Casper Daily Tribune Newspaper, March 25, 1923, Page 27

SUNDAY, MARCH 25, 1923. RECOLLECTIONS OF LOU TELLEGEN, THE ACTOR AND Having been requested to put down my impression of Lou Tollegen as I know him, I begin with a feeling of uncertainty that my pcor ability will pnable me to adequately describe one who has ever proved himself a sincere friend, @ patient teacher, a great ar- tist, and most important of all—a man. Believing that a brief history of Tel- legen/s life up to the time I first knew him may pr ve of interest. I set down the following as related by him. He was born in Athens, Greece, the son of a Greek general, and a Dutch dancer. His mother was at that time head of a school of dancing, and Lou's early youth was spent with her and her pupils among whom was the now fa- mous Isadora Duncan, who has always been as a sister to him. . At the age of twelve the boy began his professional career as a trapeeze artist in a circus with which remained for a year before joming a company headed by his aunt, a well known French actress on a tour of the prov inces. Remaining under his aunt's manage- ment for a few years he finally be- me a star in his own right, and a great favorite on the road. Then, Tellegen asserts, came the turning point in his career, for he was at the crossroads. One road—the easy one of remaining a provincial star; the other—the far more difficu!t way leading to the exacting curriculum of the Paris Conservatoire, with, how- ever, the opportunity of really learn- ing to act, He chose Paris. Not being of a saving nature, he found himself after a few weeks at the Conservatoire pressed for money. However, being an expert ’ fencer, ‘Tellegen began giving fencing lessons to help defray his expens: Eventu ally winning the world’s championship which, I believe, he still retains. After graduating from tle conserva tolre and playing three years at the government theater in Paris. Tellegen suddenly decided to leave the stage and study sculpture, a decision which he subsequently followed, becoming a pupil of Rodin. Then, having left the stage as he thought permanently, he was forced to return to it to pay the gxpenses of his sculpturing, becoming te star of the Odion theater in Par's, where he remained for three years while studying with Rodin. The financial market for his statues be'ng poor, Tellegen decided to remain Permanently on the stage and was fext engaged as leading man for the Great Italian tragedian Duse. With her he remained for three years. It may be interesting to note that while he was in Italy, Tellegen became intimately acquainted with King Al- fonso of Spain for whose courage and ability he has still the greatest ad- miration, At the end of his engagement with Duse, he returned to Paris and was immediately engaged as leading man and director for Sarah Bernhardt, with whom he remained for nine yeas, com- ing first to this country in her sup- port. At the close of the American tour, the Bernhardt company returned to Paris where they played out the sea- son at the end of wh'ch Tollegen, needing a rest, decided to take a trip around the world, However, arriving in America, he Was engaged by the Shuberts for a Play entitled “Taking Chances," and so the world tour was abandoned. Next comes an incident which is in- teresting as it shows the man’s re- markable powers as a linguist, When he was offered the lead in ‘Taking Chances," Tellegen, although he had played the part of Hamlet in five different languages and spoke six fluently, could not speak English, as on his previous visit to America the company played in French, But noth- ing daunted and with the opening night only five weeks away, he started in to learn English. A feat which he not only accomplished In tine but which was accomplished so well that Tellegen received many sincere notices from the New York critics on h's dic- t'on. I set this down in an effort to show my readers the tnexhaustib'e stickto- itiveness of the man. Think of it—in five short weeks mastering a language well enough to play the leading role in a three-act p'ay before what has been called the most exacting audience in the world. Ow!ng to an unwise bit of business on the part of the management, “Tak- ing Chances” was closed after three weeks by the police and Tellegen left for California as star and @rector for the Goldwyn Fim company at Culver City, where I first met him. This was, of couse, before his mar- riage to Mme. Geraldine Farrar and then it was that I learned some of Tellegen's views on niarriage. For during a rest between pictures, a crowd of us went tuna fishing on Dus- tin Farnum’s yacht, Tellegen being of the party. Being at the time all bachelors, quite naturally as we loafed on deck one night the talk turned to marriage and the following waa, I find by referring to my scrap book, Tellegens opinion. “The normal man is a curious mix- ture emotionally. The feeling in a woman {s undoubtedly the biggest note to which he responds. Then comes the adventurous, the flirtatious, in a