Picture Play Magazine (Mar-Jul 1929)

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Pity the Poor InterViextfer 19 It was getting dark -it was during the Photo by Louise viewer was ready to depart, and a fine rain was fallin; winter season. "I shall get wet," the perplexed scrihe murmured. "I've got to get to the studio right away," Miss Brent declared, as if she hadn't heard. "I live only one block from Paramount," the interviewer put in, hopefully. But Miss Brent was on her way upstairs to change from silk pajamas into street clothes. Priscilla, probably a little conscious-stricken, said, "I'll phone home and see if my car can be brought around," and followed Evelyn upstairs. She returned a little later, but not a word was said about the car. "Well," the harassed scribe remarked, her last shred of hope gone, "would you mind giving me directions as to which way I shall walk to the street car?" This was addressed to la Brent, who by now had reappeared, ready to leap into her limousine and be driven to the studio. Abruptly Evelyn walked to the front door. "Walk three blocks south. Turn to the left. Two blocks farther on you'll come to the car lines." Her tone was one she would use in saying, "Go to Halifax." I imagine the interviewers are to blame, if Miss Brent feels any antipathy toward them. She has been sorely misrepresented on two or three occasions. But for an interviewer to have to ask her way home ! Interviewers should never ask directions, but walk dazedly around in the rain. I interviewed John Bowers a couple of years ago. I had been asked to do the story. It was hard for Mr. Bowers to suggest a meeting place. Finally it was fixed at the Athletic Club at three o'clock. "Do you mind sitting outside in my car?" he asked. "I have several things in it, and they might be stolen." I noticed a couple of phonograph records, which could easily have been carried, without taxing Mr. Bowers' muscles, into the club. "I can spare only about half an hour," my subject stated. He was terribly busy, et cetera. As far as time went, ten minutes would have been ample, for Mr. Bowers' information was not what one could call illuminating. Some writers have an annoying and stupid way of believing they have become intimate friends with the players, once they have interviewed them. Possibly this has caused the stars to refrain from being in any way friendly. Perhaps it explains why to-day we get no rousing welcome, but only an icy reception. Joan Crawford's "true confessions," reported by a writer, have done her more harm than good. Richard Barthelmess complained that writers never tell the truth about stars, but scribe thought otherwise and told him so. one The players are ever a race to themselves. 'There are a few cases where a writer becomes a friend, and a very good friend, of some of the stars ; but this is rare. In my three years of steady interviewing, I must honestly say that, although I have met and known most of the players, there are only six or seven who like me for myself alone, irrespective of my writing for Picture Play. Only two of these several I count as my intimate friends. They are Madge Bellamy and Gilbert Roland. The other four are Jetta Goudal, Janet Gaynor, Victor Varconi, and Barry Norton. There is also Mrs. Charles Emmett Mack. She is one of the regulars. Her humor is unexcelled. At the Warner studio she is known to every worker. "I don't know whether I'm getting popular or common," she told me when I last saw her on the set, and commented upon the greetings she received from all hands. Madge Bellamy is one of my best friends among the screen celebrities. I like her for her capricious ways, her conscious unconsciousness of what she does, her intellect, and the gayety of her youth. I entirely forget pictures and the troubles of an interviewer, when I spend a day at the Bellamys' Beverly Hills home, or at her beach house. Gilbert Roland is one of those fellows Continued on page 9