Evening Star Newspaper, January 19, 1930, Page 89

When Youth and Beauty BY HARRY GOLDBERG. F life is wonderful in the 20s, living is fascinating in the 40s!” You won't find many women eager to echo this epigram. The best years seem gone; distress and disappointment have clouded youthful dreams. Richness of color and variety have faded from the days that loom ahead. But Fritzi Scheff laughs at this drab pic- ture of the middle years. After a lapse of almost a generation she is once more the center of the Victor Herbert music festivals that are being held throughout America. “pflle. Modiste” brings her back in the spot- light with all the charm and exuberant vitality of 20 years ago. “Beauty—what is it?” The slim hands of the little Viennese vibrate with expression. “A Juster of the skin, a light in the eye. When a man marries a woman for her face she eventu- ally loses her freshness and, presto! he is tired of his bargain. But if he marries for corn- panionship his wife grows old and he doesn’t know it.” The petite prima donna shrugs her shoul- ders, weaves her fingers and the air is electric. Her hair still has its pristine fire, her eyes flash with brilliant lights and the trim little figure seems hardly to have changed a line in a quarter of a century. “You seem to have the secret of eternal beauty, mademoiselle. How does one achieve it2” “They say I still have good looks,” she said, laughing heartily. “There is no secret. Get a big jar of cold cream, put my name and face on it and we'll both make millions. “But to be serious. a moment. things one can do. “Enjoy every minute of life. Don’t think of yesterday—and what does one know of to- morrow? I am Viennese. We have learned to laugh no matter what has happened. “No chip on the shoulder! That is very important. Don’t walk around with a sad face, complaining that life owes you something. Life doesn’t owe anybody anything. You take what you can get and be thankful, 66 There are “IN a long life we all have ups and downs. Don't preen yourself on being a marvel when you are lucky enough to be up, and don't feel greatly distressed when you are not tem- porarily a success. «I have always been around, yet people seem to think I have come out of retirement. I always knew what I needed to be once more prominent in the public eye, but no manager would believe it, That’s always the way of the world. High praise when you please and the cold shoulder when you don’t. «Jt is ego that puts a chip on one’s shoul- der, conceit that one is important and should be better treated by life. But one is just a speck of humanity in a great ocean of life. “If you are down it may be good to blame yourself and try to do better, because, if you have the will and the talent to succeed, sooner or later the wheel turns again and you are back on top. “When a star is famous, admired and popu- lar the managers give her everything. But if she fails for the moment and then tries to come back the managers may turn on the screws. But what of that? If you take this chance and show that you were right, again you are the master and make your own terms. “In my home in Vienna there was discipline, balance and tolerance. “My father was a physician. He had mili- tary ideas, so I learned to live systematically and moderately and not overrate the value of anything. “Even in those days every woman in Conti- nental Europe smoked. But I do not like the stained fingers, the tyranny of habit, the poi- soned breath, so I do not smoke. I have not your American prejudices, but still I do not smoke. * “Of course, as you know, every one drinks abroad. But my mother used to say that alco- AN ANSWER FROM - 1930. THE SUNDAY STAR, WASHINGTON, D. C, JANUARY 19, Fritzi Scheff laughs at the years, for she has retcined the beauty and charm which endeared her to the public a generaiion ago and is starring in the same role. A scene from “Madame Modiste” at top. Hatred of Age Is Only Fear of Time—Age Is Only Imagination—Personality and Intelligence Are the Only Permanent Charms—Supreme Happiness Comes Only With Full Capacity for Enjoyment. hol was bad for the complexion. Also, it drains the eye of its natural brilliance. So, although I do not approve of prohibition, I do not drink, except when I may take a cocktail at a party in order not to be conspicuous by refusing. “But to give myself up to poison, to lose my senses in alcohol, to drown my personality in drink—never! “Personality is what counts—personality, brains and imagination. These things go on long after beauty has disappeared. They are the permanent charms. “Youth is wonderful, but it is a kind of in- toxication, It is froth and exuberance. You wake up in the morning and you float through life without knowing what you are doing. “But when you double the 20s you don’t have to grow old—you grow up. You look at life through your intelligence and your imagina- tion. You see, you hear, you plan. You make life conscious and deliberate and you can feel that you have a hand in your own destiny. “What do you know about living or about life in your 20s? “Don’t live in the past. There is nothing to be done about what is gone. Regret is an empty sigh. Living is understanding. You have more capacity now to enjoy, to know, to be really alive. The past may be a bad dream or a glorious memory, but, in any event, it is gone. “Take your happiness now. American women are so restless, so dissatisfied. Always striving for something they do not have. If Mrs. Jones next door has three children and a car, I must have a car, too, or I will not be happy. “THIS straining after something belonging to somebody else is not happiness. One woman cannot do