Picture Play Magazine (Sep 1926 - Feb 1927)

43 Why Is Ronald Colman So Aloof? He has often been criticized by those who do not understand him for his apparently cold and distant manner, but if we look back over his none-too-happy past, we find there bitter, disillusioning experiences that changed a happy, boyish dreamer into the silent, reserved man that Ronald Colman is to-day. By William H. McKegg LIKE a vision of gold, in what she had told me was her "wedding gown," Vilma Banky was clasped half fainting in one of Ronald Colman's steellike arms. 1-n the other he wielded a flashing blade at the faces of oncoming foes. Briefly, in a thrilling scene in "The Night of Love,"* a bold bandit was abducting a fair duchess from a vile baron's castle in Spain of the seventeenth century. "All hold your positions while the cameras are moved," loudly intoned an assistant's voice. While the cameras were being accordingly set, Vilma, still holding onto the bandit's shoulder, twirled •the fingers of her free hand at me. Ronnie, who had been fiercely looking at no place in particular, felt the movement. Glancing down at the vision he held, he smiled and gave her a gentle squeeze. But the gesture was such as could have beemenacted before a jealous husband without arousing his ire. It was the sort of one-armed squeeze you'd give a pal. The scene finished, Colman's work for the day was done. Passing near me, he hurriedly said, "I shan't be a sec changing." Just a short while before, during a rest, some visitors had been introduced to him by an affable press agent. The customary greetings had been exchanged and then Colman had resumed his work, without looking at them again. I could see the puzzled looks the visitors now gave him as he marched off to his dressing room. They were, I knew, probably saying, "A bit high-hat — even conceited." Every word of which is entirely untrue. Ronald Colman is not effusive to strangers simply because he is too sincere to express more than he naturally feels. ' But with people he knows he is the friendliest person in the world. And class distinctions do not exist for him. Once while lunching with him I noticed how pleasantly he talked with our young waitress, who had smilingly greeted him. Colman likes sincerity. He doesn't tell visitors to the studio that he is perfectly delighted to meet them and hopes he will have the pleasure of seeing them again, simply because he doesn't know them well enough to really feel that. Yet so many expect to be told it just the same. "It would appear," Colman once said to me, "that if you don't go about slapping comparative strangers on "the back and speaking as though you had known them all your life, you are branded as high-hat." He possesses the traditional reserve of both the English and Scotch. He admits this. Yet, when you do get to know any one belonging to either of these nationalities, a more lasting or truer friendship could not be found. All the same, the film circles of Hollywood brand Colman as an enigma. Let's look back into his past — perhaps there have been events in his life that have tended to increase the reserve that he already had by inheritance. Between Colman and Vilma Banky there exists perfect sympathy and understanding, which makes them so well suited to each other on the screen. "The Night of Love" marks the third film in which they have been co featured. school together gether gether 'First called 'One Night of Love." On a green hillside near Richmond, during the latter part of an English summer, two boys of seventeen, a dark one and a fair one, had been discussing ideals. One was lying full length, chin propped in his hands ; the other, sitting up. hugged his legs, resting his chin on his knees. From where they were their glances could wander over the sloping meadows down to the silver windings of the River Thames. "It's a jolly shame, Ronnie, that you can't come up to Cambridge," remarked the very fair one, whose chin rested on his knees. "Oh, what's the cliff ? We'll see each other in the holidays," replied darkbrowed Ronald nonchalantly. He tried to appear cool and unconcerned but, inwardly, he was the more disappointed of the two. For several months his father had been meeting with various financial reverses. It meant that he could not go with his chum to Cambridge. Both boys had long been building castles in the air, which now were shattered. They had been away to boarding they had planned to go to college tothey had intended later to travel the Orient toTheir imaginations had pictured all sorts of wonderful things. And now Ronald saw all these visions fading away. The next morning his chum, who had spent the summer with him, was to leave for his own home to prepare for college. Ronnie was also to leave, but it was to go to work in his father's business in London. He hated the idea. If only he could, without hurting his parents' feelings, he would rather have gone on a tramp over Europe.