woman which has @ tremendous ap- peal for every man. ‘These episodic philanderings do not affect the man deeply, however; they are the froth on the sea of emotions. But when & woman brings out the protective at- titude, the cave-girl instinct, then let him beware, for if he is a bachelor he will soon find himself upon the high seas of matrimon; . As this soliloquy was soon followed by Lou's marriage to Miss Farrar and in view of their subsequent dtyorce proceedings, I will not attempt to imagine how the marriage came about, But will leave that to the opinions of my readers; not even daring to men- tion something about “an irresistible fores meeting an immovable body,” and what not. Shortly after our fishing trip I was recalled to New York and did not see Tellegen again until after the war, when I ran into him one day at the Lamb's club. And then it was that I began to know him !ntimately, for he offered me the leading comedy role in “Blind Youth,” a play which he and Willard Mack had just completed. Of course, I accepted and rehearsals were begun at number twenty west seventy-fourth street, the home of Tel legen and Farrar. Hers let me state that of all the directors I have ever come in contact with frem Belasco down, Tellegen is the finest. He could make a stone act. d Youth” opened and as we played {t continuously for three years “SOULS FOR SALE CHAPTER XXXIII—(Continued.) ‘o be a great actress {s no easy job. You've got to work like a fiend or you'll get nowhere. You've got to exerclse your arms and legs and your voice and your soul. If you will, you've got a big future. If you won't you'll slump along playing small parts till you lose your bloom of youth, then you'll slip into character parts and go out ke an old candle.” Mem was beginning to wear down, to understand the joys of a pleasant housewlfely careor, the luxuries of bscurity, % But Claymore hated to give her up. He made one more desperate effort to unleash her soul anc her body from the shackles of respectabilita. He set her to denouncing the tar- paulin villain again. He made her pour out before that heap of wrin- kles a story of shame and disprized devotion and degradation. He put her against the wall and mado her beat upon it and lament her turpl- tude. Ho made her fling herself to he floor and pound !t with her fists and luugh in mockery. Then he made her draw the screwdriver and fire five shots into her canvas be- trayer, Her {magination finggeé so @'smal- ly In this scene that he decreed the scrowdrive a stiletto and mado her stab the man to death. Ho faughed at the blow she dealt and forced her to slash and rip and drive the blade home until she fell down exhausted with tho vain effort to be a mur- deress, Claymore was as exhausted as she aNd he wasted no film on taking pic- tures of her failure. “Let's go to lunch! “We've earned a bit of chow. CHAPTER XXXIV. The upshot of this ordeal by fire was that Mem was recognized as a star yet to be made—if, indeed, her nebulous ambitions should ever be condensed into solid achievement. Claymore felt that sho had a fu- ture, He tod her so. But he told her that a period of hard labor lay be- ween her and that paradise. He com- pared the development of an artist with, the slow human miracle that had rescued so much of Callfornia from the grim bleakness of the 4 ert, the Cesert that ylelds and recon- quers, retreats and returns, Great reaches of the fairest home realm of Los Angeles had once been barren sand. Irrigation and fnten- ve farming had made a pleasuance of Jt and one could see everywhere A industry of the little ploneers “\ushing the wasteland back, as {f humanity were feeling {ts way like shapeiess amodba or a droping 6 putting {ts tentactes forth and fastening them wherever sustenance might be found, Claymore was one of those dove'en- era of tatent who feel a passion for nearching out gold where ft Ites, bu'lding roads, as {t were, to hidden carts and giving them expreasion commerce of expression, He found in Mem such a temptution, Her beauty was ev! he said. dent, but emply-faced beauty was as cheap and useless as tron pyrites with the glister of gold and no other value The studios were Infested with pink prektips, insintd and charactertess,\ doomed to hold up faces as faultless and as charinless as the petunias and morning-glories that flaunt thelr cal- {co in vain about country gardens and porches. In Mem he felt the ore. He did not know that it had gono through the smelting fires of tragedy, but he fe't that she was capable of tragedy, and he wanted to instruct her in the mechanisms of transmitted grief. As they jleft the stage he watched her out of the corner of his eye. She did not really know how to walk, though there was unconscious grace in her carriage, What he wanted was conscious grace expert enough to mask it sunderstanding, the art that conceals art and knows its genius all the while—the deft, strong hand of tho driver of a trotting horse who gets the ultimate speed from the rac- ing machine without ever Jeting