Casper Daily Tribune Newspaper, July 17, 1921, Page 8

” Fans May Rave Over the Pickford Curls But Mary Hates Them by The MeClure Newspaper Syndicate and Hayden Tetbot. 2, 1987, Copyr Sid ————— He travelled 6,000 miles to get the “‘World’s Sweetheart” to are was \ nS spree Talbot, the journalist, wanted Mary Pickford h A : narrate her story to him and knew that it was casicr to approac ae ( ‘| re Oia ey ie eevee that he would need more tact than a og 2 nis ; A diplomat and the power of an absolute monarch. r c = Be _ d, no (7 Somehow he got both—and Mr. Talbot tells how his enterprise own compan: evercame many o&ds and how the famous star was induced to es She takes joy in character parts sos that i much more than oY Faay Pastord ie poor little rich girl—because she wants to be. _ demand a With more money that she can ever spend, she confesses that not know how to spend it. ; me tye ee a little tot of five years—and a dollar looks just as big to her now as it did to her wide, eager eyes then. : "Bat it is only for herself that she does not know how to spend; other people are always welcome to her money when in need. ; In this part of her story, “Our Mary’’ tells her philosophy o! finance and how she dreads ever having everything she wants. AS yA dy} Fe “MY LIFE” As Told By MARY PICKFORD To HAYDEN TALBOT Below, at the Ieft, is hard- worked Mary, the envious little actress who thinks a girl selling things over a counter, has an en- viable time because of her :hort hours. And it’s a good picture of the Pickford curls, that Mary hates and the public loves. to suffer the stigma of being nig gardly—when the truth is we are not niggardly at all. I don’t know anything about the man they joke most about in this country—Har Lauder—becanse I've never seen at instance of his generosity or the re verse. But I'm quite sure, off hand that he isn’t at all the miser our joke- smiths picture him Take Charlie Chaplin, for example Many people say he is downright stingy. Next to Douglas, I think I know Charlle as well as I know any man in the world—and I know he isn't close-fisted. The truth is th Charlie, like me, doesn't know ho: to spend money! Below, at the right, Mary is shown filming Douglas Fairbanks. Doesn't Want to Have All She Wants People who criticise us on this score don’t stop to think that spend ing money is an art—to be learned by experience like any other art. Not only that, spending money requires time—if one is to do it well. And in Harry Lauder’s case, as in Charlie's and mine, we have always been and are too busy with work to have time to learn the art of spending our earn- ings. I've been working ever since I was five years old—very busily working all the time. My trip to England was the very first really truly holiday I had since I was five. But in fact a dollar is just as big in my eyes today as it was fifteen years ago—and fifteen years ago a dcylar was very, very big! =after several months of insistent salesmanship methods, an agent of the Rolls Royce people finally man- aged the other day to get me to sign a contract for the purchase of a Rolls Royce chassis. Ever since I did it I've had the most awful time with my conscience. It seems such a wick- edly extravagant thing for me to have done. Of course I have had my Packard car for three and a half years, and I've really got much more than original value out of {t—and it is still in perfect condition and I can sell it at a very good figure. But truly, I've lain awake fighting with myself—trying to persuade myself that I am net riotously extravagant! It's not only that I don’t know how to spend money recklessly on myself, there is something else that always Serves to hold me tn check. I know course I know underneath all the tme I could afford it, but I make my- self believe I can’t! And that lets me always want for something more than I've yot! -I think I should die— if I ever really had all I warited. MARY PICKFORD'S ENVIOUS! HOW HAYDEN HEN L arrived in Los Angeles, direct from London, I was TALBOT GOT THE STORY much fnformation I obtained from her director the right of my arrival. of society) and a twinkle in the deep blue eyes. tion—thus falling into the category of one-in-a-hundred. For this is other pursuits—seems utterly uncon- cerned about the matters one would —instincttvely and by observations- that there is nothing in the world more dreadful than complete satis- faction. As a little girl I read “Christmas Every Day”. —and I never forgot Low terrible was the fate of the child who made that wish—and Bot itr Even as a child I conld understand how such an unending succession of Christmasses would drive anybody mad. In those days there Uttle likelihood that anything ap- Proaching the possibility of such a thing in my own case wou seemed 1d ever happen. But now that it has—r keep that child’s fate very h before my mind. Makes Belicve She Can't Afford Things It {s a matter of principle with me—applied every day in the ye never to allow myself to have a want of a &. I often go doy a dress or hat. 0: I'd love to have. for example. I en Let buy d nother I'd really r have than the one I’ve already Do I buy the second one? I I without it! And 1 the time I wis tereribly that I sould afford to kaye be ht it! of vious not of royal princesses nor of those who sit in the seats of the mighty, but of the girls who work in stores and shops—with their eight or ten hours of work, and then freedom to do as they please. In the times between pictures—for every girl who is successful on the screen—there is hardly less work to be done than when she is working on a picture. It seemfs to be forever necessary, for instance, to have new Portraits made. And don’t imagine for a moment that because one is a motion picture actress it ma Dos- ing at a photographer’s