Picture Play Magazine (Mar-Jul 1929)

22 Decency in the Discard The craze for "confessions" leaves but few stars with a shred of reticence left. Elsi Que Illustrated by Lui Trugo THE rage to "-eveal all" has hit Hollywood like a hurricane ; a tidal wave of "confessions" has swept over the Gold Coast, piling up strange flotsam and jetsam in its turgid wake. Apparently the barometer is still falling. The "ghost writer" stalks ghoulishly through the wreckage, stripping the victims of their garments of decency, their gems of reticence. Never an issue of a certain type of fan pabulum goes to press, that it doesn't carry the story of the love life of somebody or other. It's a symptom of something — but of what? Is the public, fed up with the innocuous bilge heretofore purveyed by the press agents, demanding stronger meat? Is psychoanalysis responsible? Or is it the swan song of the old-fashioned movie world, always frankly vulgar in many of its attributes, and now about to be supplanted by a more dignified era? Whatever the explanation, the present vogue of sensational exploitation has left all previous efforts along that line pipped at the post, as they say in British sporting circles. It is not only the jazz babies of filmland, who are rushing into print with revelations of their most intimate and personal reactions to life and love ; some of the greatest stars have felt the urge to "tell all"— and the telling, although it may have afforded both the narrator and his, or her, readers a temporary thrill, is the sort of thing that leaves a retrospective bad taste in the mouth. Almost without exception, those stars who have survived through the chaotic years since the old Biograph days, have been most discreet in their public utterances. Inevitably they have been much talked about ; but a backward glance through files of old newspapers and magazines will reveal the fact that in their interviews and statements they have preserved a marked reticence on matters of a personal and private nature, into which it was not seemly that the world should intrude. Take Mary Pickford, for instance. Her name is as synonymous with motion pictures as that of Mary Baker Eddy with Christian Science. When most stars would b e tempted to talk too much, Chaplin wisely retires. She was the first film actress to achieve world-wide fame. Although still a young woman, and still producing commercially successful pictures, she has become almost a legendary figure ; her fame, like that of Rachel and Bernhardt, will increase rather than diminish with the years. But, such was the delicate relationship in the early days between "America's Sweetheart" and her adoring public, that a misstep in the matter of personal revelations could have easily overthrown it. We know all about Mary's girlhood ; of her mother's gallant struggle against poverty; of Mary's loyalty and generosity and level-headedness, when fame and riches poured in upon her in an overwhelming flood. We know that there have been unhappy chapters in her life — mistakes, heartaches, regrets — as there must be in every human existence ; but we know of them only vaguely. Mary has never seen fit to publicize them, and we respect her reserve. Comment and gossip were unavoidable, but such has been her personal dignity through the various crises through which she has passed, that would-be scandalmongers have been abashed and silenced. Charlie Chaplin's turbulent domestic affairs have been more or less public property, and of such a nature that a lesser figure would have been wrecked by the resultant hullabaloo. The thing which has saved Charlie from annihilation in the sizzling spotlight of notoriety is that he has kept discreetly silent. When newspapers all over the world shrieked of his latest divorce, he went into retirement. Such statements as emanated from him were extremely brief, and touched only on legal questions involved. Had he attempted then to placate avid curiosity with wordy explanations and self-condonements, he would have made himself ridiculous — and to be ridiculous is to be damned. He emerged from the maelstrom, if not unscathed, at least uncommunicative; and there was that about his stubborn silence which inspired a reluctant respect. At the time of his romance with Pola Negri, which was good for front-page newspaper publicity for a number of weeks, it will be remembered that Pola did most of the talking. In fact, Pola virtually talked herself out of stardom in this country. For a while the public was intrigued and amused by the almost daily bulletins issued from Negri headquarters as to the state of the lady's heart ; it was amazed at the frank disclosures of one who had been heralded as a great and mysterious personage.