuous beauty, with great dark eyes and vivid red lips. The devoted wife of Jack Dempsey, one of the world's greatest gladiators. The girl who came back to the screen after a year's absence to play Lucresia Borgia in "Don Juan" so skillfully that United Artists immediately gave her a twoyear contract — the first they'd given any one not a star ■ — and of whom Jack Barrymore is reported to have said she made him work hard to keep up with her. Ladies and gentlemen, Estelle Taylor ! We lunched together in the conventional smartness of her suite at the Ritz, yet even in that gray-and-pale-green trimness she gave the effect of being the favorite of the harem. She is most satisfying to look at, because hers is not the calm, placid beauty that an observer has to discover for himself, nor is it the type that is most noticeable only on the screen. It's as obvious as the skyline of New York. She insisted that I saw her at a disadvantage. She had been up until four thirty that morning.. "Aha!" said I to myself. "Celebrating her success in 'Don Juan !' " Not at all. She'd been riding on trains, taking her mother back home to Wilmington, and then riding most of the night to return to New York. She was just out of bed when we met — hadn't even powdered her face yet. Any woman realizes that beauty knows no truer test than that. Incidentally, she didn't feel that she'd made any big success as Lucrczia, though several of the New York reviewers had said that she gave the best performance in the picture. She was more taken up with the adverse criticisms than' with the others. She'd done the best she could, she said, and Barrymore had been wonderful about teaching her, and helping her. In appearance she may have all the langorous loveliness of the Oriental beauty, but her mental attitude is that of the girl who's working hard at her job, putting into it every scrap of ability she has, and topping that off with ambition. There is an honesty about her that is as satisf ying as her beauty. She was telling me about wanting "more than anything!" to play in "The Volga Boatman." And then at the last minute there was a change of plans and she didn't get the part. "I went home feeling just heartsick, I was so disappointed," she told me. "Jack had said he didn't mind my going back to the screen if I did something big, and I'd thought this was my chance." And then — twenty minutes after she got home, she was asked to make some tests for the part of Lucresia Borgia at the Warner studio. And at seven that night Estelle is essentially the reincarnation of glamorous ladies of the past. Here she is Lucrezia Borgia. — she'd rushed down at four and made the tests — she was asked to come in the next day and make the final arrangements for playing the part. She made no secret of her delight over getting it, of her realization of what a good thing it had been for her. It would have been quite simple for her to say that she'd considered playing in the first picture and had turned it down for the second. But if Estelle Taylor ever trips over anything it will be her own honesty. It's as essential a part of her as her eyes. The tale of the contract with United Artists she told me quite as frankly. She didn't say. "When they saw 'Don Juan' they signed me up at once." She'd gone into the studio to see when a new picture was to start, because she'd been spoken to about playing in it,, and the doorman knew her because she'd worked there with Mary Pickford in "Dorothy Vernon," and told her that Mr. Considine wanted to see her — was, as a matter of fact, trying to reach her by phone that very moment. And when he spoke to her about a contract she nearly fell off her chair ! I'd been told to lay no stress on the fact that she is Mrs. Jack Dempsey. "Might as well try to describe New York without mentioning Fifth Avenue," I'd said to myself, for at that time all the city was tremendously interested . in his presence. Only the day before I'd arrived at the Ritz with a celebrity of another stamp, rather more highbrow, and we had stepped out of a cab, only to be completely ignored by the carriage starter; he, with every one else in sight, was gazing raptly down the street. "What's the idea ?" demanded the celebrity gruffly. "Jack Dempsey !" retorted the carriage starter. The whole hotel rang with the fact that he was stopping within its portals. All the time that Miss Taylor and I talked, the telephone buzzed frantically. And patiently she would pick up the receiver, and tell those who called. "No. he's not in !" "Nobody knows anything about me." she told me cheerfully. "All the excitement's over him." This in spite of the fact that all through the day and evening overlapping interviews were listed on her engagement pad. Being the spouse of a heavyweight champion might seem to have its drawbacks, but apparently it reduces itself to the same terms that the wives of other men know. She was talking about his coming East. She was being considered for a part that she wanted to play, yet she felt that she ought to follow him to his training camp. "I knew that he was worried, with so manv things to bother about," she told me. "And if I played that part I wouldn't see him again till after the fight" (the Dempsey-Tunney battle), "and he was staying up till Continued on page 112 Photo by John Ellis