Picture Play Magazine (Mar-Jul 1929)

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65 "Txtfinkletoes" Lena Malena, who came from Germany, won Hollywood and a nickname with her jazz dancing, and now wants to be "all ofer in electrics." By Myrtle Gebkart TWINKLETOES !" Some one called her that, as her filmy, green skirt billowed about her lithe, wriggling slimness, and her little feet click-clacked to the hum-tee-de-dee of the jazz. The saxophones' moan was taken up by those silver slippers, thrown off from their pointed toes, cascaded from their stiltlike heels. Feet that couldn't keep still. Shoulders that twisted this way and that. Hands and arms weaving into a crescendo of half loops and whirls and circles — a suddenly slow, almost suspended motion — a snap into quick action. Under the subdued lights of the William Boyds' charming home, before an admiring crowd, and to the intense delight of the grinning orchestra boys, Lena Malena made her Hollywood debut. From her sleek, black head to the tips of those impatient little silver slippers she was vibrantly responsive to every quiver of the seductive jazz. She perched on the arms of chairs, flopped onto cushions on the floor ; her broken accent, with its mixed-up slang, drew peals of laughter. The life-of-the-party girl. "Oooh, boy, chust a Cherman merry-go-round !" she said of herself. It took this "German Clara Bow," as she was soon called, no time at all to win Hollywood. After the Boyds' party, and a dinner at which, clad in a very brief bit of gold cloth, she sang, "Lemme see dem i-zes, lemme kees dem leeps," she needed no press agent. A jazz baby done up in Continental wrappings was something new. Most of the foreign beauties sweep in with a regal air and talk of their art. This demitasse dynamo talked frankly of the money she wanted to make and the fame that would spell her name in huge, electric signs. It has taken her a year, however, to win a role of any importance in a movie. A year which she has spent as champion test taker, buying clothes, partying, driving with slight regard for speed regulations, swimming, and admiring Greta Garbo. "Garbo ! Some day I vill act like she does. I mean not act. She sits und t'inks. She make you t'ink maybe she do somesing in a minute, und you wait, but she don' do nozzing. Und dat" — the little black head wagged— "iss v'at / call art. "I vant to go up und up. A leetle at a time. I don' vant to go up too queeck, because maybe I fall down queeck. After a while de poblic vill like me. You vait. No apple saucings, I don' mean." You laugh at and with Lena. At her confusion with English, which bothers her not the least, and at the Photo by Spurr She was not discovered, but imported herself. Photo by Spurr "Oooh, boy, chust a Cherman merry-go-round." — Lena Malena. twisted slang with which she sprinkles it. At herself, bubbling, effervescent, with the sheer joy of life and fun. She is one foreigner who didn't "arrive." She imported herself. Blithely jumping a contract in Berlin, she came to America, lured by a second piece of paper which was in turn torn into shreds when she decided to come to Hollywood. At twelve, the family finances having done a disappearing act — I could see them rolling off her expressive shoulders — she began earning her living by dancing in a ballet. At sixteen she toured Germany, doing solo numbers in cabarets. "T'ree dances every evening, und I'm telling you I get tired of it." To summarize her accounts of events, to get them down on paper, is like pinning the wings of a butterfly. She has the foreign art of dramatization, with the addition of a refreshing candor. "I do an impres-sionis-teec. Ach, I get heem out ! Oh, boy, v'en I get from me a big vord like dat, und right, it feels gr-great ! After the cabaret dancing and some picture work for Ufa, there was a season of what I gathered was musical comedy. "Beeg lights, my name all ofer. Papers with pose of Continued on page 109