Screenland (Apr-Sep 1924)

SCIREENLAMB (\The New Pola — from page 34 Then came squalls. Pola dancing constantly with Charles de Roche at George Fitzmaurice's party, with Charlie biting his nails and murmuring venomously at the six-foot Frenchman, "I hate his size!"; Charlie endeavoring to keep from committing himself by stating to a persistent reporter that he was "too poor to marry"; Pola, furious, countering by writing out a statement that "since Mr. Chaplin was too poor to marry, she could not afford to support a husband"; her tactful publicity man softening the statement to a mere formal denial of the engagement; Charlie in tears, pleading with his enraged goddess and damning the press for its interest in his private affairs. Then came by the underground radio that no publicity department can censor, stories of Pola's temperamental difficulties with her directors. How her arrogance drove George Fitzmaurice to resign from Paramount; how she blithely failed to turn up at a dinner given in her honor by a group of newspaper men, leaving the impecunious scribes to mourn the cost of pheasant and champagne sans the filip of Pola's presence; how Pola acquired a rich black eye from a Spanish boot hurled accidentally from the hand of Herbert Brenon, her director; how in a fit of temperamental fury, Pola sat herself down in a large pool of grease, leaving her expensive costume a hopeless ruin. Ah, what reading it all made, and how the dear public lapped it up like cream! Pola Is Changed )ut today all is changed. Pola h no longer the termagent, but a silent, reserved actress, obedient to direction and intent on wiping out the unfavorable opinion fostered by her first American pictures. The fires of her volcanic spirit are still there, but they are smouldering, kept under rigid control and breaking out only on rare occasions. What changed her? Jealousy of her lost prestige, the burning desire to prove that the failure of her American productions was not her fault, but the fault of those who tried to mould a Continental woman of the world into censor-proof roles. Bella Donna was unfortunate. The Cheat was worse. The Spanish Dancer, while appreciably better, was still not the sort of vehicle to restore her to her pedestal as the greatest artiste in pictures. The unfavorable publicity which was the direct result of her arrogance toward tha press and her intolerance of direction was severely damaging her prestige. She was a stranger in a strange land and she met only coldness and hostility on every side. True, she had done little to win affection, but still the lack of friendliness hurt. So, being a woman of intelligence, she aboutfaced. "I did not understand," she said. "The next time, when I go on ze set, I will embrace ze electricians and say, 'Oh, what nice lights you make'." (Continued on page 94) QThe New Gloria — from page 33 her abilities as an actress. Reading of herself, if she ever did, and what star doesn't? — as the screen's greatest mannequin, why shouldn't Gloria begin to think that was all there was to her, there wasn't any more? That, at any rate, says the authority, is what she finally concluded. She developed a perfectly grand inferiority complex. She believed she was limited as a box-office attraction. She did nothing at all about it because it never occurred to her to change her metier. Perhaps she was content. The average woman would be. She had everything in the world to stifle any artistic yearnings which may have come to her from time to time. It must be awfully hard to want to be a celluloid Bernhardt in the luxury of a Beverly Hills home or a bungalow dressing room. She was an acknowledged queen of the Lasky studio; as a financial proposition her pictures were wows, as they aver on the film rialto. Apparently there was nothing in the world for Gloria Swanson to worry about— if Gloria Swanson were the average woman. But her worst enemy could never accuse Glojia of mediocrity. Her career is the best proof of her individuality, both as an actress and as a personality. She looks like nobody else on earth, except during the brief reign of "Madame" Glyn at the Lasky studio, when she dressed a la Glyn, narrowed her eyes a la Elinor and otherwise did her Best to smother the Swanson eccentricities and charm. But she recovered from the Glyn complex and emerged more Gloria than ever. Then came the foreign invasion. Possibly more conflicting stories have been told of the so-called Swanson-Negri feud than even about the Chaplin love affairs. But the fact remains, despite denials and despite everything else, that when an empress of the European studios encounters a czarina of the celluloid on her native ground something is bound to happen, possibly unpleasant. Suppose you were to hear that Pola Negri swept into the Lasky Hollywood studios one day to be received and kissed on both cheeks by Gloria Swanson, who therewith escorted Pola to her own bungalow where the two immediately became fast friends — a friendship which exists to this day — -would you believe it? Of course not. And it didn't happen. Whether Gloria and Pola actually ever got to the "acute" stage is a matter of conjecture, if you go in for things like that. But if Gloria ever was inclined to look upon Pola as a scourge and a menace she should change her mind. Because Pola was the unconscious instrument of Gloria's greatest succcesses. Gloria An Eastern Star L, /A Negri may have influenced Gloria's decision to move her screen activities eastward? — how absurd! 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