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* T A Y L O R O L O G Y *
* A Continuing Exploration of the Life and Death of William Desmond Taylor *
* *
* Issue 80 -- August 1999 Editor: Bruce Long bruce@asu.edu *
* TAYLOROLOGY may be freely distributed *
*****************************************************************************
CONTENTS OF THIS ISSUE:
Blanche Sweet
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What is TAYLOROLOGY?
TAYLOROLOGY is a newsletter focusing on the life and death of William Desmond
Taylor, a top Paramount film director in early Hollywood who was shot to
death on February 1, 1922. His unsolved murder was one of Hollywood's major
scandals. This newsletter will deal with: (a) The facts of Taylor's life;
(b) The facts and rumors of Taylor's murder; (c) The impact of the Taylor
murder on Hollywood and the nation; (d) Taylor's associates and the Hollywood
silent film industry in which Taylor worked. Primary emphasis will be given
toward reprinting, referencing and analyzing source material, and sifting it
for accuracy.
*****************************************************************************
*****************************************************************************
Blanche Sweet
Blanche Sweet was one of the actresses whose correspondence was found
among the effects of William Desmond Taylor (see TAYLOROLOGY 64). Below is a
selection of contemporary interviews with her, published between 1915 and
1922. Two other interviews with Blanche Sweet were reprinted in TAYLOROLOGY
36 and 63.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
April 1915
K. Owen
PHOTOPLAY
The Girl on the Cover
"Once upon a time" began the first contestant in the 1144th annual
Ananias tourney, "there was an actress who detested publicity--"
"S'enuff!" Shrieked the other contestants in anguished chorus. "You
win!"
"I accept the prize."
By all the rules of the game this interview should begin with some
reference to that good old bromidic standby "What's in a name?" and a liberal
use of saccharine superlatives in explanation of how much sweeter than her
name is Blanche Sweet. There should also be a generous display of adjectives
in telling about those wonderful eyes of the famous Jesse Lasky star, but
after dashing madly through several Robert Chambers novels in an effort to
find a description of feminine eyes that would do justice to Miss Sweet,
I give it up. I can say confidentially, however, that if she ever turned
those whatchumacallem eyes on me and asked me to please jump off Mount Wilson
or out of an aeroplane, I'd take a chance of surviving by trying to land on
my head.
It was rather astonishing to be told by an actress who is so widely
known as the heroine of "The Escape" and "Judith" and "The Warrens of
Virginia" that this was her first "really and truly" interview. (Not because
I doubted her word but merely in the interest of accuracy, I asked a few
diplomatic questions in a press agents' caucus the next day and discovered
that Miss Sweet was "impossible" from a publicity standpoint, that she just
wouldn't "stand for anything.")
"I find it hard to explain just why I always disliked publicity," said
Miss Sweet. "But I never wanted them writing me up as something or other in
private life that I wasn't and I never wanted to talk for publication about
the intimate facts of my life because it seemed so much like taking the
public into partnership in something I wanted for myself alone. All the time
I was with Mr. Griffith, to whom I owe everything of success I have attained,
he respected my wishes concerning personal publicity, although I can see now
that it was asking a great deal of him. The public has some rights in the
matter because we are all more or less dependent upon the public."
We were sitting in Miss Sweet's daintily appointed apartment in a big
white house perched on one of the green-garbed side-hills that adorn Sunset
Boulevard within "walking distance" of a half dozen big "movie" studios.
A white-haired grandmother with whom Miss Sweet lives filled the dual role of
chaperone and prompter. There wasn't much prompting to do, however, and she
devoted her attention assiduously to knitting a pair of socks for some
Belgian or other.
"No go ahead and ask questions," declared the little actress, bracing
herself and turning on one of those dazzling Sweet smiles. "Only--" this
with some degree of finality--"don't ask me if I like to cook, because I
don't. Why, I couldn't fry an egg fit to eat. And--" seeing me look at the
baby grand in the corner of the room--"as to music, you can say that I
perform much better on the piano for the screen, than I do in real life.
I really haven't a hobby worth mentioning except my work and I love that.
I have only one great desire and that is to keep my youth and enthusiasm.
They are the greatest assets of a motion picture actress. To keep both I try
to keep busy all the time, go to bed early and get up with the sun."
