Picture Play Magazine (Mar-Aug 1927)

30 She Dictates Her Own Terms Gloria used to have? And Greta Nissen was sitting in one, too, the last time I was out at the studio." "Oh, no, honey." Every one is "honey" or "dear" to Gilda, including the maid, and the waitress. "All the stars don't have dressing rooms on the set. Anyhow, not like mine. Not like a ship's cabin, built just for me." Somehow you don't mind this in Gilda Gray; she seems so naive about her success. In any one else, what sounds suspiciously like braggadocio would probably make you resentful. Gilda waited patiently for her lunch. She is on a diet, because she feels better when she doesn't eat much meat. She denied indignantly that her diet was a little matter having to do with weight. "I weigh only one hundred and eighteen," she assured me. Back in her dressing room we fell to talking of her son, Martin, now thirteen years old. "Thirteen this April," said Gilda, becoming motherly. "He was born when I was sixteen. I was just a kid when I married the first time ; I married Martin Goretski just to help my father get into politics." Martin Goretski was the son of a man influential in politics in Milwaukee. Gray is the Anglicized version of Goretski. Gilda's son, Martin, has now taken the name of Boag and has been adopted by Gilda's present husband. He lives with her mother and f ather in Milwaukee, where she bought them a house, because she doesn't think it would be good for him to be plunged into the theatrical atmosphere, at his age. "He writes to me every week," she said. "We're looking up a school for him now, but we want to find the very best to send him to. He's the sweetest child. Several years ago when I was getting my divorce, the other boys at school started jeering at Martin. 'Ha-ha! Your mother's a shimmy dancer,' they'd say. But do you think that worried Martin? He came right back at them, 'Well, if your mother had the shape my mother's got, she'd be making lots of money, too!' And now all the boys in Martin's school have written me for autographed photos, and they brag about knowing Gilda Gray's son." It's amazing, Gilda's success. A triumph of personality, indeed. A marvelous dancer is Gilda, of course. She makes up her steps as she goes along, and when she starts dancing she never has any idea of what she's going to do. Still — the world is full of good dancers. And, really, her dancing itself means little on Photo by Rnssell Ball Gilda finds it necessary to get away from the theatrical atmosphere that surrounds her most of the time, and preparing her own simple meals is part of her holiday. the screen. She photographs very well, but she is not beautiful. There might be some difference of opinion as to whether she is even pretty. She wears a goldenblond wig in pictures, because her own ash-blond hair photographs dark, a difficulty suffered by many blonde's who do not have their hair "touched up." Gilda wears as few clothes as possible, because it's more comfortable, she says. And with evening frocks she never wears stockings. She doesn't care much for night life, and that's one of the reasons she likes playing in films ; the other reason being, of course, twenty thousand dollars a week. "I like to go to bed at nine o'clock and get up with the chickens. I can't say the other chickens, can I?" She and her husband have a house in Rockville Center, Long Island, where they live most of the time. She comes all the way from the country every day to the studio. "But of course I drive in, in a Hispano-Suiza car," she explained. "It's a beauty, too. Gray and black, with silver trimmings. The prettiest car you ever saw. It took first prize at the Paris exposition, and I admired it so much that Mr. Boag" — she always refers to her husband as Mr. Boag — "Mr. Boag bought it for me for Christmas. So I come to work every morning in the Hispano, but I really feel that I belong up in front with the chauffeur." This last is Gilda's favorite remark, which she has brought into every conversation I have ever had with her. The most likable thing about Gilda is her frankness. Many stars might feel that they belong in front with the chauffeur, but who but Gilda would admit it? And she frequently refers facetiously to her "Polish face." She laughingly told about the palmist who read her hands and analyzed the "mounts" at the base of the fingers. "They're 'mounts' now, but in the days when I did my own washing they were just plain callouses." Gilda takes great pride in admitting her humble origin — and then in the next breath she will say something that, in any one else, would sound exactly — well, like boasting. "I did solo dances, unprofessionally, at Mitchel's and Le Perroquet, in Paris./' she announced a little later, and was quite unabashed when it was pointed out that almost every American girl who has been in Paris has done the same thing, including your correspondent. "Well, anyhow," said Gilda, "at Le Perroquet, the Continued on page 109