Screenland (Nov 1935-Apr 1936)

76 SCREENLAND the night I've come home too tired and irritable to be a fit companion to anyone. All I want is to sit alone, lean on my elbow, shove some food into my mouth and go to bed. Suppose you have a social engagement. You have to break it, or your husband has to keep it alone. Suppose he wants to bring friends home, as any man should feel free to do in the right kind of home. Either his hostess doesn't show up at all, or she's so tired and so conscious of her early morning call that she doesn't feel entertaining and shouldn't be expected to entertain. "Oh, I know that women leading normal lives get tired too — washing dishes, takingcare of the children. But at least they can take a little time off, relax sufficiently during the day to make themselves agreeable companions at night. At least they can sit down and have dinner with their husbands. When the dishes are done and the children put to bed, at least they're free for the evening. A movie actress never knows when she'll be free. She's married to her job, and my contention is that one marriage at a time is plenty." Flushed with the warmth of her eloquence, utterly in earnest yet half laughing at her own fervor, she made a picture worth looking at. A sudden memory brought an infectious chuckle to her throat. "Maybe I shouldn't tell this," she said, "but I'm brazen, so I will. A horoscopereader once told me I'd have a child who'd be a world-renowned character. Yes, I know it was probably a lot of bunk. Just the same it left a little itch in my mind — a little wonder as to whether a child of mine would really turn out that way. It would be such fun to find out — to see what kind of child I could bear and bring up, genius or not. Oh, well — I'd probably be as crazy about my first-born as any other mother. But it would be fun. "More fun than what I'm doing now?" She hooted. "This isn't fun ! No — not even the singing, the singing least of all. You can't always sing as you like, you know — ■ you can't let yourself go entirely — you're bound and imprisoned by all the rules of technique. The moment you realize it's important commercially, it stops being fun. It's work — the singing end — hard work, and that's all. The only time I really enjoy myself is when I forget I'm a singer, and giggle if I want to giggle and scream if I want to scream. I'll tell you where the fun comes in — in the money you make and the things you can do with that money. And in all the excitement of being a star, the fireworks, the glamor. Whatever people may say about it, we do like that excitement, we all like it, and we're only acting when we say we don't." I could have blessed her for that. It came as such a relief from the artistic airs and graces of some of her colleagues. "And while I'm in the bubble-pricking vein," she went on, "there's this little matter of temperament, about which a fearful lot of nonsense is also chattered. To hear people talk, you'd think it was somethingawesome and mysterious and peculiar to actresses, when it's nothing but natural temper and irritability. You've got it, I've got it, everyone's got it who isn't a saint or a cow. Of course I don't believe in flying off the handle just because you know you can make people miserable, but I do think an ounce of healthy explosion is sometimes worth a pound of unnatural control— provided you keep your sense of proportion." She was trying to button her lips over a smile that pushed its way through in spite of her. "I'm thinking," she said, "of the last time I lost my temper." She was trying on a wig in her dressingroom on the stage, and the wig didn't fit. "I pulled it and pmned it and all but took Madeleine Carroll comes baclt with a smile from England to make another film in Hollywood. pleats in it, but it still didn't fit. I felt myself getting madder and madder, but that didn't help, either." Finally she pulled it from her head in a rage and flung it into a corner. "There's no excuse for it," she stormed. "It's been fitted a dozen times, and it should have been right. I just can't be photographed." Dashing out to deliver her ultimatum, she found a sober-faced group gathered at her dressing-room door. "I can't be photographed," she informed them. "We know," they intoned in solemn chorus. She made a desperate effort to stay mad. "Well, I hope you're all satisfied now I" she cried on what was meant to be a note of bitterness — and burst out laughing. I suppose, being mortal, she has her darker moods. But laughter seems her natural element — a kind of gay sanity that prompts her to dwell on her droller experiences, frankly enjoying the fun she thus provides. "I must have been born ambitious. Anyway, my mother remembers that I was four or five, I told a neighbor I was going to be an opera singer and very rich, so I could buy her a gold bed and myself a pony. You see, the mother of a girl across the street had a brass bed, which to me was gold and beautiful. Ours were wooden, and how I loathed the sight of them ! "I always remember singing, of course, but I had another passion equally strong." Her face turns solemn, and you wait for the revelation. "I loved to scrub," says Hollywood's golden prima donna, and joins her mirth to your own shout of delight. "My mother couldn't keep me out of water. When there were windows to be washed, or the porch or kitchen floor to be scrubbed, 'I'll do it,' I'd yell, and there was no stopping me. I can't explain it — just a peculiar complex, I guess — though there may have been one reason for it. Mary Pickford was my idol, and she generally played a drudge who turned into a butterfly. So I'd be an operatic drudge, and get clown on my knees and sing these sad songs and cry and carry on and slop around and have a grand time. Sometimes I'd strike a high riote, and I'd run in to the piano to see what it was, and call up to my mother: T just sang high what-everit-was.' 'That's fine,' she'd call back, and I'd go contentedly back to my scrubbing." One incident wasn't so funny, but it helped to crystallize her ambition. "When I was fourteen, my father took me to New York to see my sister, who was dancing in a show. She thought she'd be really smart, so she dressed me up in her clothes and took me to the producer, who promptly offered me a job as a chorus filler-in. My mother consented only on condition that I finish my high school course in New York. And having no choice, I agreed, though I never remember hating anything as I hated that New York school. It was strange too, because I'd liked school in Philadelphia. Somehow the girls seemed different, though it probably all comes down to what I was saying before — that you can't really love more than one thing at a time. I'd made up my mind by then that I loved the stage, and I probably shouldn't have cared for the girls if they'd had jewels in their hair. There was one, though, who seemed more like the girls at home. She and I made friends, and we'd walk through the corridor arm in arm when we changed classes." One day Jeanette's friend asked her to go home with her to dinner. "I can't." "What about tomorrow night?" "No — not any night." "Why not?" "Because I'm working." "Working? At night?" "Yes. I'm on the stage." Like any normal youngster of her age, the girl was thrilled and delighted, interrupting her ohs and ahs only long enough to ask: "Well, can't you come Sunday?" "Yes," said Jeanette, "I guess so." But when she greeted her friend next day, the girl looked through her ^s though she were air, and never again addressed a word to her. "Her mother must have said : 'The stage ! My dear! Have nothing to do with her!' You can't imagine the effect of that experience on a child. I was stunned. It changed my whole attitude — disillusioned me about people. It was then I faced the fact that I'd have to make sacrifices to my work — and decided that my work was worth it." Then she was laughing again. "No, I didn't let it embitter me. There were too many important things happening. I stayed at school till I was sixteen because I had to, and left then because I wanted to, and got my first real part soon after that. As a matter of fact, I should never have got it at all. Everything went wrong at the try-out. When I sang, I cracked on a high note. When I danced, I fell down. But Mr. Savage seemed amused, so he gave me a better part than the one I'd tried out for. "I think I got my first movie job for the same reason — because Mr. Lubitsch was amused. You see, I didn't know then — ■ as I've learned since — that movie directors were so important. And I sassed him, instead of bowing down to the ground. He must have liked it," she concluded thoughtfully, "because he laughed and gave me a contract to sign." That's as may be. I'm in the confidence of neither gentleman. But knowing their reputations as shrewd showmen, I should venture to guess that they both grabbed the sassy redhead with a prayer of thanksgiving for the dream of producers come true — a girl with beauty and talent and that priceless something besides — a girl whose presence lends a radiance to her surroundings — who, like a good wine, produces on the spirits of her fellowmen a heightened sense of the joy of life and living.