Ingram, on the same evening when Ingram told me of his experience with
Valentino. On this same occasion she and her husband mentioned that her
next appearance will be in John Russell’s “Passion Vine.” In this her
support will be Ramon Navarro, another dancer from whom Ingram predicts
a success which may even duplicate that of Valentino.
Anent both Valentino and Navarro, Ingram made an interesting
observation. “A good dancer,” said he, “frequently makes a good screen
actor. Why? Because he has both poise and repose, and I don’t know any
better start than these.”
In this connection do not forget that Chaplin is one of the most
graceful of dancers. Although not a professional, he might easily have
become so.
_Chapter Seventeen_
ROMANTIC TRUE STORIES OF SOME SCREEN FAVORITES
Another film triumph won only after a long siege of the citadel is that
of Von Stroheim. Born of an old and distinguished Viennese family,
the Baron von Stroheim was in another day one of those pictorial
young officers who swaggered about the Ring Strasse, partook of café
mélanges and fancifully whittled cakes at the smart confectioners’
on the Graben, sunned themselves where the bands play “The Beautiful
Blue Danube” and other Strauss waltzes--in brief, lent themselves to
that atmosphere, at once sprightly and sentimental, which made the
fascination of prewar Vienna. Perhaps he lent himself to it somewhat
too thoroughly, for he always smiles when you ask him how he first
happened to come to this country. And the smile seems to hint at some
youthful escapade.
When he arrived in this country he had no more equipment for making
his own livelihood than is suggested by this background of frivolity,
of leisure, and of rigid caste etiquette. Yet he was penniless now.
Soda-fountain attendant and groom in a stable--these two jobs are only
a few of the milestones passed in the wanderings of Von Stroheim from
his hereditary environment. He was, in fact, almost starving when
Griffith’s war-pictures presented to him an opportunity. His Austrian
uniform, his scars, his typical Teutonic appearance--all these were
utilised in a screen presentation of the hated German officer.
After the vogue of the war-picture had passed, however, Von Stroheim
found himself in a plight almost as bad as that from which these
pictures had delivered him. No use to him now was the uniform, the
scars, the typical Teutonic appearance! Quite the reverse. For days he
would sit in those depressing anterooms which guard the presence of
the great. I used to see him in the Goldwyn Studios and, remembering
with admiration his work in the war-pictures, I wished only that the
change in popular taste had not prohibited my employment of him in a
characteristic rôle.
“I knew all the time that I had something in me which might be valuable
to the screen,” so he himself told a friend of mine in reference to
this period, “but I couldn’t get myself over. I lacked the American
push. I took no for an answer far too easily, and so I might still be
sitting around in dingy anterooms had not something happened to me.
I became deeply infatuated with a girl. But she said to me, ‘No--not
until I see if you can ever make good.’ Then for the first time in my
life I made up my mind to succeed.”
The rest of his story is known by those who follow the history of
screen celebrities. He had long been fired by an idea for the screen.
Maddened by his inability to get an audience for this idea, the
erstwhile Viennese aristocrat resolved upon forceful measures. He
literally broke into Laemmle’s room in a hotel, and with all the fire
of desperation set forth his great ideas. The result was “Foolish
Wives.” This picture, notable--even notorious--among screen folk for
the tremendous costliness of its production, is also set apart by the
fact that Von Stroheim’s activities in it were three-fold. He wrote the
scenario, he directed it, and he took the leading part. His subsequent
work shows the same correlation.
The first time I ever saw this picturesque figure away from the studio
was at a café where he was the object of concentrated attention on
the part of the other diners. Men glared at him; women whispered to
each other, whispered as if an ogre had suddenly walked in upon the
feast. “There’s Von Stroheim--look at him; oh, isn’t he too horrid!” I
understood then why I had so often heard him called “the most hated man
on the screen.”
He must have been conscious of the antagonism of these strangers
surrounding him, but if he was he gave no sign. Unconsciously as if the
many hostile eyes had been directed toward some other person, he went
on talking to the woman who was with him. Was he really insensitive or
did he command his face to be a mask?