it break ino a gallop or bolt ino a mad run. Claymore talked to Mem of herself and her body as frankly as a father confessor dissects a soul before a She was thrilled with the almost morbid sensation of being the subject of such remorseless an- alysis, She was like one of the vic- tims of the new-fashioned operaitons by local anaesthesia who sits up anc: in a mood of hysterical fascination chats with the surgeon even while he slashes tho skin open, lays bare the nerves and arteries, discloses the deep penetralia of the temple. The director asked her if she would practice at horne what he had told her and shown her on the stage, and then some day let him give hor an- other test. She consented with delight, and appointed the mprrow as the nearest day there was. She had only one somber thought—that she must go home again without a promise of work, with nelther income of money nor outgo of art to expect. But Claymore asked her to wait whilo he spoke to Mr, Bermond, She woltered on the green lawn, watch: Ing the mafo-up actors and the extra people and the others moving about their tasks, Some day they mus guze at her with respect and whisper, ‘That Miss Steddon, the great By and by Mr. Bermond came out bareheaded to see her. He had a way of meeting candidates out of doors, It was easier to remember an engage mont and dash away, than to pry the more tenacious ones out of his office chairs, Bermond shook Mem's hand warm- ly and said, with as much enthu asm as if he weer the beneficiary of her hopes—as of course he might ber ‘Well, Mr, Claymore tella me you have much talent, That's finef But he says your work ts spotty—imma- ture, Y little tech But that's 6 verybody Ho emall and if you want The part wont a have sn learn part in his pleture, to all right, to} Mem much money, but you will get expe- rience and that’s what you want. yes?” . Mem could have hugged him. He was beauiful as the dawning sun on the hills of night. Later she would come to hae Pim and fight him as a m'ser, & penny squeezer, a slave- driver, but so Christopher Columbus and Cores Were regurded after their brief moments of beauty as discov- erers. Bermdnd was a bellever {n “new faces." He had found that the au- diences would forgive immaturity of art raber than maturity of figure when it had to choose, ‘The part he offerel Mem was a role of girlish pathos with a wistful note and a few momens of village tragedy. She would a¢orn the screen without be- Ing able to do much damage to the story at worst, ; Mem felt that in passing from dl- rector to director she was undergo- ing a series of spiritual marriages ond divorces. There were such in- tense emotional communions that it was far more than a mere acquaint- ance, But before she left the lot that day she had signed her name to a long doqument which she preténded to read and understand. About a‘l she mado of it was that she was to have a salary of $75 a week during the taking of the picture, and that the company might exercise an option on her services thereafter if !t chose. Mr, Tirrey was Celighted in a pa- ‘ternal fashion. It was a sunbeam in his dark day when he could open the door to youth and hope. Mem went hope elated, and was greeted so royally that she forgot how diminished ther hopes were from the immediate stardom she had tma- gined under Claymore's first frenzy. The next day the star of the plc- ture arrived on the set in a large hat. When Claymore told her that she was not to wear it during the scene she exclaimed that her hafr was not Cressed. There was nothing to do but send her to the coiffeuse. This meant a delay of an hour. The company and the throng of extras and the crew must Ie idle at the cost of nearly a thousand wasted dollars to the pic- ture. It was with such avoidable blund- ers that Bermond’s cup of grief was fitled. No system of efficlency could be inetalled to prevent the individual sitp, An alarm clock that failed to ring, a telephone out of order, a let- ter misndCressed, and thousands of flotlars of time and overhead went pouff! The company's disaster was Mem‘s good tuck, for Claymore, seeing her lurking in the background waiting for instructiona, called her over to him, Everything was set for a test, and ho d'smissed the rext of the company for an early lunch, while he sent through her paces again, He had # canvas partition drawn around a corner of the scone and Casper Sunday Morning Cridune BY DOUGLAS together, I grew to know Lou very well indeed, as we lived together for two seasons on the road. I once heard a group of men of dif- ferent professions discussing Tellegen and one, who happened to be the chief of secret service of a foreign country, summed it up by saying that Tollegen had the worst press agent in the world. I agree with the gentleman because the only thing worse than a mediocre press agent is no press agent at all and Tellegen had none. This is, I think, the reason for the damagingsreports one hears on all sides, always from “peop!es who have never met him. Almost the first question I