Picture Play Magazine (Sep 1926 - Feb 1927)

84 To the Manner Born Photo by Seely Lenore and Virginia, daughters of Francis X. Bushman, are being encouraged by their father in their screen careers, have some goal to attain. No matter how great a person may become he will never last, at least in my opinion, unless he always has one more step to go. If one is truly ambitious, one should never be satisfied. The highest reward I can think of for ambition is not money nor power, but happiness. That is the hardest of all to attain. Those who get it are lucky — and few. I should never be content unless I were working. So that is another ambition — to be able to work until the end of my life. Perhaps, when I get old, I shall change most of my ideals, though I hope 1 shan't, because they are something to work for. And I hope I am on the right path. Edwin Carewe, the First National director, didn't want his daughter Rita to have any career other than the charming, aimless duties of a debutante and, eventually, of a wife and mother. He hoped she would find in her home expression for her youthful energies and ambitions. "But last year, when Rita came out to California from school for her vacation, her father was confronted with a suppliant young person who implored and begged and wheedled until he finally consented to let her try her talent in one of his pictures. Rita is a pretty little blue-eyed blonde, vaguely reminiscent of Mildred Harris, and screens quite "delightfully. Mr. Carewe gave her a small part in "Joanna," Douglas Fairbanks, Jr.. tlie movies against starring Dorothy Mackaill. Rita, with" her fingers constantly crossed, for fear the dream would vanish, worked and studied and learned. In "High Steppers," a later production of Mr. Carewe's, she had quite an important role. It is definitely understood, however, between Rita and her father that she must work just as hard for what she may attain as any less fortunately related girl. She will, of course, have the advantage of Mr. Carewe's personal interest and advice, but they both intend that she shall fight her own little battles up the ladder. Her father, now that he is satisfied as to her apparent talent, is quite content about her choice of a career. Lenore and Virginia, the daughters of Francis X. Bushman, are, in spite of their extreme youth, unusually interesting personalities. I first met them shortly after they came West over a year ago to spend the summer with their father. We worked together on "Lights of Old Broadway," but it was not until we made the cafe scenes of "The Masked Bride" that I came to really know them, for they were timidly, diffidently shy at first. Lenore was fifteen, then, and Virginia seventeen, and they were vacationing from a Maryland convent. Everything was startling and marvelous to them, and most of all, their wonderful daddy. Mr. Bushman played opposite Mae Murray in "The Masked Bride," you know, and whenever he came in, they used to rush over to him, adoringly straighten his tie or his handkerchief, smooth imaginary wrinkles from his immaculate dinner coat, and, one on each arm, walk up and down with him outside the set. They live in a huge old house on the tiptop of Whitely Heights, with broad lawns and gardens surrounding it. Lenore told me, with the shyly proud air in which she always speaks of her father, that, work or no work, he was up at six every morning, and after a run round the grounds, a dip in the swimming pool, a shower and breakfast, "he comes in to wake Gin and me. He tweaks our noses with his cold hands, till we wake up." Bushman's manner with his girls is a splendid thing to see. One hears so much of this easy friendship between parents and children — and one sees so little of it. The Bushmans, however, have apparently found the secret. Francis X. treats his daughters as very intelligent persons, granting them credit for specific and salient ideas and opinions and individualities. And yet, too, he babies them. indulges their little whims, but never inordinately. Lenore and Virginia have been beautifully brought up. When their father and mother separated, some years ago, they went to live with the latter in Baltimore, made his first break into the will of Doug, Sr.