Afterward I heard that Von Stroheim is quite aware of the personal
odium with which his professional characterisations of brutal German
officer and villainous foreign aristocrat have surrounded him. Some
say, indeed, that he cherishes this reputation, that not for worlds
would he lift his finger to soften the hated impression. Yet as against
this I have heard what Von Stroheim has said to his intimate friends.
“When Elliott Dexter goes into a café or some other public place,” he
once remarked, “people exclaimed delightedly. ‘There he is--oh, isn’t
he charming!’ But when I come in it’s ‘Ugh, there’s Von Stroheim’; and
if it’s a man who notices me he’s very likely to start off my name with
a curse. I must say it hurts a little--in fact, it often makes me feel
very disappointed in the American people--to think that they can be so
childlike as to confuse me, Von Stroheim, the man, with Von Stroheim,
the actor, to imagine that because I play the parts I do I must be that
kind of a man.”
Of course this confusion itself is a testimony to the excellence of
his work, to that dramatic insight which had made numerous fellow
professionals regard him as the most finished actor on the screen--with
the exception of Chaplin, to whom, of course, because of the different
character of their plays, he can scarcely be compared. As to his
personal manner this has all the traditional grace of the cultured
Continental. But there is more to Von Stroheim than the clicking of
heels, the bows, the gestures, the precise phrasing with its slightly
foreign accent, the air of attention which isolates the person to
whom he is talking from all the world. There are many products of
this mould, and, though over the American mind they usually exert
the fascination of strangeness, such mannerisms do not explain the
arresting quality of his personality. This lies in an expression which,
both sad and gay, thoughtful and vivacious, reproduces the blend
achieving the charm of his own Vienna.
Ex-nobleman and present film star! Surely no story on the screen could
present greater contrasts of fortune than this story behind the screen.
He himself is thoroughly conscious of it, and one day, sitting in his
shirt-sleeves in his office, he remarked to some one I know, “Strange,
strange, what America does for you! Do you know that if my old self,
the Von Stroheim of Austria, were to have met my present self, the Von
Stroheim of Hollywood, he would have fought a duel with him? For I’m
everything now that I was brought up to despise.
“When I was a young man at home I remember that one day at the
dinner-table I unhooked the high collar of my uniform--just the top
hook, you understand--because the day was so warm and the collar so
tight. My stern old father glared at me across the table and then he
sent me away from the room. ‘Low-born,’ ‘vulgarian’--these were some of
the words he hurled at me as I went out. And now, behold! I sit here
without any collar and in my shirt-sleeves, and when I go home to-night
I shall sit down to dinner without putting on either collar or coat. My
wife doesn’t mind--neither do I. There you are.”
Because of his own struggles Von Stroheim is often exceedingly kind
to those trying to get a foothold in the profession. Mae Busch, for
example, speaks glowingly of Von Stroheim’s helpfulness and says that
it is to him she owes the chance which proved a turning-point in her
career. The mention of Mae carries me to one of the most forceful
examples of the fact that few screen careers are achieved without
experiencing reverses.
In about the second year of the Lasky Company’s existence, Mae Busch,
a little Australian girl with big hazel eyes fringed by incredibly
long lashes, was acting in one of Lasky’s vaudeville companies. For
some reason or other she bolted the show in Los Angeles, and soon
after this she made her first appearance in pictures as one of Mack
Sennett’s famous bathing girls. While she was in Sennett’s organization
she became involved in a drama of love and jealousy and revenge which
had nothing to do with screen performance. The situation, familiar to
many of the Hollywood colony, resulted temporarily in her professional
overthrow. A pathetic little figure, she wandered from studio to studio
in search of work. Unable to find it, she finally married. Perhaps,
as one of her friends has suggested, the marriage was the result of
gratitude on her part to the man who did not let the world’s desertion
shake his love for her.
Be that as it may, the marriage proved disastrous, and for some years
the pretty little Australian girl went down under the deep waters
which have submerged so many others in the profession. Poor, unhappily
married, the victim of several severe illnesses, who would have
believed that Mae Busch would ever come back?
Those who found this belief difficult did not reckon with the mettle
which is her distinguishing quality. One day she said to herself--this
is the story as she tells it--“This has got to stop. Others are
getting away with it. Why not I?” This crystallisation brought her to
Von Stroheim, who gave her a part in “Foolish Wives.” Small as the part
was, she made it stand out. Von Stroheim praised her work. So, too, did
no less a person than Charlie Chaplin. The latter, in fact, promised
her a big part in his next picture.
