Screenland (Nov 1931-Mar 1932)

90 SCREENLAND How Has The Chatterton Changed? Continued from page 27 Louise Dresser and Mary Forbes in a scene from "Stepping Sisters," film version of last season's comedy success on Broadway. Mary Forbes, right, is Ruth Chatterton s mother-in-law , and, of course, Ralph's mama. her mother occupied in a quiet street in the city's East Side. She sat at the head of the table, discoursing on what she believed was right, and what wrong, with the theatre. "Absurd, adorable little creature !" I thought, dismissing her theories of stage management and writing a study of her as "Sweet and Twenty." But I was wrong. It was a mistake not to give heed to those immature ideas. For while she was still in her twenties I was to see her as producer of two plays. She translated "La Tendresse" (Tenderness) from the French and appeared in it with Mr. Miller. The next year actresses who might have mothered her resented the youngster's suggestion : "Don't you think you should play that in a lower key?" Or "That scene, could be improved by a quicker tempo." "How dare that child dictate to us?" the elders asked each other. Late in the season the reason seeped into their consciousness. "That child" "owned the show" and was putting forth her own ideas of direction as was her indisputable right. They were sound ideas. It was at that time that Henry Miller said to me : "I doubt if Ruth Chatterton could write a check for five thousand dollars today. She hasn't the slightest interest in money for itself. I have never known an actress who had the money sense. You know how Nazimova slaved with the little Russian company, in a Third Street hall, making her own costumes? After Margaret Anglin and I found her there and I brought her uptown to give special matinees of Ibsen plays, what do you think she did with her first week's salary, ninety dollars ?" "Bought a new dress," I offered. "No. She spent it all for a gold cigarette case !" "But Miss Chatterton is wise in another respect," Mr. Miller went on. "She is investing her time, and so well that she will learn all that is to be learned about stage production and direction. She and Laura Hope Crewes are deep students of stagecraft. When their youthful beauty passes its loss will not be a tragedy to them." Six months before her departure for Hollywood Miss Crewes told me that she gladly would play her last part on a stage. "I want to teach," she said, "and to direct." Her success in these capacities in Hollywood is known by all who know their Hollywood. While "Ruthie," as her friends know her, was creating Sir James Barrie's "Mary Rose" at the Empire Theatre, that had housed Maude Adams' performances of Lady Bobbie in "The Little Minister," Maggie Shand in "What Every Woman Knows," and Phor ./c in "Quality Street," I accepted her invitation to "call me up any time between waits. There is a telephone in my dressing room, you kr^'V;' "So glad to hea.7 t-om you. No, I am alone. I was studying my Italian lesson," came in the Chatterton voice by the dressing room telephone. "Why Italian?" I asked. "Because I think everyone should be able to think in three languages. I can think in English and French. It will give new shadings to my reflections if I can indulge them in Italian." The blaze of one's name spelled in incandescence above theatres on the longest street in the world, Broadway, does not foster modesty. Yet I never knew a star, or woman in the home, more modest than Ruth Chatterton. Only once I heard her repeat words that had afforded her gratification. Permissible indeed was that indulgence, delivered with hesitanf words and cheeks through which a pi.ik tide poured: "I met Sir James Barrie in Lon don. When he learned that I was to introduce his "Mary Rose" to the American theatregoers he said, 'You look like the little maids I have dreamed.' " Across the luncheon table at her home in New York leaped flashingly a dominant Chatterton trait. The tall, blonde, definitefeatured woman whom Miss Chatterton addresses as "Tillie," her mother, had said: "Ruth carries her childhood admirations to a ridiculous extreme. Persons that she admired then she still sees with the same eyes. They may have frightful faults and mannerisms that make them ludicrous. But she still admires them." "I see those faults and mannerisms," came in even, incisive tones across the glistening oak of the round table. "But I don't talk about them." Ruth Chatterton had voiced the essence of good breeding. Snobbery is as far from her as disloyalty. While she reigned in the unstable realm of Broadway, brilliant actresses, dowagers and debutantes of Millionaire Row on upper Fifth Avenue, might receive tickets from her for seats far back in the crowded theatre, but one steadfast-eyed, smiling, shabby woman always sat near the front row. Her address was an Old Ladies' Home. She had been a neighbor of Ruthie's in her before-success era. Always she received tickets for the smart first nights of a MillerChatterton play. Always she was sent for to receive a hug and pat from the star who pushed her way past circle upon circle assembled for congratulations to bearishly bestow them. At Pelham Manor lived an aged woman whom Miss Chatterton called "Aunt Lily," the title being outside the boundary of consanguinity. The greatest compliment Ruth Chatterton paid a friend was to say : "Would you like to drive out with me to Aunt Lily's for tea?" The friends who went to the simple, faded little home, receiving the hospitality of the old friend, named the little house "Ruth's fount of inspiration." When she reached a city the first persons she telephoned were old actors or actresses she had known in stock, bidding them to a Lucullian feast. Romance was approaching the Broadway star of ten years' shining. It came about through the apparent commonplace of a youth's being engaged for Miss Chatterton's leading man in her first musical comedy. Storms gathered above and about that offering by the Shubert brothers and their co-producer, Henry Miller. Mr. Miller, one of the undisputedly greatest stage directors, too, was one of the most irascible. He had chided players mercilessly at rehearsals and wept upon their shoulders in pleas for forgiveness when the flood tide of his wrathful impatience had passed. He told me that "he would give the world if he did not become furious with anyone who happened to differ with him." The young woman whom he had raised to a place among the theatrical stars dared to differ with him at a point in rehearsals of "Magnolia Lady." Tired, nervous, irritated by an obstacle to his will, he turned the flood of his fury upon her. His words were whips. The Americans in the cast well knew the Miller eccentricity. Miss Chatterton herself might have overlooked it. But to her side came a pale, young man with angry eyes. He bowed. "Permit me to escort you from the stage, Miss Chatterton," he said. She hesitated. Looked at the wrathdistorted features of her impresario of a decade. Slowly turned, took her leading