Silver Screen (Nov 1936-Apr 1937)

SYLVIA SIDNEY IT HAS long been an unwritten law among the writers of Holly wood— we fondly reler to ciirseh es as writers though from time to time disajjjjointcd movie stars have expressed grave doubts— that stories anent Sylvia Sidnev should be written not with the tongue in the cheek but practically half way down the throat, causing sighs, sobs, choking noises, and a definite inner contemolation. Just as vi'e must be a:\fully gay and cute ^vhen we ^vrite about Lombard, frightfully chic and clever -when kg describe the goings-on of the Misses Hopkins and Dunne, and overwhelmingly superlative when we give our all to Dietrich and Garbo, it seems that when our typewriters go rat-a-tating two hundred and fifty -i^-ords to a page about Sidney, we must become as tense, as emotional, as turgidly tragic as the last act of an .Ibsen drama. How many times, how many, too many, have ^\'e written "that lonely child of sorro\v" . . . "that sublime emotional force" . . . "that brooding sadness which surrounds her like a wall", . . . and don't forget "poignancy," that's a swell Sylvia Sidney word. Now I'm sure 1 don't kno\v why we should go so grandiloquently beautiful and sad over Sylvia— except that she is the greatest emotional actress on the screen today, and it's probably just our way of showing great respect and admiration for her art. But Ibsen's last acts, ivith people rushing out into the night to destroy themselves, alwaxs bore me, and Sylvia doesn't, and even though she is the greatest emotional actress on the screen today I see no reason why she shouldn't be written about in a swing tempo. The close friends of that "lonely child of sorroiv" utter up little prayers continually that Sylvia will never become involved in a murder mystery. It will take no Hercule Poirot, no Philo 'Vance, no charming Mr. Nick Charles, to discover that Sylvia was the mysterious ivoman in black who dined in the late Mr. So-and-So's apartment the night a bullet lodged in his brain. For once Sylvia has dined any place, once she has even sat any place for a tew minutes, the rankest amateur in the sleuthing racket can establish her identity. Sylvia is one of those nervous people who just cannot make her hands relax and the moment she sits down her long slender fingers reach for something to tear up. She specializes on small packets of paper matches —first she will shred all the matches, putting them into a pile, and then she'll shred the cardboard (Above) Sylvia at the time she played her first stage role — "Prunella." (Below) Little Sylvia at the age of six. covering. When the matches give out, bits of paper ^vill do. If you are a tidy soul and Miss Sidney drops in for tea you'll just hope and pray that she will bring her knitting. But what she does to those matches is nothing compared with what she does to the bread at the dinner table. Syhia will not eat the soft part of the bread, onlv the crusts, so she immediately digs out all the middle— if she sees you watching her she gives you that famous crinkh smile and simply sa\s, "I ha\"c been a proper girl all m\ lilc. now I do as I please." There was that famous Russian dinner party in Hollywood once— black bread was SL'i\cd in the Russian tradition— where a distingiiislictl actress fresh from the British shores, and natmallv ignorant of the maimers of Sylvia Sidney, suddenly looked down during the flaming shashlick and shrieked, "Mercy, bugs!" ■When Syhia is in Hollywood— she always goes to New '\ork bciweeii jjicturcs— she lives in the very smart Colonial House ^vherc she keeps an apartment, most 24