Picture-Play Magazine (Mar-Jul 1929)

34 BaclanoVa — As Ske I s Steeped in the traditions of the European theater, her respect for her calling is almost a reverence, and her quiet approach to her work and life mystifies the film colony, because there is no mystery about her. B$ Margaret Reid BECAUSE there is no mystery about her, she mystifies Hollywood. We have been led to expect more of foreign actresses than Olga Baclanova offers. Beyond a doubt she is one of the greatest artists to visit the colony — one of the most electric personalities to startle public and critic alike. That's all very well for the fans, but we in Hollywood are accustomed to some local excitement as well, when a new foreign comet soars. Bred on German fireworks, Polish tornadoes, Scandinavian avalanches, we find it difficult to adjust ourselves to the unobtrusive Baclanova. The unofficial successor to Pola Negri, Baclanova is not a headline person. She has instigated no studio wars, flaunted no spectacular romances. She doesn't bare her soul for publication. She doesn't — inconsiderate woman ! — even ride in a crested Rolls-Royce. She works quietly, and lives more quietly still. She works quietly, but such work! So far there has been no controversy about her talents. She fits into no category known in films. There are those, including herself,' who say she is not pretty. She is not tenderly sympathetic in appeal. She is over twenty-five. She is nothing she should be, according to American standards, yet she is the most significant element on the horizon to-day, and almost any femme in Hollywood would rather be Baclanova than beautiful. She is, as a matter of fact, very beautiful, though not after the obvious pattern prevalent on the screen. A daughter of the steppes, she has the white-and-gold loveliness found among the aristocrats of northern Russia. Her features are delicate, yet firmly molded. Her hair is pale yellow by gift of nature. Her eyes are blue, but more than that — they are a bright, blazing blue, their intensity as piercing as the stab of a rapier. Aside from her superlative acting^ the basis of her appeal is an aliveness that vibrates, that charges the atmosphere around her. Far more vital than just sex appeal is her physical dominance. It is a combination of mental, emotional and bodily sentience. It is magnetism to an acute degree. Yet this never falls into wiles, "allure." There are no tricks mannerisms to force it upon your consciousness. Baclanova does not employ it as a stock in trade. Her only stock in trade is her gift for acting. She knows she is a good actress. Otherwise she would not make claim to it by acting. Acting is not her religion, but she goes about it religiously. She is a little shocked at the or or Photo by Dyar flippancy with which the profession is regarded in America. A cute flapper thinks it would be fun to be in the movies. All right, she goes into them and has a good time collecting her pay check. To Baclanova the theater, or the studio, is almost church. Schooled in the Moscow Art group, steeped in the traditions of European drama, her respect for her calling amounts to reverence. It seems abnormal and may — God forbid ! — change after a few years of movie money making, but it is a fact that to Baclanova good work is more important than good pay — not only that, but is a source of greater enjoyment and satisfaction to her. This sounds altruistic, and has an aroma of mythology, until we consider that until she came to this country she did not know that acting was a business, as well as an art. It is still the latter to her. She is completely serious about it, and about, not her own capability, but making herself evermore capable. Such absorption commands respect. When the results of it are as we have seen in "Forgotten Faces," "The Docks of New York," et cetera, it commands obeisance. A sophisticate and an exotic, Baclanova surprises one with her flashes of naivete. It is not wholly because of her droll difficulty with English that she sometimes gives the impression of a nice-mannered, appealing child. Her wants are so simple, her ambitions so direct, and she has not a complex to her name. She likes America, but is homesick for her mother, who is too deep-rooted in Russian soil to leave it. She likes Hollywood, but is still a little shaken and nervous when she realizes that the Moscow company, with which she came to America, has gone back to Russia without her. She likes Americans, all except agents. When she came to Hollywood, an agent took advantage of the fact that she knew no English, got her signature on a paper by lying to her about its import, and now attaches her salary and harasses her every move. Friends have instituted a suit for her. When speaking of its progress, she says it has to go to a higher court and points upward. She means the superior court, but it looks as though she is referring to heaven. The innocent mistake is adorable. She seldom ^ goes out, having taken a house in a very Cont'd on page 104 Baclanova has startled critic and public alike, with her electric personality.