less an ordeal. Really, for me at any rate, it is the task [ dread most. And more than once I have posed for portraits 15 hours without interruption. noments when I am very, very nd see ahead of me va of work, I envy the ¢ n stores and s And so here is my adyice to the girl who would become a motion pic- ture actr der than you would ever ve to work in a other line Prospect of hard work in none too sure I could induce Miss Pickford to grant me the amount of time necessary for me to obtain from her the whole story of her career. In @ general way—from earlier experience among motion picture stars—I knew that as compared with their activities a one-armed man juggling three billiard balls would Present the appearance of complete indolence! What is more to the point, I knew that in the case of Miss Pickford there must be scores of demands upon her time every day that she could not possibly consider—if she were’ to continue making pictures. Wherefore, I went at the task of acquainting her with my mission in a roundabout fashion. (On other oc- casions, I have walked directly into the presence of a British cabfhet min- ister, and have been no less direct in my approach to important officers of the American government—pbut that is different!) When I reached Los Angeles, Mis Pickford was just finishing “cuttin. her newest picture and conferring with the heads of her organization regarding her next picture. This What he did not tell me—pro‘=bly because he had no idea of it—was that in addition to the mountainous mass of work demanding Miss Pick- ford’s attention, there“was also im- pending her since widely exploited trip to Nevada for the purpose of dissolving the bonds of -matrimony which had held her legally for-eleven years to a man her own testimony de- clares was actually her husband for a yery brief part of the time. But from him Tf learned enough to convince me that to get the “stor: # had crossed an ocean and continest to get I must proceed with unusual tact, and bring to bear all the in- fluence I could muster? Wherefore, instead of approaching Miss Pickford directly, I began opera- tions via her ubiquitous press agent, & person of ample good nature, whose unenviable lot is-to receive all and sundry who come seeking interviews with the world’s sweetheart. As good luck would have it, Miss Pickford’s publicity expert is an old- time Journalist with whom I have had an acquaintance covering many years. At the outside, therefore, It was es- tablished that my missiqn was de- serving of Miss Pickford’s considera- about the ratio. Of all the countless thousands who visit the Pickford studio in the course of a year—from mere curi- osity seekers to. fly-by-night pro- moters with sure-fire schemes which require only Miss Pickford’s finan- cial support to become world-beaters —the average is one in a hundred who really have a reasonable excuse for expecting to be received by her. And the result was, as you see, success! Miss Pickford was induced to give me a part of her valuable time, and her own life story. Wants to Learn English. “The one thing I want to accom- plish more than any other {sto learn to speak English.” SS That was Miss Pickford’s ramark- able reply to my question regarding her dearest: ambition. “Speak English?" I echoed, my tone reflecting my amazement. “English,” she replied with an arching of her eyebrows (brows not “shaped,"’ let it be stated here, and emphatically in view of the general prevalence of this newest fad that has swept all’America and all grades “But you do speak English,” I pro- tested. “You know I don’ she parried. I confessed my inability to under- stand her meaning. “I mean,” she continued calmly, earnestly, “that I speak American, You know the old story about the sign on the, Swiss hotel, spoken; American ‘That's what I mean.” I began to understand. “But your English is good,” I ven- tured. She smiled a negative. “You're good to say so, but you know it’s not true. It couldn’t bo true. Although,“of ‘course, I was born a British subject, with an Eng- lishman my father, I left Canada when I was so young and since then have lived my life in the States— among people whose English is about as correct as a Cockney’s—my orn speech simply couldn’t be good English.” To me.the idea was fascinating. The biggest money-making star of the films—to whom the spoken word means less in ‘so far as her profes- sional career {s concerned than to any of her brothers and sisters in ‘English understand.” maturally suppose would most con- cern her. Hates Her Pickford Curls. From my observations I venture te say that Miss Pickford gives to her personal appearance—outside of the moments that She is actually at work “making up” for work before the camera—less thought than the aver- age non-professional girl. If—and she would be the first indignantly to deny such a. premise—her face is her fortune, Miss Pickford is very careless about the source-of her suc- cess. Asa matter of fact, she hates the famous Pickford curls—or at least as nearly hates them as she could hate anything. But candor compels the admission that hate is an unknown quality in the innately gentle little woman. ,For years she has been trying to get away from the necessity of being “pretty” in her films—a very grim necessity imposed upon her ex- hibitors who have reaped golden har- vests at the box office because of that prettiness—as they think. And un- ‘til now Miss Pickford has been un- able to have her own way about it; she has had to yield to these de- mands. Now, however, that she is her own mistress—in a film sense— she is proving her possession of the courage of her own convictions by making herself in one of her newest films, “‘Suds,"" a bedraggled. homely, straight-haired little slavey! UE aes ) ve 7 Pn \ =, > a = —