am in- variably asked by people who know of our association is, “Is he effeminate?” A question to which I always feel like replying, a’ la Ring Lardner, “Be your- self, stranger,” No, he may be a lot of things, and probaly is, but he is not effeminate. How do I know, you ask? One rea- son {s he ts the world’s fencing cham- pion, and to anybody who thinks fencing is puss-in-the-corner, or tiddle winks, all I can say is let him try it for about three and a.half minutes. Besides, anybody that {s world's cham- pion anything has got to know his stuff—there are too darn many peo- ple on the old globe. But the best thing I can put down for Lou's reputation as a man Is his popularity with stage hands. Be- cause, no matter what the matinee girls think, there are two things an actor can’t fool—one {s a horse fly and the other {s a stage hand. Jim Corbett, who lived next door to me at Bayside, Long Island, one sum- mer and who fs a close friend of T legen’s once told me that Lou has the strongest hands and wrists he has ever seen. Several rather amusing incidents happened while we were on tour which I shall try to relate in the approved Nght and breezy manner which some- how always looks forced In print. One happening that !s to my de- praved sense of humor rather amus ng, occurred while the show was play- ing the thirty-ninth street theater, New York. As my readers are prob- ably aware, there is a mythical law against smoking back stage in all bb wall with a camera and a nest. of Nght machines leveled at her. She had spent the evening before at mad spiritual gymnastics {n the bungalow, with her mother and Leva as auditence and crit! Claymore found that her soul was wakening and her Limbs throwing off their in- ertia, He set her problems in mentai arithmetic like a tutor coaching a backward pupil for an examination. It was an exceedingly curious me thod of getting acquainted. Teacher and student became as much involv- ed fn eacn other's sculs as Abelard and Heiolse at their first sessions. When the star came back with her “Once more Claymore put Mem at} bay against . wall with » camera and a nest of light machines leveled at her.” hetr appropriately laundered, troned and crimped and the rest of the com- puny gathered, Mem could eve that Claymore gave up his task with her reluctantly, And that sert a shaft of sweet fire through her heart, Late in the afternoon Claymore of- fered hor # lift home in his automo- Dile, It was quicker than the street car, but {t seemed far quicker than that, They chattered volubly of art thectlen and practices, They did not realize lew long the car stood in front of her hungaiow before Mem got out, or how long he waited after sho got out, talking, talking, before he bade her the 1 good night, Her mother realleed {t, peering through the curtain, and Lava ex: clalmed; "Good Lerd! The ming has the dl- rector eating out of her band already, Sho'll yet on!" Bho sald this to Mem wher tho girt came skippir t bd ad mpse of how shocked her w thelr ! lations tooked stand! ones mere put Mem at bay against a to the bystander, S. BRIGHT PAGE THREE MAN theaters. Nor is it perminsible smoke in the dressing room: This very inconvenient rule ‘g never en forced except by very old and crabbed or very young and important firemen, The one who had at the thirty-ninth was young and important. Also he was darned if any of them actors was Boing to smoke in that theater, So one night while Tellegen was making up, he burst into his room without ‘knocking. As it happened, for once in his life Lou was not smoking. Ho was very much put out, however, at the fireman's entering without knocking and told him so, Exit fire. man. But the next night the fireman burst in again without knocking and caught Lou inveloped in a cloud of cigarette smoke and, as usual, irritable just be- fore a perform: Tellegen simply turned and said, “I think 1 tol ing in here,” following speech with a short ri again exit fireman, o: his shoulder blades. Nor did he hesi- tate until he sid all the way across the hall into mp room where I Was a'so enjoying a smoke. As he was “cold” when he arrived and I had finished my cigarette before he came to, he didn't catch me. When the fireman regained his feet and equilibrium, in ately and swore out a w: nt for Telleg on a charge of assault, which served on Lou at the end of the formance, So the next was fined twenty-five When I a d Lou wh he replied, “Well, you s they'd have fined me the same for ing and I knew if I hit him he'd forget I was smoking, which was exactly what hap- Beside y'll probably give u anoth who will let‘ us ke.” Which sO exactly what happened. The third season with “Blind Youth” We played for the st part what is known as the ck that being the atrical for night stands— we played one hundr seve four eight months, 2 were in the sticks most of the sea- n, although we did play New Or leans Mard! Gras which was lke a touch of heaven to ‘ou to knock before com- this pithy ht to the Jjaw— this time on he me was er- morning he 1 