Evening Star Newspaper, September 8, 1929, Page 106

Clara Bunting Had Longed for a Career as an Ac- All Her tress. Life, It Seemed, SheDreamed of Her Goal; Final- ly, as She Was About to Give Up Hope, Success Came to Her. Clara Bailey Bunting taught that gentle art. The two parlors of the modest home she occupied with her husband, Doctor Bunting, were given over to her work. 1t busy. There were two babies, and ys the doctor’s practice, while never ACK in the days when “elocution” B was a maidenly accomplishment, $patly jangling. It was only Clara Bailey Bunting’s perennial enthusiasm for her work that made it possible for her to carry on her fragile shoulders the _ triple duties of wife, m?her and elocution " teacher. As Clara used to say of herself, when she _married George Bunting, she had not forfeited her stage career, but had merely postponed it. .And George, who doted on Clara’s recitative .in its very bud by her young romance and Subsequent marriage to the good-looking phy- sician And of course what subsequently happened was that, as the years drifted, Clara became - more and more involved in home ties—the lives of her children and the problems of her has- band. Teaching elocution was about as far as Clara seemed to advance toward her ultimate goal— . the theater. ND yet the quality of her enthusiasm re- mained undoused. When she was 30, . & bit heavier, her blonde prettiness a bit paler, het never too robust health a bit frailer, the sweet blue eyes of Clara Bailey Bunting. were still fixed resolutely upon the destination of fiie theater. There was something undeniably dramatic %0 Clara Bailey Bunting; with her maturity there came a Lady Macbethian quality to her voice and manner. She deepened, so to speak; took on a new poise, and worked more inde- fatigably than ever with “her girls,” as she called them. The young girls from the high schools and finishing school of the town came in numbers to study elocution with Clara Bailey Bunting. It soon became apparent, even to Clara who loved her husband, that he was not destined for success in his work. And yet, because she liked the nobility of the doctor’s task, siie dis- - couraged her husband’s valiant offers to aban- don his medical practice for a more lucrative - mercantile position, and carried on her own shoulders the upkeep of the little home. By this time their children, a pair of pretty girl twins, were of an age when they, too, were studying dramatic art with their mother. And how Clara Bailey Bunting worked with these girls! Into them she poured all of her diverted energies. The doctor doted on these twins, and spent most of his time accompanying them ‘o this rand that entertainment. No local charity event, children’s festival, or community occa-~ Sion, was complete without them. Their . mother was kept busy by these entertainments, arranging new readings, new dances, new little Qalogue scenes for the children. ABOUT this time Clara began to prepare for an enterprise that had long been smoldering in her mind. Together she and “the doctor wrote a little one-act skit which was to comprise three characters: Clara and her two daughters. The idea was to carry this skit, when completed, to New York. That was the year that the doctor developed 5 & spot on his lung. s The next six catastrophic months saw this little family, bewildered by adversity, packing "THE _SUNDAY STA" = ASFHINGTON, D. €. SI "PTEMBER B, 1929, B e Seated with about 75 extras in the outer office of a large motio n picture concern, a famous director paused @ moment before her, questioned her brusquely and motioned her into an adjoining office. themselves, bag and baggage, for the more be- nign slopes of Southern California. It was thus out of a volition not her own that Clara Bailey Bunting found herself catapulted into the heart of the new art-industry known as the motion picture. Then and there Clara Bailey Bunting, carry- ing now the additional load of an invalided husband, took up her cudgels once more. In the front parlor of a tiny California bunga- low she sought to gather unto herself a new class of dramatic pupils sufficient to enable her to keep this tiny roof over her family's heads. After a fashion she succeeded. Young ladies straggled into the parlor of Clara Bailey Bunt- ing for instruction in the gentle art of elocu- tion. The twins grew older, and it was to be Clara’s and her invalided husband’s joy and delight to behold them when only in their sweet ‘teens appearing as ‘“extras” in the local motion picture studios of Hollywood. By this time Clara herself, 40, paler, leaner, tireder, wa. now aspiring to character roles, In between her teaching, running the house- hold, catering to the needs of her husband and sewing for her girls, Clara was making hurried visits herself to the studios, registering with the agencies, sending her photographs, made up for roles of her own creation, to various casting-directors. One day the twins, on one of those flukes of good fortune that can occur in the unstable world of the theater, were cast for parts in a picture that featured the predicament of mistaken identity. It was their opportunity. The picture scored a success and the names of Evelyn and Edith Bunting became over- night, as it were, ones to be reckoned with in the world of the cinema. From this point, the destinies of the Bunt- ings moved forward. Success comes Qquickly and dramatically in Hollywood. The Bunt- ings found themselves transported from the tiny bungalow to a charming little villa on a rose-grown hillside. ‘The Buntings acquired two cars, a roadster for the girls and a sedan for the