Talking Screen (Jan-Aug 1930)

appearance — to the tips of her long, pointed fingernails — Gloria Swanson knows the laws and by-laws of true femininity. She abides by and cherishes them. She has seen their value demonstrated countless times. "I love the American girl,'' she said suddenly. "She has the best opportunity for true smartness. She is independent. She has the advantage of earning her own money. She absorbs everything. Taste in clothes, interesting conversation, the way to handle her associations with men. She is fearless and intelligent. Her mind is like a sponge, drawing in, making things her own." "You don't think, then, that she suffers when compared to her European sister who has a cultural background?" "The American girl has a culture of her own," she said. "She is the pioneer in a new culture which will sweep the world. She knows herself. If she does not, she sets out to learn about herself. The European girl has lived on tradition too long. Tradition without individuality is bound to crumble." HEN I had walked into the Plaza with the prospect of meeting Miss Swanson, I had been mouthing pretty f>hrases. I swallowed them whole. One thinks pretty things, ooking at her, but she does not voice them. She had been sitting on the arm of a green damask lounge. She wore delicate shades of blue, even to the diamond pin which caught the blue scarf over her shoulder, with its lovely sapphire nestling in the center. One long, shapely little leg swung back and forth as she talked. Her ankles are slender. Her feet are small and cased usually in French-heeled slippers. A gentleman with a delightful German accent was tossing a conversational ball at her when I entered. She threw her head back and laughed. "He's giving me the third degree," she said. "Must I submit to the third degree?" Her hands went out in a long, expressive gesture. "He wants to know why I don't make a picture of life after death. We don't know anything about life after death. Why should we portray something we are ignorant of? We don't even know life. Look at the fearful botch we make of it. Goodness knows it's difficult to keep even that straight enough to endure living. No, I will not make a picture of heaven or hell." "I didn't mean heaven or hell," he said. "Well, it would be one or the other, wouldn't it?" shfe said. YOU said you loved living," the gentleman with the accent said, taking another tack. "I do." "Why?" "I'd hate not to live because I'd be afraid of missing something. Life is full of delightful surprises." I felt, looking at her, that she had not been afraid of the unpleasant surprises that life had offered. I saw her knowing disappointment, long discouraging stretches of work which left her exhausted. I saw her holding her small hands out for love . . . not only the love of men, but that of small Gloria and Brother, her two children. I could picture long, lazy days on the beach with the sun blazing down ort her. She's loved the sun. She has loved everything she has ever done. There is a spark in her, deathless, inextinguishable. She will never stop loving life. She will never stop living it to the hilt. "Gloria is nine and Brother is seven," she said, when I asked her about her children. "I haven't brought them up according to formula. They're in public school out there. I want them to know all sorts of people. I want them to face life . . . not as the children of a public character, but as individuals. They're learning. Their lives belong to themselves and the world, not to me. Because I happen to be their mother doesn't mean that I can order their lives." SHE has just finished a new picture. "It is good," she said. "I know it is good. I feel it in my heart. I've put my best work in The Trespasser. Oh, I do want them to like it. But if they don't ... if everybody disagreed with me . . . I would still say that it is good. I worked so hard ..." her mouth drooped a little at tne corners. "I had a frightful attack of indigestion after we finished it," she said. She went to the doctor and he scolded her. She had been working too hard. She had not been able to eat properly. "It's nervousness, you know," she said. "I'm so excited when I'm doing a picture that I don't digest my food properly. The world could come to an end. The worst thing [Continued on page 93} It's a new Gloria who peeps around the corner to greet her fans — you'll realize the great change when you see her in her first contribution to the talking screen. The Trespasser, 55