It was about the time when she had come to an agreement with Chaplin
and the Goldwyn Company was absorbed in the problem of finding an ideal
_Glory Quayle_ for its production of “The Christian.” This search is
an answer to those who complain that the picture organisations are
content with inferior dramatic talent and with types falling short of
any real characterisation. We literally sifted the country for Hall
Caine’s heroine. Beautiful and near-beautiful, famous and obscure, East
and West, young and middle-aged--all were represented in those four
thousand women of whom we made tests.
Of course everybody in the industry had heard of our search, but it was
not until the contest had been going on for some time that the idea of
entering it occurred to Mae Busch. When she did finally come to the
studio she has often said that it was with no expectation of being
victorious. Nobody was more surprised than she herself when out of
those four thousand applicants we chose her for _Glory Quayle_!
How did she do it! This is the way she herself tells of the experience:
“When they told me I’d have to be a fourteen-year-old girl in one test
I just almost swooned. Imagine me--after all I had been through--trying
to look a kid like that. But I thought to myself, “Well, you’re here
now and you might as well stay by.” So I put on the short dress
and--funny!--I guess I was just in the mood for it--but when I stood in
front of that camera I got to feeling just exactly the way I did when I
was a youngster out in Australia. Of course,” she adds quickly, “there
was a great deal in this. I didn’t really care whether I won out or
not--I mean I wasn’t all keyed up and nervous about it--for, you see,
Charlie had promised me that part and so I didn’t have everything at
stake.”
These last remarks draw attention to one of the acid experiences of
the screen performer. No matter how often he or she has been subjected
to these tryouts, the latest challenge always seems to make them feel
as uneasy as the first. They become rigid with fear of what the new
director may think of them and so, naturally, defeat the very results
they so much desire.
In speaking of Mae Busch, Charlie Chaplin once said, “I always remember
Mae at a party one evening when she suddenly thumped herself on the
chest. ‘It’s here,’ she said fiercely, ‘something inside me--something
I’ve got to get out!’ That impressed me a whole lot,” added he, “for I
haven’t heard so awfully many screen actresses in my time complaining
of any inner weight of talent oppressing them.”
It was, of course, this real fire of histrionic energy which burned
down every obstacle before it. That together with all the suffering she
had undergone counts enormously in her work on the screen and removes
her many degrees from the puppet types which have cast discredit upon
the profession.
The moment you meet Mae you recognise her as “good copy.” This is so
because she is perfectly natural, and being natural with her means
saying exactly what she thinks. She says it graphically, pungently,
often slangily, so that almost every sentence she utters lingers in
your mind as a vivid picture of some phase of experience. Far from
being a highbrow herself, she is one of those vivid types in which the
real highbrow delights.
Another screen performer who sailed a few choppy seas before coming
into port is that delightful young comedian, Harold Lloyd. The first
time I ever met Lloyd was at a dinner at which Chaplin was also
present. The latter was talking on one of his favourite themes,
religion or economics--I forget which--and his words, always clipped
just enough to reveal his English birth, were coming thick and fast.
I noticed that as he spoke a rather tall, rather serious-looking young
fellow, who was one of a group in an opposite corner of the room, was
looking at him wonderingly, almost wistfully. He himself was not saying
a word.
“Who is that chap over there?” I asked of the man next to me.
“Oh, don’t you know him? That’s Harold Lloyd, the comedian.”
“Quiet fellow, isn’t he?” I remarked. “I’ve hardly heard him say a
word.”
“He’s usually like that at parties,” replied the other man. “I’ve been
around with that boy a lot and I’ve never once seen him cut up like
Buster Keaton or Charlie Chaplin. He says he doesn’t feel that way when
he isn’t on the set--that it isn’t until he gets on the old horn-rimmed
spectacles and the rest of the make-up that his comedy catches up with
him.”
“What sort of a chap is he, anyhow?” asked I a few moments later.
The answer was prompt and incisive. “The nicest, kindest, most
wholesome, most sincere young fellow in Hollywood. Harold Lloyd--why,
he’s the sort of kid you’d just sit around and pray your daughter would
marry!”
