Screenland (Jun-Oct 1935)

82 SCREENLAND Don't Fear Passing Years Continued from page 16 not sitting around moaning that the first wrinkle will ruin my life. How do I know, perhaps life will be just beginning when the wrinkles come!" and Claudette's deepthroated laugh, with its contagious lilt, filled the room. "Few countries worship youth as does America," she continued, warming to her subject. "In France, for instance, a woman isn't considered even interesting until she is thirty. Peaches-and cream-complexions aren't the ultimate of beauty over there. A woman's charm mellows with experience. She learns to know life, to become tolerant and understanding ; and only then is she capable of enjoying the .deeper pleasures. "Youth and beauty are so precious to most women, especially actresses, that they are reluctant to be honest with themselves. They listen to false praises, look into the mirror and kid themselves that they look as young and pretty as ever, and go on demanding romantic roles. That is utter nonsense ! No woman can play the lovely heroine very long." Because life wasn't any too easy for her as a child, Claudette says she early learned to look ahead and to plan. Now that she has won success and fame, that early training still holds good. She looks ahead, and never becomes so absorbed in the applause of the moment as to lose her perspective of the future. Luckily for her, she started right out playing leading roles on the stage and never was the ingenue. Since coming to the screen she has wisely insisted upon not being typed. With her versatility she has portrayed dutiful and careless wives and upstanding daughters. She was the wicked Poppaea in "The Sign of the Cross;" the wilful runaway heiress in "It Happened One Night;" "the intriguing Cleopatra; a worldly woman singer in "The Gilded Lily;" and a successful business woman in "Imitation of Life." "My idea," said Claudette thoughtfully, is to meet the future with eyes wide open, and then there is nothing to fear. Right now, I am steering into comedy whenever I can. I love it ; and, too, a woman can continue on both stage and screen a long, long time in comedy. Look at Mrs. Fiske. She made the change from drama to comedy most successfully and remained a favorite to the very last. There's May Robson. She came to the screen in old lady parts but through her remarkable comedy gift she now plays a variety of characterizations in which humor is the keynote, and she can go on indefinitely. "There is no use for an actress to blind herself to the fact that romantic roles are Warren William selects from the extensive hat-rack in his dressingroom, just the right topper to go with his tweed jacket and white flannels. soon taboo. Then come heavy mother parts that serve merely as background for the drama and bring little satisfaction. "I've known from the very first that my time on the screen would be limited. Then what ? That's what I wanted to know. So, I took stock of myself and am making plans. I know exactly what I shall do. I'll direct! "Oh, dear no, not pictures. But stage plays. Few women have been successful directing pictures and then only after years of preparation in the scenario and cutting departments. Anyway, too much money is involved in a film. No studio would ever trust an actress to direct one. We aren't supposed to have brains !" and again, the Colbert throaty laugh. "The stage offers great opportunities. I know I could direct a play, and how I would love it ! Imagine a dozen characters to work with instead of one ; imagine the huge canvas on which to create the action, the emotions of a great story. It would bring a bigger thrill, a deeper satisfaction than acting any one role, no matter how well that role were played. "Then, I would like to take undeveloped talent and guide it to full power ; that would be a joyous experience. Even now, whenever there are young players on the set, I fairly ache to take them in hand and help them to say their lines, to show them how to express thought through a gesture. I've learned through such hard work that I would like others to share the benefit of my efforts. "Enthusiasm is the dynamo of all human action," Claudette went on, after a moment's pause. "Lacking this vital touch a woman's life is uninteresting and very drab. But in these days of opportunity there is a place for everyone's talents. Absorbed in some ambition, some definite aim, no woman has time to worry over small annoyances or allow suggestions of age, with its trail of unwelcome thoughts, to take possession of her. "I keep fit by taking excellent care of myself. I never neglect my regular sleep ; and as I am always trying to gain in weight I have no fear of the 'middle age spread.' I play tennis and golf and intend remaining young and active for many, many years." Claudette says she has a pet theory that keeping busy means keeping happy, and keeping happy means keeping young. She insists she could never be idle and she could never be happy away from the theatrical profession ; but there are other phases to the theatre besides acting. For instance, she spent three years in an art school before ever thinking of going on the stage. She frequently assists in designing her costumes, and she also has a distinct flair for decorating. These creative branches belong to the theatre, and she is fully equipped to handle them and win new honors. "Time could never be cruel to me," said Claudette, "because it will never hang idly on my hands. There are so many things in which I am intensely interested. For one thing, I love to travel as much, well — almost as much, as to act. Perhaps later I can prowl around in out-of-the-way places that have always stirred my imagination. Then, as I said, I can always paint, design, read, and study music. So why. I ask you, should I fear the passing of the years ?" W. C Fields' Real Life Story agent comes to my dressing-room. 'Who d'you think's out front?" he says. 'The manager of that Vienna theatre. Wants to give you a contract.' 'A contract!' I yell. 'Why, the — ' (all right, never mind — put in a few dots and dashes.) 'Why, I wouldn't play for that dirty so-andso,' I told him, 'for all the money in the world. He almost stopped my heart, the dots and dashes.' 'Don't be a chump,' says the agent. What's the difference as long as you get your money? Talk to Continued from page 53 him, anyway.' So the manager walks in. 'Fields,' he says, 'I was a fool to judge your act by the Winter Garden in Berlin.' 'So what?' I ask him. 'So what do I have to pay for the mistake?' he says. 'Two months' guarantee,' I told him, 'and an increase over the last contract.' He'd already paid me five hundred bucks, but I got my price — and for two months in Vienna," Fields concluded placidly, "I was the most awful flop a man ever hired." He had other noteworthy experiences outside the theatre — experiences not altogether amusing, though his narrative style tends to make them sound so. He was once visiting the Welsh coal-mines and fell into conversation with a young man who said he was the company doctor. "Look pretty young to be a doctor," Fields observed. "Well, I'm not really a doctor yet," the other confessed. "But I can set a broken bone." A few days later Fields came down with the flu, and asked the hotel to send him a