costs. he hit him smo! pened. sm slang one towns in week, It was on the when Car 1 to New Orleans jaggage Christmas way ted between we Inaugu: the * tel.” For 1 and at Hot Springs, Arkansas, and Mard! Gras week there was an uninterrupted stretch of ore nighters. For those who have neyer had to Play one-nighters, let me try and con- Sure the experience for your tmagi- nation, then get down on the well known Knees and thank Allah, beat ing your head on the floor the while in the most approved 5. M. Hull man- ner, that you are not an actor, Imagine if you can arriving in a town you have probably never heard of until the day before, at six-thirty in the evening. Rushing to two or three hotels before you can acquire what passes for a room. Then bolting your dinner because you must rush to the theater and unpack as the cur- tain rises at elght-fifteen. After the show you look at the call board to see t time the train leaves in tho morning, generally finding that al- though the next town is only sixty miles away !t is on a different railroad which necessitates you leaving on the five-forty-five, as you have a five- yover at such and such a Junction which will barely enable you to make the next town in time for the show. After rece'ving this cheerful bit of news, you of the company go out in lifferent groups to get a less hurried meal before retiring. Arriving at the only more or less clean looking restau: nt open after eleven, you are at once the center of attraction for the pa. trons who have just seen you in the play After looking at you speculatively for severai minutes, evidently expect ‘ou to do something funny and that you act quite naturally, they apparently turn hostile and begin making quite audible remarks. It 1s a funny thing but the public as a whole expects actors to live off stage the kind of character they are portraying in their current play. This, f course, is not the case, for instance Lon Chaney and Wallace Beery are splendid fellous while some heroes we could mention o! Ja’ Ja (1, e. French for sweet mamma, Tellegen has never gotten over this attitude of the public and therefore instead of making perpetual love when dining with ladies of the company. rarely speaks at all. But, to resume, after supper one wends his way back to the hotel to! eave a call for five a.m. and snatch a few hours sleep. Then the next day you do it all over again. That is the famous pastime known as “playing the stic As I said a little while ago, In the particular season of which I speak, we} had a great many one nighter seriously much so get toa which interfered with our golf, so in fact that when we did| town for a weeks stay th way the boys at the Country club! took Lou and me was a crime. It wa quite evident that something must t done—but what. Now we carried a stage crew of our| own whose business it was to load and unload the scenery which fs shipped each night after the performance Sometimes it was so late when the b finishd loading that instead of going to a hotel they would sleep in| the baggage car and go on to the next, town. They gad told us of the advan tages of this scheme but we laughed at them until we struck Wilming Ohfo, a town with no hotel at all and the only room we could get the local undertaker's. was at Far be it from me to suggest that this good man drummed up trade by the beds he gave his bo: they weren't built that w I give {t up. After a night of that Lou and I were ready to be convinced, so in tho morning we bought ourselves a couple f army cots and from then on slept in the age car. As tho car was sent on at night, arriving in the next town in the morning, it gave us seven full days golf a week which mado it tough for the boys by ers, but if y to kill you. he time we hit| New Orleans. There is a rather scurvy trick whic: some actors have called “kidding a show.” I mean by that that when playing a small unimportant town they will give an general inferlor performance by carelessness and talking be tween lines. This ts an unfair thing to do to an audience which has paid! good money to see your work and !s! a thing which Tellegen would never do himself or tolerate in any member of! his cast. We were talking about it! one day and I asked him how it was! he never did ft. "Oh," he replied, “T used to do it a} great deal adam (ie always as Madam) broke that the ° painter or or can take to the s @ painter c beautiful pict main in tts publi actor to « it the p don't r when eated a ue it must re- d be visited by the work and oni efore behoove lo his be worth doing well, ay Lou has told me a great deal about Bernhardt all of came to be the er world. But hich shows how she ter al It was the p formances, it was be- demand, 8 before the open Lou went into Madame's and found her b Ing @ manuscript “Ah, a new 5 aged in read. ny, Madame,” said © one we're to play to- ut surely, Madame need not study that when she has thousand times,” “Oh, I know the lines,” tho Breat actress, “but I've been satisfied with my {nterpretation of the third scene tn