Screenland (Nov 1936-Apr 1937)

* 74 Screen land Joan Bennett, Actress Wife Continued from page 29 of Barbara Bennett Downey and her three children; Constance Bennett and little Peter; Gene Afarkey and Ditty and Melinda— in short, if this hadn't been the very livable living-room of the Markey Beverly Hills home in Tower Road with its deep comfortable chairs, its open fireplace, and the homey touch of candy, cigarettes, and flowers' about, it might have been the family art gallery. I was particularly interested in noting there were no professional pictures of Joan anywhere to be seen, no glamorous poses a la movie star. "And that's on purpose !" she said in her low husky voice. "I've really made an effort to keep the tangible evidences of my own career out of our home. Don't misunderstand. I believe in glamor in working hours. But I do not believe that any career, no matter howimportant it is1 to a woman, should be reflected in a home until it resembles a movie set more than it does the four walls that shelter family life. "The 'royal retinue' of studio life can so easily and unconsciously be dragged into the home. And if there's one thing I don't want my home to be, it is a minor palace in which stiff servants stand around awaiting 'Moddam's' orders while they dust off 'Moddam's' pictures spotted around in silver frames, or cart her ladyship's fan mail upstairs to be answered. You can't bring up children in that atmosphere. Maybe this isn't the most elaborate establishment in Beverly, and I'm convinced that it isn't, but there's one thing I'm proud of: there isn't anything in the house the children 'can't touch'." It was certainly easy to believe that. Here is a home that is really lived in every hour out of twenty-four, and that sense of intimacy is as tangible in its warmth as the fire place that crackled so cheerfully against the mist of the rainy winter day. I said: "Joan, what is the really big problem in reconciling matrimony and a career or vice versa — I mean the most im portant difficulty to be solved, the biggest hurdle in combining glamor with domesticity ?" She hesitated a moment : "That is a little difficult, not that I don't know the answer, but that it is a hard thing to put into words. You see, before the average actress marries she has given probably five, six, or more years of her life to a career. Everything else has been sacrificed to that all-consuming ambition that seems to come before everything else. In other words, she, herself, is the paramount factor in her own little world. " 'Then comes love' as they used to say in the old subtitles — and marriage, and then the confusing knowledge that this one-track existence is complicated by devotion to someone else, and if there are children, by the care which is lavished upon them. I know when I first married Gene I felt as though I were two human beings living in two separate worlds — one bound by bright lights, and the other a completely private island on which Gene and Ditty and then little Melinda, when she came, were set apart all by ourselves. It is the reconciling of these two women that presents the real problem ; stilling the fear that one of these persons who happens to be you shall not absorb you to the extent that the other suffers. "It is not easy to learn selflessness! Though this will probably sound shocking, I don't believe immediate maternal and homemaking instincts come as easily to the professional woman as they do to the girl who has spent her youth in readiness for them. At first, you worry that the actresswoman may be depriving the home-woman's world of the care and attention it should have. And then the pendulum swings, and there are moments when you wonder if your career is not suffering because of the newer, more real values that have come to mean so much in your life. "Shall I continue to be frank and say what I reallv think? Well, then I do not the home presided over by Joan Bennett as a Hollywood wife and devoted mother Above, a corner of the bedroom of Joan's daughter "Ditty." believe that professional women, particularly actresses, are natural home-makers. It is so easy, before marriage, to leave everything to the care of servants. The Hollywood bachelor girl seldom entertains, and little is expected of her as a hostess. But marriage changes all that. "Of course, the only thing that brings about complete readjustment is — time! By the system of trial-and-error you learn just exactly how much domestic detail you can assume without upsetting household efficiency by going violently domestic between pictures, and then letting things go hang when you go back to work again. The only solution I've found to this problem is to schedule my day and not deviate from that plan no matter whether I'm working or free. In other words, I have tried to make a working-day and a vacation-day just exactly the same as far as my household is concerned, so that the routine doesn't suffer when I'm busy, and the efficiency isn't clogged by too much attention when I'm free. That is the only system that could possibly work in a household in which there are children. "Suppose, when I had two or three weeks between pictures, I went about upsetting the careful routines of Melinda's nurse and Ditty's governess by changing their hours so they could be with me just because I happened to be home, and wanted to drag them off to some children's matinee, or to the circus, or on some shopping spree. Every once in a while, as a very special sort of treat, we do go off on one of those 'hookey' jaunts. It's so much fun to do that sort of thing with one's children. But for the general thing, I think too much of this sort of thing is definitely harmful. It becomes confusing to the child who is suffocated with maternal devotion every day for two or three weeks and then hardly sees this domestic paragon for a similar length of time when she is working. It makes it difficult in disciplining the children; for movie children are exactly like other youngsters in that they'll hold 'Mama' up as a higher court of authority if you give them the slightest loophole. "It would be absurd' to say I have certain set hours I spend with the children. To the contrary, there is a great deal of freedom in our household. Both Ditty and Melinda usually wander into my bedroom in the mornings while I'm having my tray, or putting on my studio make-up, and we usually get the exciting things of the day before hashed out then. If there is something special coming up that I should hear about, Ditty and I will make a telephone date and I'll call her from the studio when she gets home at three-thirty. She goes to public school, you know. Oh, yes, I tried private schools first because there seems to be some sort of a law about a movie star's children attending 'select' schools. But she didn't seem to be making the progress I wanted, so we switched to a public school right here in Beverly Hills and now she's 'third best in her class.' in her own words. She is really -so much happier. I'm so glad I wasn't foolish and insistent on keeping her in one of those more select little 'cultural backgrounds.' " I asked: "Joan, do your children ever seem to realize that you have less time to spend with them than the average mother ?" "They've never made me feel that they do." she answered thoughtfully. "Of course, Melinda is still such a baby, such a little creature of habit, it probably hasn't made any difference in her infant life. And Ditty 9