Picture Show (Nov 1919-Apr 1920)

7' V Picture Show, January lid, 1920. IVY CLOSE. .4 Famous British Film Actress. YOU must all know her. Know that seductive face that stands for English beauty unadorned. I mean Ivy Close. No need for me to rhapsodise over her beauty, ■ but 1 can't help myself. Her hair is just a crown ©f Straying sunbeams, her faee, a perfect cameo, flushed delicately with life. And (it eyes, hev lips, hor slira exquisitely modelled figure, are all >d keeping. To few of us does Nature grant such all-round grace, and perfume it with such unaffected charm. But, trying not to bo too conscious of her • unusual beauty, framed as it was in Watteau blue silk with a piquant little Tarn to match. ( asked, " What was your first film ? " "'Dream Paintings," by El win Neaine and me. Quite a short one. Elwin was the nrtisi who painted the pictures, and I did the coming to life, and, incidentally, through that very film, earne to —dare I say, fame '! For you see, Mr. Hep worth happened along, liked our ! Dream Paintings,' and asked me to play in ' The Lady of Sha'ott.' " Her Films. AFTER that Miss Close appearedin the Jvy Close films for a time — -" A Girl from the Sky," " Ghosts," " The Terrihlo Twins," and many others, and then trekked across to America to beautiful Florida, where for four months she revelled in the sunshine with the Kalem Film Company, producing the famous [w Close Comedies you all know so well. Of course I asked her the usual question. ^ '" Did you like America 1 " which she answered .ilmost Scotch-wise, " Did I not. But it was out in Florida that I just escaped being killed. No fake about that." "Tell me," I asked breathlessly. I didn't iike the little look of horror which darkened those crystal-clear eyes. " I was playing in 'The Stolen Gaol,' with Arthur Albertson," she smiled again. ' and ve'd just come to the part where we went out of a three-storey high building on to a scaffolding, preparatory to coming down a rope together. Below stood eight men holding a fire net ready to catch u». " Suddenly the scaffolding broke, and the men, horror-stricken, dropped the net and we dropped too. Fortunately for me I fell on Arthur, but he, poor boy, was pretty badly smashed up, and wasn't able to play again fur a long time." Britain For The British, SHORTLY afterwards Ivy carne home again, and appeared for Broadwest's in The Ware Case," and " The House Opposite," with Hatheson Lang, and in " Missing the Tide," and the " irresistible Flapper," with Basil G'll -and Gerald Ames. Then on she flitted to the Master Films in " Adam Bede," " A Teep Behind the Scenes," and " Darby and Joan " with Derwent Hall Caine, which' you'll alt be able to see shortly. " My last, picture was ' The Flag Lieutenant.' which I played for Barker's," sho said. " And your ambition — every actress lias one, you know," I teased. "Ambition." she flashed. "Yes, T do have an ambition, and that is to seethe film business in Britain soar to the stars. It can be done. " I want, too, to appear in British productions that will knock American into a cocked hat. 'Britain for the British' is my ambition in a nutshell," she ended whimsically. Most Photographed Beauty. MISS CLOSE is probably the most photograph.-d f.irl in the world, since the day when she first won fame ns the mosl beautiful' type of English girlhood. Scarcely a week goes by wit hout her photograph appearing aome where. Quito a large amount of her timo is taken up with posing before the camera for photographic Studies, apart from her work in the studios.