I hasten to say that there is nothing eccentric about the view of
Lloyd just presented. All that I have since heard of the brilliant
young comedian corroborates this first glowing account. When later on,
too, I came to have a long talk with him any vestige of the scepticism
normally induced by such universal praise vanished.
When I had this talk there was no trace of the silent young man who
had first aroused my curiosity. In fact the shyness which sometimes
overwhelms him at a party disappears entirely in a tête-à-tête or in
a small group of friendly spirits. Then he talks a great deal. He
expresses himself well and every word has a drive, the drive of his
tremendous earnestness.
Lloyd, I think, would make a poor subject for psychoanalysis. He
seems to have no complexes. He probably never caught any colds in his
subconscious. A fine balance is the outstanding effect of his whole
personality.
He is very much interested in athletics. He is a fine amateur boxer,
and I suppose he gets more fun out of his swimming-pool than out
of almost any other possession of his. In this he presents a great
contrast to Chaplin, who doesn’t care for Hollywood’s “chilly pools” as
he calls them.
If you go to Lloyd’s studio you find almost everybody calling him
“Speed.” Even the youngsters on the lot make use of this nickname.
These latter all seem to love him, and he is often followed by such a
troop that he resembles the Pied Piper of Hamelin.
There is a great deal of the old-fashioned gentleman about this lovable
young fellow. He is so earnest about his work, so determined that
he is going to do everything which will make him a better actor, so
modest of his achievements, and then, too, he has all the old-fashioned
reverences. Mother, country, religion--all the unities so often exposed
nowadays to the critical mood--are accepted by Lloyd unquestioningly.
“I can’t understand how any man could ever dissect his own mother’s
character,” he once said in speaking of somebody who had engaged in
this modern pastime. “After all--whatever she does, whatever her
faults--she is your mother.”
No rebel, not in the least degree introspective, Lloyd is essentially
a thoughtful person. He has been made more so by the accident--an
explosion in his studio--which so nearly cost him the loss of his
sight. Nowadays when he loses his perspective he tells me that he often
visits a hospital.
“I go into that grim white place,” says he, “and I put myself back into
those weeks and months when I lay with a bandage over my eyes, when
everything that I had or wanted--youth and success and work--seemed to
be vanishing, and I think I can see--what does anything else matter?”
[Illustration: ERIC VON STROHEIM
Who spent one million dollars on “Foolish Wives”. He is a prominent
villain on the screen.]
[Illustration: “CHARLIE”, “DOUG” AND “MARY”
The famous trio at play after a strenuous day at the studio.]
It is due to the old-fashioned gentleman in Lloyd that he will tolerate
no suggestion of anything broad, anything Hogarthian in his comedy. One
day one of his advisors came to him and said, “I’ve got it, Speed, a
bit of business that will go over big!”
When he heard what it was Lloyd retorted promptly, “Not on your life!
If I can’t be funny and clean, too--why, then I’ll decide to be just
clean.”
This year Lloyd tells me he expects to make about a million dollars.
Yet it was not so many years ago when, according to his own amused
word, his most cherished ambition was to be able to buy a silk shirt.
His start toward this goal is as original as anything offered in the
annals of motion-picture success.
When just a youngster out of high school Lloyd came to Hollywood with
the intention of going into motion-pictures. Motion-pictures, however,
seemed to have an equally firm intention of keeping him out. Every
studio to which he applied turned him down, and finally he hit upon a
unique “open sesame.” Noticing that everybody who was in costume passed
through the forbidden portals without challenge, Harold decided that
there was nothing obligatory about a sack coat. So he got himself a
costume, and from that time forth he has stayed on the inside.
While working as an extra in one of the studios he met another young
extra named Hal Roach. After some time the two of them, with only
several hundred dollars to sustain their resolution, decided to go into
business for themselves.
“I wasn’t any meteor, I can tell you that!” comments Harold in relating
his experiences of these early days. “But we did succeed in selling a
few pictures the first year. The next we sold more. Still, that limited
success of ours did not seem to get me much nearer to the silk shirt.
The fact of it is that we were terribly poor in those days, for every
cent we made we put back into our pictures.”
