Screenland (Apr-Sep 1924)

o u n g Q The Queen, or the Lady? — Seven Years of Training have fitted Lois Wilson to play either part. By Ruth ~kAary Harris e t e r a n M "ISS LOIS WILSON, a brown-eyed, timid slip ot a girl, sat behind the teacher's desk of an old country school house in Morris, Alabama. She was watching her hulking, twenty-year-old pupils gamboling at recess. It was time to ring the bell — but her thoughts were elsewhere! Just how did girls, without money or influence, get into the limelight, how did they become famous? Why, yes, the Harold Bell Wright ladies of luck usually did a solo dance on the greensward — and positively fascinated the right man! But that was out of the question here. And at her boarding house she would surely upset the kerosene lamp, and there'd be a hot time in Alabam' — Oh, my. who was that? She clapped one hand to her head and the other to the bell rope. For the august members of the School Board, whiskers, goatees and all, were stalking in to visit "teacher." Hastily she garnered her flock together and tried to demonstrate the latest method in the rule of three. But, as far as the husky lads and lassies were concerned, recess was still on, in a slightly modified form. Between fear of the grave henchmen staring rigidly at her, and the strain of trying to keep order, the little school ma'am could hardly hold on to the chalk. But the hour passed, and the girl was soon packing to go home — for school was dismissed by the revered gentlemen during cotton picking time. Happily Miss Lois thought of the winter's session — she would be earning money, money for a trip to Hollywood, to the door of the Silver Screen. The world was a beautiful place, and this little vacation at home would be a taste of Heaven after three weeks of that terrible schoolroom. ILDut one day came a letter into the midst of her roseate plans, and the envelope bore the portentous name of the School Board inscribed thereon. In fear Miss Lois carried it to her mother. "You open it, please, I don't dare," she pleaded. With cold formality these tried men and true regretted that they had found Miss Wilson not the person to teach their Future Presidents — no reflection, personally, just youth and inexperience. Her heart was broken, her bubble of dreams burst! Bat father Wilson took his weeping little daughter into the shelter of his arms, and reminded her that some of the most famous people had made failures of their first ventures. But the way they had used this defeat to spur them on — this was the measure of their success. Inspired by his faith in her, Miss Lois made out some rules .for future reference — and awaited her chance, which didn't come to Alabama. So she went more than half way to meet it — to Chicago, where she found an opening wedge as "atmosphere" in the Pavlowa pictures. Beyond weaving the iweb of grease-paint fascination more tightly about her, this offered no great opportunity — and Miss Lois went on to Hollywood. If you crave a sensational story of fatal, persecuted beauty, of an innocently questioning face that lured every director to plot the heroine's downfall, of sweet helplessness that intrigued all the old roues to acts of misunderstood devotion, and a rescue from the midnight bathing party— if that's what (Continued on page 92) OILois Wilson in the part of the Queen which she plays opposite Valentino, in Famous Players Version of "Monsieur Beaucaire, 66