the last act There great woman, Is tt any wo! that Tellegen accredits his own marvelous ability to her? In this article I have purposely omitted any statement of the divorce question as both Miss Farrar and Mr, Tellegen are such very good friends of mine that thelr differences are none my busts Also, if I may be allowed to say tt, I belleve that we are living in too complex an age for personal opinions to carry much weight. Therefore I have simply endeavored to give me impressions of a man’s man and touch tho high lights of an eventful career. It !s tmpossible for me to even hint the charm and intellect of Miss ar as my space ts limited, ng that you, dear public, up not come to the ch at the end namely that 14s my favorite Indian, I played {t over a sald never at on r of a’ Sittin ore matines --A Great Novel of BY RUPERT HUGHES Leva tiunted her all evening and the next morning eallcd after her, as she set out to school: ‘Aren't you apple to teacher ng to take a big red Ment took him two of them In her crimson checks, She hed met none of that tradition- al demand for her honor as an admit- tance fea to the art. Tirrey had re- fused her fiat. Bermond had not in- vited her to love him, and Claymore had tatked nothing but art. Yet Clay- m gave her a scene with an actor a aa foil, talked to her of the arts of embracing, kissing, occasionally fondling, rebuking, nouneing, battling, But sometimes he seemed to take more than a jrofess'onal tnterest in the demonstrations. Sometimes he drew her arms about himself and she felt that even if he did not clench her tight or hold her long he wanted to. aocepting, de The camera men, the dawilling light crew, and the props and trips wero chapercre, but they were becoming as unimportant as the acenery. Some tmes she thought ther were aware of a something in the atmosphere. Perhaps she caught a glance from one to another, or an eye turn od away a ttle too indifferent! But that only enhanced the excite. ment. and on dne occasion when Clay. more tried to teach her bigness of wrath anft compelled her to scream and atrike at him, there was such an undertone of affection in the pretense of hate that she felt fairly wrenched apart fibe met Tom Holby on the lot one day, He bed beon anced to come over and tall of a pessibie contract with the Bermond company. Ho greeted Mem with effusive enthus' and she warmed ut tho pride of his recog: nition, ‘Then she felt n tittle twinge of conselence—an intuition that pho had no right to be so gad to noo Mr, Holby sines now eho belonged to Mr, Cl This am, ymore, was an amas to primes vated w ff wild for an er was A mmfort * feeling she wonderet if she did not owe the priority to Mr. Holby, This was a complication! It is the custom to regard such con fused romances in the dramatic and other artistic realms with scorn as the flippant amours of trifers; but they are of exactly the same sort as earnest, as pathetic and as reluct- antly entered into as the countless entanglements that doctors and churchmen encounter in their equally emotional relations with souls in tur- moil of one sort or another. Literature used to be packed with tho disastrous affairs of churchmen and their communicants, but the ai- lence has been profound of late, ex- cept when @ sensational explosion bursts into the newspapers. And there has been little disclosure at any time of the secret chambers to which the physician's passe-partout admits him, Tho stage and the palnter’s world have had too much vtiention and too little sympathy and shortly the mov- ing picture was to be assalled by a tornado of national disgust and wrath, an eruption of hot ashes and laya from a deep resentment stored up unknown against the magic de- velopment of the new art into’ Titanic power, But no one foresaw the accident that was to turn a commonplace ca- rousal into # catclysm. For the present Mem had no great- er anxiety than the peculiarly mask- ed filrtation with her director and the battles with Lttle artistic problems as they arose, Her life had regularity again. She get up of mornings with a task be fore her, She had hours of waiting fdr every minute of acting, but she was one of the company and she could study the work of others. Her text books were the faces of the ac tors and actresses, the directors. The mere learning of the language was an occupation in {tself, She felt puffed up when visitors were brought upon the stage and permitted to see pictures taken. It was surprising how fascinating the thing waa to the outsider. Kings and queens, princesses and princes, foreign and native generals, ambasn- adors, opera singera, plutocrats, and painters, gathered humbly in the backgrounds of the scenes and mar- veled at the business of drama and photography, the morbid blue lights and tho eurprising im and gracious- nees of the process, They tad evi- cently expected noise and wransing nd tempestuous temperament. One day whon 4 little scene was be- ing filmed in which she was the on. the @rections of actrons, the reat of the company