Picture Play Magazine (Sep 1928 - Feb 1929)

43 Too Good to Be Romantic That's what producers and the fans have been thinking about Conrad Nagel, but Conrad has some ideas on the subject By Alma Talle? IT can't be true that there's such a thing as having too spotless a reputation! That, despite what all the copy-book maxims tell us, there might be times when it doesn't pay to be too good — when goodness is a handicap. Look at Conrad Nagel. Indeed, he's very nice to look at — Conrad, of the irreproachable reputation. In fact, that's the trouble, that irreproachable reputation, Not, of course, that he regrets his quiet, domestic life, and the absence of any scandal in his career. Conrad is not a young man to go around with regrets. A high sense of honor is inherent in him. He wouldn't know how to go wrong, even if, by a sudden miracle, he wanted to. It just isn't in him. But virtue, along with — no doubt — its own reward, has brought «him one distinct annoyance. That is, the fact that .his private life has been so mixed up with his career. Some one once said about Conrad that he went to Christian Endeavor meeting every Sunday night. Perhaps he does, perhaps not. But the fact that such a story was published about him made it as good as true, so far as the public was concerned. It expressed the popular conception of Mr. Nagel. Well, that's all right with Conrad. That's okay with him, as they say on Broadway. But it isn't all right that the public should label him as that type for screen purposes, that they should consider his screen personality "too good to be romantic." "What is an actor anyway?" he demanded. "Isn't an actor a man who can adjust his stage or screen personality to the demands of a role? Who, in other words, can bury himself entirely and become, temporarily, an altogether different kind of person? "Well, all these years I've tried to be an actor. I've played every type, of role in the whole category. Yet the public persists in cataloguing me as a definite type, as the kind of man they imagine I am in real life. What have I got to do — go out and stir up some sort of scandal?" This outburst was occasioned by my comment that suddenly, after some years, Metro-Goldwyn thought Conrad romantic enough to play opposite Greta Garbo in "The Mysterious Lady." Conrad has been under contract to the Goldwyn half of Metro-Goldwyn since the days before all the big companies ran around asking other big companies to merge with them. He has played all kinds of roles, but the illusion has .persisted that he was the type for the noble hero oh — such a noble hero. After Conrad's famous and heroic defense of the actors, last year, in the general Hollywood melee over cutting salaries, Metro-Goldwyn became annoyed with him. They had him under contract, but they lent him* to Warner Brothers most of the time. He played in one Warner picture after another and then, perhaps because he had a good Vitaphone voice, trained for the stage, he was cast opposite Dolores Costello, in "Tenderloin," and then in "Glorious Betsy." Then it was that the Metro-Goldwyn executives woke up to Conrad's possibilities. They saw him in 'Glorious Betsy," in which he achieved a personal success. "Why," they marveled, "what a romantic screen-lover he is !" It was like the sudden discovery that a piece of furniture that has been in the family for years, and relegated to the barn, is really very valuable. Metro-Goldwyn suddenly realized that this young man, whom they had been lending so willingly to other companies, was really quite an asset to their roster of romantic heroes. So, promptly after the release of "Glorious Betsy," Conrad was recalled to the home lot, and was given the prize romantic role, opposite Greta Garbo. In his European military costume, with the high collar so frequently inflicted on John Gilbert, and with lots of gold braid, I must say that Conrad looked very handsome indeed. There seemed to be no< reason at all why Greta, on the screen, shouldn't fall heavily in love with him. I congratulated Conrad on the fact that at last he had been found out. Here, all this time, this romantic lover had been, so far as films were concerned, smothered under that spotless reputation of his, and now it had come to light. He could sigh and look as sultry as any Romeo. "But I've always played romantic roles, off and on, all during my career," he insisted. "And I don't see why this to-do ; why this sudden discovery that I can make love on the screen." I distinctly got the impression that, under his quiet exterior, his always courteous manner, Mr. a little annoyed. He very much disliked his belated acceptance as a romantic type. Well, what young man wouldn't? "The trouble is," he complained, "the public persists in fitting you into a type, in identifying you with the kind of person they imagine you are in real life. Now, take my case. Continued on page 116 "The notion has got about that I'm a sort of goodygoody." — Conrad Nagel. Nagel was