doctor, who was unable to travel in an open car. The lean years were apparently over and, for the first time in her married life, Clara Bailey Bunting found herself in a position to concentrate on her own personal ambitions. Y this time the gray was frankly out in her hair and her never too robust shoul- ders were drooping noticeably. But the doc- tor’s confidence in her was undiminished. Clara in his opinion undoubtedly had the mak- ings of a magnificent character actress. The girls, full of the sophistication of the studios, and wise with the cruel wisdoms of youth, opposed their mother in her ambitions. The time had come, in their opinion, for her to sit back and enjoy some of the good things of life. They did not subject her to the hurt Dozon by the Old Gulf Stream Continued From Fourteenth Page “I'll prove everything and then, as you probably despise me, I'll pass out of your life.” She said nothing and continued to say it all the way in. She did, however, smile pathetical- ly once when he curtly mentioned his “motor” would meet them. But at the station a redcap did take their luggage to a shining limousine, and Evelyn stared, wide-eyed and silent, as her young man companion snarled curt orders at the surprised chauffeur, After a few minutes’ ride they got out and went up into a magnificent suite of offices, where Mr. Arnold created pandemonium by bellowing orders—absurd orders, to many star- tled clerks. To an innocent, bald-headed old man, in a private office, he shouted inelegantly: “Say, Bates, what’s my name? Tell me right away! And where do I live?” “Riverside drive, sir,” stuttered the old man. “Riverside drive, sir. That’s correct, sir. Do you feel sick, sir> Name is Arnold. sir—yes, sir, Mr. Neil P. Arnold, sir. Thank you, sir.” “There!” victoriously the young man turncd to the young lady who all along had been too astonished to articulate anything save gasps. SUDDENLY he began, unrestrainedly, to laugh. “I saw you at the Grand Central,” he explained, pulling her gently into his lap, “and fell in love with you right away—honest! I followed you to Oceanside; left Parks on the boardwalk and told him-if we met to disown me —for, you see, I meant at first to woo you as a poor man. “Then regarding that five, it was really a joke on Sloan’s part to insist on it. Last, that telegram to the bank, I just discovered, was erroneously sent in the name of Nell Arnod, and no wonder I was discredited. Again, my chum had left the club, giving no forwarding address, and an attendant thoughtlessly marked his wire refused!” Inexplicably, as he paused, the lovely girl be- gan to cry. “I was going to inspire and help you,” she sobbed, “to climb from poverty to riches. I was going to, to, reform you. And now you don’t need reforming and you're al- ready rich.” “I wouldn't worry about it, dear. There will be compensations,” soothed her sweetheart tenderly. “Two of them, I hope,” she laughed shyly, drying her eyes. “A little boy and a little girl!™ (Copyright, 19293 of it, but between themselves they indulged in some hilarity at her obsession that she was destined for a stage career, Poor darling. Best to indulge her and let her talk, but just fancy mother, at her age, still carrying on the delusion, There came a time when even the doctor, who still doted on the mother of his children, came a little sadly to admit to himself what de- lusion it was. Sweet dear, her life had gone in service to him and to her children, and yet the vitality of her desires would not die down. Clara was visualizing herself in mother roles by now and character interpretations of old ladies. And as the demands of her household grew lighter, as the girls were able to supply more and more of the creature comforts, Clarg in- creased her visits to the studios. There were still a few pupils, too, the protestations of her daughters to the contrary notwithstanding. At 50, Clara Bailey Bunting, mother of two successful screen actresses herself, held on robustly to her ambitions. About that time Evelyn married one of the world’s most prominent screen stars and tor the next five years, because grandchildren came quickly, there was an additional crimp in the professional dreams of Clara Bailey Bunting. It became necessary to take on a larger house, more servants, more domestic mechanisms, and it devolved upon the grandmother to super- vise the lives of the three babies of the screen “YHEN Clara Bailey Bun'ing was 60 the whi'e snow of gentle old age was upon her head. And when she walked out now with the doctor, they leaned quite mu'ually one upon the other. And yet to the embarrassment, indeed the acute mortification, of her two married daugh- ters and even her husband, Clara still made her visits to the studios. It became a sore and sensitive point in the family, this cttitude of Clara’s., Her daugh- ters never referred to it and her husband pre- tended not to notice the obsession. But through it all, with her white head high, Clara still referred to her future in dramatic art. W¥én Clara Bailey Bunting was 61 this hap- pened: Seated with about 75 “extras” in the outer office of a large motion picture concern, a famous director, hurrying through paused a moment before her, questioned her brusquely and motioned her into an adjoining office. Pifteen minutes later, Clara Bailey Bunting was cast for a mother role that was to make her famous the world over. The family of Clara Bailey Bunting is overwhelmed at the overwhelming success that has come to her. “I told vou so,” they all argue triumphantly to one another. “I always knew mother had the makings of a great actress i (Copyright, 1929