being | hy excused for a change of costume, a visitor from overacas was brought upon the sot, a great French gen- 1, The publicity man, whose luat for sho was owned, And then | nlept, suggested that the like to be photegraph- laughed eager space never general might ward with ish Inyed at ‘or revyeuled under bombard once & 1m ‘were Hollywood Life ment, On one/side of him stood the director, on the other thrilled and thrilling, Mem, The still camera man took several ures and the incident was ended seemed. The general kissed Mem's | hand and left her almost aswaon with prife, ‘The publicity man gave her one of the pictures and she set {t up on her mantel as a trophy of her glory. Whother the general really said tt, or really meant it, only the publicity man knew, but when the picture ap- Peared in newspaper supplements about the world {t was stated in each of the cations that the great war- rior had said, “Remember Steddon 19 the prettiest girl in America.” More amazing yet, Mem learned of this astounding from her astounded father. Soon after she began to feel a pride in her art and to take home to her mother little compliments she had heard, and to feel that sho was launched at Imst upon the illimitable sea of the greatest, as the newest of arts, and the most superb of all live- \hoods, the stdrm broke upon the moving-picture world, An actor involved in @ dull revel, of @ sort infinitely frequent since mankind finst endounterey alcohol, was present at the death of an ac tress. Tho first versions of the dis- aster were so horribly garbled that the nation was shaken with horror. Al the simmering resentment against the evil elements and ugly ‘excesses cf the “fifth largest indus- try in the world” bolled over in a scalding denunciation of the entire motion-picture populace For a week or two the nation rose in one mob to lynch an entire craft and all its folk. Editors, politicians, reformers, clubwomen, all of those who make a career of denun elation and take a pride in what they detest, drew up a blanket indictment aguinst thousands of assorted souls and condemned them to infamy. Doctor Steddon had been one of the loyal loathers of the mdving ple tures, and he surprised himself in the jeremiad he launched at his Mt tle congregation back in Calverly. A| newspaper man happened to be pres ent—the rain that morn denying him his usual worship the golf Unks—and he published a column of Doctor Ste(don'a remarks. The proud father vent a clipping to his wife and daughter, never dream ing that the moving pictures furnishing them thelr bread and but ter, bosta and beatitudes. They cowered befpre the blast and undefstood the qmotions of Adar and Eve after they had eaten of tt tree of and heard t in the garden They Gebated the hateful prol of confessing the truth, but bring themselves yet awhile Gsclosure df their frav then pl tt first tribute preache on wero knowledge em to the a. letter came from tt two ren fo) the could not} } = the Sun alike exc New York Chicago Mem, French gene: shad called t s. t in size; dno wa Times and Tribune. stan at They were from the one trom , tha Both presented the side of the Both stated that he S promising member of tho Bermond company “the prettiest girl in America. Mem and her themselves mother gathered together as if they had been dazed by a rip of lightning from tho blue and waited for the thunders bolt to smash the world about them. They read the letter together. It be+ gan without any “Dear Wife” ‘or “Dear Daughter.” It began: ‘The inclosed clippings were sent ta me by members of my congre- gation who were sojourning, one in New York and one in Chicago, It {s hard for me to doubt the wit. ness of my eyes, but it ts almost harder to believe that the wife of my bosom and the daughter reared in the shelter of our hgme could have fallen so low so suddenly, Before I write more I want to hear the truth from both of you, if you can and will tell it. CHAPTER XXCXv, ‘The Reverend Doctor Bteddon waa something more than a» father to his daughter, sumething more than @ husband to his wife; ho was also the high priest of their religion. ‘The Gaughter had fied from hig face after her ain, and had found « new paradise, a now priestcraft, @ new religion beyond the desert, She had come to believe in an artist God, loving beauty and@ emotion and in- spiring his true bellevers to prociatm his glories through the development and celebration of the gifts and m he had bestowed. She felt that he required of her hymns of pas» wonate worship instead of the quenched ofhe t, the distor. tion of the burial of her ‘Ten Command- Thou Shalt Not he felt @ to inter What tations y considered triumphs 008 her graces, Mosa. dn contatr mit Dram: fon, a ot humanity to t had and degradatior inspirations ar High sareer, ho had com: and had led path of Hes and of ¢ The over I hell yawnir unwary Her mot nt excuse: her ol sure of might rate hi at it by stealth by a dark 4 shame, 4 the pit of feet still herself. uven a. whe had her Her bee a io inl Bes up with “