everything. You cannot be a mother, a clubwoman, a soclety woman, a social worker and an expert in everything. You are limited. by time and vitality. “Measure what you can do with your intel- ligence and your energy and stick to it re- gardless of your neighbors. Make your own happiness and you will find that they envy you. Happiness is one of the few things both rare and real. “If you have developed one talent, you are sure to have several. stick to one. There is hardly time in a busy life to do more than one thing well. “Did you know I was a very fine pianist? But I gave it up. I have a plastic talent, too. I once modeled a head and a sculptor said I must forthwith begin my studies. But I laughed. How could I do anything else when the stage took every ounce of my energy? “Balance is a great word by which to guide one’s life. It is difficult to describe, but it means not to overvalue what is temporary and of little worth, to live with moderation and use what brains you have and not to take oneself too seriously. “I can talk about that because at 16 I was a star, an overnight sensation. Still, my head did not swell. I kept my balance. And when I was in eclipse I was the same Fritzi Scheff. I did not sigh after yesterday. I knew if I worked hard and waited with patience my time would come again. “It is a great happiness to sing again as I sang at 16. Yes, I feel the same thrill, the same eagerness to make an audience happy. Sometimes when I come out I feel a cold wave. I know what they are thinking. ‘I have heard of this dame. She may have been good once, but she’ll have to show me.’ “Then I am glad. I show them. Perhaps it takes an act or two, but they applaud as they did yesterday. An unconquerable spirit and zest in what one does is the way to conquer life. “I read with amazement of these men who kill themselves at 50. They have lost their money, maybe. The stock-market crash has ruined them. Ruined them financially, that is all. Have they not the same brains that made the money for them? They have not lost their experience, their knowledge, their associations. If it is money they want to win again, it ought FRITZI SCHEFF. But you must learn to ’ ‘ Nk \ RREEE S to be easier, since years of work have sharpe ened for them the tools with which money ig made.” “Perhaps, mademoiselle,” it was suggested, “there is the matter of pride. They can't face their friends in poverty.” “But that is cowardly,” she replied with spirit. “If it took 20 years to make the firs§ fortune, it may take only five to make the second. Money is not happiness. Happiness is the capacity to look at life and enjoy what it has to offer at the moment. “I have a car. It is pleasant to ride in one, But if T had no car I could ride in the trol- leys. And that would be much better than walking on a long journey. One must re- member that things could always be worse than they are.” ADEMOISELLE had just come in from & 100-mile trip in her car. The show was opening and it was only two hours until curtain time. Mademoiselle was talking and dll_\ing. There was no attempt to conserve energy or select a special diet. “But to return to beauty, mademoiselle. do you do it?” “you see I do not guard my appetite. I have no special diet.” Mademoiselle’s dinner consisted of raw oysters, lamb chops, spinachy toast, salad and coffee. “I do not sleep much, but I sleep well. I do not carry yesterday's troubles or worry about tomorrow. “Cold cream, yes, but that is a cosmetic of show business. As you see, I use nothing else and never have. «Exercise? I have no time. Fifteen mine utes before the curtain I try out my voice. It is a muscle practice and is what you call ‘warming up.’ “In the Summertime I swim. I have a shack, a very modest place, up in Connecticut. There I plant flowers, grow vegetables, cook, bake and preserve. “Age is imagination. Life flows away so0 quickly that you have only to ignore time, be glad that you are alive, and you will enjoy living with more pleasure than in any day gone by. “*As a man thinketh, so he is,’ was, I believe, the phrase of a famous philosopher. That is a great truth. That is one thing time does. In the course of years it etches the face with thd lines of the spirit within. When you speak and act and think the face tells the story of thd spirit. “If there is a great spirit within one whicll has lived eagerly, sanely and looked at lifé with mellow thoughts and fearlessly, then therd is genuine beauty written on the face. “The hatred of age is the fear of time. Wheni the spirit lives greatly there is no fear of tdmes To be afraid of life is to live meanly. How (0 OMEN have come to me who were on thé . stage when I began and who have dis+ appeared into obscurity through fear. ‘How do you do it, Fritizi?’ they ask. ‘You have given us courage to go back and try again.’ “It is a satisfaction to be a leader, to show others the way and to live without apology td the best of one's ability. “For most women who have no special talent and who do not live in the public eye there is not the constant stimulation which comes to the artist. “But life can be beautiful, no matter wha$ the circumstances are. From my own urge to< ward domesticity I know that the job of super< vising a household can be an art. “The touch of a clever woman turns a house into a home. She doesn't have to boast about it. Her friends know and her family enjoys the subtle atmosphere of genuine home life. “In developing out of savagery the junglé women learned many domestic arts which have gone out of the home into the factory. We are in danger of losing the domestic culture which is the work of generations of women. (Copyright, 1930.)