Screenland (Nov 1930-Apr 1931)

for December 1930 125 TIME OUT FOR MOTHERHOOD Continued from page 19 same class with two famous stage starsHelen Hayes and Ann Harding — the latter, of course, a screen star as well. Helen Hayes, the enchanting star of the stage play "Coquette," (Mrs. Charles MacArthur in private life), left the cast in order to have her baby. Her producer declared her absence to be caused by "an act of God," and, therefore, stated he was not responsible for the salaries due other members of the cast for the term of their contracts. Ann Harding, happily married to Harry Bannister, also a well-known actor, is one of the most charming mothers in Hollywood and New York. All three of these women, if you study their faces carefully, have two common qualities — a deep, still sort of beauty, and an intellectual awareness of the vital forces of life. Florence Vidor belongs to this group of women except that she has given up her screen career for motherhood. Florence was at one time married to King Vidor, the director, and they had a daughter, Susanne. They were divorced and Vidor married Eleanor Boardman. Later, Florence left the screen and married Jascha Heifetz, the noted violinist, and she just recently became the mother of a little girl. Her retirement seems to be permanent but she has not been forgotten. All these women have, apparently, found out what Schopenhauer, that gloomy old philosopher who hated women so bitterly, discovered many years ago. He said there was only one real test of real love. If you wanted to know if you really loved a man or if that man really loved you, ask but one question : Do you desire to reproduce yourself with that man as the father of your children? Does he desire to reproduce himself with you as the mother of his children? If the answer is an unequivocable 'yes' — then that is this thing called love, which Norma and Thalberg, Ann and Bannister, and Helen and Charley MacArthur seem to have found. The fact that all of these women cinema artists are undergoing the great experience, points a lesson. The same lesson which Bernhardt, Schumann-Heink, Madame Homer, Sarah Siddons, and other great artists learned. The fact that until a woman has experienced motherhood, she is apt to be an instrument whose true depth has never been sounded. When Sarah Bernhardt made her first appearance on the French stage, one of the then most famous Parisian critics could find nothing to say of her except that she was prepossessing. But after her son, Maurice, was born, and she had eaten of all the bitter corners of life's black loaf, she became perhaps the most famous actress that has ever lived. Sarah Siddons is the perfect exhibit of an actress becoming great only after motherhood. Mrs. Siddons, the most talented tragedienne that England has ever produced, was a flat failure when she made her London debut. Callow, colorless, was the critics' verdict. But she left the London stage, and with her husband toured the provinces, giving birth to child after child. Until to-day, no player is so universally revered in dear old Britain as Sarah Siddons, even though she left this earthly theater many years ago. Still Britain remembers. Statues of her abound in many of their cities, and even in the private gardens of the vast estates throughout England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales. She wove her dramatic spell around the hearts of those Britishers who are not lightly touched, perhaps because in: addition to her great gifts she had the human understanding which comes only when one has nursed little illnesses, tied up small wounds, brushed away the most tragic tears of all — the tears of youth — which flow so bitterly and unendingly before one has learned that there are compensations, and that even this grief too will pass. Madame Homer is another exponent of a scientific fact which few people realize. Most of us think the fewer children a woman has, the longer she will remain young. But according to physical science, that is untrue. The more children a woman has had, the more apt she is to retain her youth and vitality. Madame Homer, with her son and five daughters, and three or four grandchildren, at much over fifty, presents a vitality, a freshness, a spontaneous beauty which makes her the most amazing woman in America, in my opinion. But it is in no effort to prolong their own youth of which they have so many years left, that has prompted Norma, Dolores, Eleanor, Ann, Helen, Irene, Florence, Leatrice, Alice, and others to become mothers. It is rather in answer to the primal impulse of motherhood which surges through the heart, mind, and body of every normal woman. Other screen stars have felt it and are feeling it. Little Loretta Young is one of those who wishes for motherhood. Joan Crawford is another. And how many more wish for it — too late. Perhaps the film stars most to be pitied are those who are passing slowly out of popularity after having sacrificed everything to their careers. Now that their careers are at an end and they find the relentless tide of time sweeping them nearer and nearer toward the rocky peak of forty years, they find no solace anywhere. It was perhaps to help women avoid such a fate as this that Shakespeare wrote his second sonnet over three hundred years "When forty winters shall besiege thy brow And dig deep trenches in thy beauty's field, Thy youth's proud livery, so gaz'd on now Will be a tatter'd weed, of small worth held: Then being asked where all thy beauty lies Where all the treasure of thy lusty days ; To say, within thine own deep sunken eyes Were an all-eating shame and thriftless praise. How much more praise deserv'd thy beauty's use, If thou could'st answer — 'This fair child of mine Shall sum my count, and make my old excuse — ' Proving his beauty by succession thine ! This were to be new-made when thou art old, And see thy blood warm when thou feel'st it cold." Can it be that movie stars are taking Shakespeare's advice to heart — daring to be women first and movie stars second? Daring to take time out for motherhood at a time in the world's progress when economic competition was never before so keen — when a year lost may mean oblivion ? Girls DoWell in Avt DO YOU like to draw? Develop your talent, make the most of your natural ability! Get into Commercial Art — a field where youth is an asset, not a handicap, and where you are paid as much as a man of equal ability. Federal Students Are Successful Many Federal students and graduates— girls as well as men — are making $2,000, $4,000, $5,000 and $6,000 yearly — some much more. Art is a vital part of modern business— 'millions of dollars are paid yearly for illustrations and designs. Learn at Home in Spare Time Why spend your time in wearisome routine work that gets you nowhere? 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