This indomitable desire to improve his films makes every one feel
that even “Grandma’s Boy,” that story where his irresistible comedy
is developed from the most vital psychological situation he has yet
chosen, is merely a starting-point in the triumphs of characterisation
that await him. Anent this picture of his, Lloyd told a friend of mine
that the tribute to “Grandma’s Boy” which he most appreciated came from
Charlie Chaplin.
“Charlie wrote to me as soon as he saw it,” he confided to this
friend, “and what do you suppose he said? Why, that the story was
an inspiration to him to do his own very best work, to be contented
with nothing else for himself.” And then, his dark eyes glowing with
pleasure, he added, “Just fancy what that meant to me--coming from
Chaplin!”
Lloyd is an ardent admirer of Charlie’s work. Also of his personality.
Harold Lloyd is to-day one of the five or six greatest drawing-cards of
the screen box-office. From him I proceed logically to another name in
this limited peerage--that of Norma Talmadge.
My introduction to the work of this, the greatest emotional actress
of the films, came about in a way that was altogether personal and
exceedingly sentimental.
One day I went up to the office of Joe Schenck, a theatrical man, who
had been associated with Loew and Zukor in their earlier theatrical
ventures, and whom I had known for some years. When I found him the
first thing he did was to point out a velvet box on his desk. It was
open, and inside curled a beautiful bracelet.
“Hmph!” exclaimed I, “what’s all this?”
“It’s a present,” retorted he. “Do you know I’m engaged to be married?”
“Well, well!” answered I. “This is news. Who’s the unfortunate lady?”
“Come around to the Rivoli to-night,” he responded with a look brimming
over its pride and happiness, “and I’ll show you her work. Her name is
Norma Talmadge.”
_Chapter Eighteen_
POLA NEGRI
One of the most interesting experiences I had during a recent trip to
California was my meeting with Pola Negri, the famous Polish star who
was recently brought to this country by Famous-Players.
I was introduced to Miss Negri at a dinner given by Mr. and Mrs.
Fitzmaurice. Practically every one of importance and reputation in the
film colony, including Miss Negri and Charlie Chaplin was present.
It was on this occasion to which I had long looked forward that an
amusing incident occurred that gave me an illuminating insight into her
character.
During the course of the dinner Mrs. Fitzmaurice remarked:
“I saw some of your work in ‘Bella Donna’ to-day, Miss Negri. You
looked very charming.”
“I know I am charming,” replied Pola. “I consider my work great, as I
am a great artist.”
She realises she is a true artist and a great one, and always lives up
to this knowledge.
I was tremendously impressed with the beauty, ability, and intelligence
of this gifted woman. She is one of the few motion-picture stars who is
well-read enough to discuss any subject intelligently. She typifies in
real life, everything she seemed to be in “Passion” and “Gypsy Love,”
the two European-made pictures that served to introduce her to the
American public and pave the way for her American debut.
It was probably this superior intelligence plus an unusual experience
and training under Max Reinhardt, Ernest Lubitsch, and other
continental theatrical geniuses that influenced Ben Blumenthal, an
American friend of mine, to offer her a salary over 200,000 dollars a
year to make pictures for him. He told me that when she started with
him in Berlin she was earning 2000 marks.
I was very much interested to hear that she came to Berlin from Warsaw,
where she had been both a dramatic actress and a motion-picture star.
It was this same American friend of mine who was responsible for her
American trip, which was carefully planned and press agented by one of
the most elaborate campaigns ever conducted for any one star.
Amusing little anecdotes told me by John Flinn, a special
representative of Famous-Players who was delegated to accompany her on
the trip from New York to California, serve to show her tremendous
sincerity as well as interesting side-lights on her character.
One of the most amusing of these stories relates the attempts of Miss
Negri to teach her maid Lena, in the astute spending of the strange
American coins, which had proved very puzzling to both maid and
mistress.
Miss Negri finally sketched each coin from the five cent piece to the
silver dollar, placing opposite each silver piece its equivalent in
German money.
The first morning on the train, Mr. Flinn told me, the star gave Lena a
five dollar bill to pay for her breakfast. Lena came back triumphantly
with the breakfast, but no change. When asked what had happened to the
three dollars and forty-five cents change, the maid replied with great
pride that she had given it to the waiter as a tip.