I tried to say something complimentary about her youth.
"Of course I'm not so awfully old, but I am no beginner in the pictures
by any means. Mary Pickford jokingly referred to me and herself the other
day as old-timers, and we really are, because we both began at the old
Biograph in New York. It was nearly six years ago when I began in the
pictures after playing child parts on the stage and one of my first parts was
the new year in a New Year's play, so you see I was pretty young."
Miss Sweet is a native of Chicago, and she really likes Chicago, but
five winters in California have made her an ardent Californian. And then,
besides, she went through the San Francisco earthquake as a child and was
educated at Berkeley, the home of the University of California, where she
rounded out her education after her first stage experience, by taking a
special course at the University.
"I was just young enough to enjoy every minute of it," said Miss Sweet
of the big Frisco shake-up, "and the only time I was frightened during the
disaster was when a neighbor who had gotten up from a sick bed, came over to
our doorstep where we were sitting watching the fire, and dropped dead.
I think of him every time I see someone die for the films, because he did it
so quietly and without any fuss at all. That would never do with us!"
"Well, how about motoring?" I falteringly demanded, still searching for
the hobby. I had stopped at the curb a moment to admire a pretty little
white touring car with black stripes and a monogram that had a "B" and an "S"
intertwined.
"Of course I like it and it is really very thrilling to drive downtown
in the traffic. I just learned to drive a month ago and some pedestrians
have had some very narrow escapes. I almost ran down a man yesterday.
I thought at first he was Mr. Griffith's press agent whom I dodged for about
a year and was just a little disappointed when I saw it wasn't. Of course I
would hate to hurt him, but I certainly would like to make him dodge just
once."
"What sort of roles do you like best?" trying a new angle.
"The kind in which I can wear one costume from start to finish," was the
ready answer. "It's an awful trial keeping track of a half dozen gowns
during the filming of a big feature. And then there's the dressing. I have
dressed in an automobile with a lot of people standing around out on a
location and it is no fun. But we cannot expect everything to be the way we
would want it.
"Every time I feel out of sorts because of the difficulty of doing a
part right, I think of the poor directors. Do you know that I can't conceive
of any harder life than those poor men lead. We may have a little trouble
occasionally, but the director has it all the time. I never could understand
how they can retain any semblance of good nature after the trials they have.
Yet one could not find a more charming man than Mr. Cecil DeMille, my present
director, or a more patient one than Mr. Griffith. If we were living in the
days of the saints, I know of a half dozen directors who could qualify."
Quite unusual, isn't it, for a "movie" star to sympathize with a
director? But then, Miss Sweet is an unusual girl. Yes, still a girl--not
quite 19, despite the fact that she considers herself an oldtimer and picks
her hats, as she naively admits, with a view to making herself appear
youthful.
Another unusual thing about Miss Sweet is her taste in reading. She
likes to read about the war, but is still undecided as to her preference for
the ultimate victor. She is especially interested in submarines and talks
like a naval expert about the new German submarines which have a steaming
radius of 2,500 miles. By introducing the subject of her favorite part,
I discovered that Miss Sweet likes "The Escape" better than anything she has
ever done, although it nearly ended her career. While seeking atmosphere in
the New York slums during the filming of the Armstrong play, Miss Sweet got
some that was tainted with scarlet fever microbes and spent seven weeks in a
hospital. Her illness held up completion of the play nearly two months and
it was finished in Los Angeles. She also likes "The Warrens of Virginia,"
her first Lasky picture, recently released.
"I thought it would be strange going to a new company after my long
association with Mr. Griffith's company," she said, "but they treated me just
too lovely for anything when I went to the Lasky studio and I enjoyed every
minute of my work in 'The Warrens.'"
Then I was told in strictest confidence who Miss Sweet thought was the
greatest film actress and who she thought was the funniest actor, and fearing
that I might forget what part of the interview was confidential and what was
not I looked at what passes for my time-piece and discovered that I had been
there an hour and a half.
D. W. Griffith once said that Miss Sweet was the greatest natural
actress in filmland. He says it yet, though she has "jumped" to the Laskys.
As for myself I can imagine no better vocation that a steady job interviewing
a Blanche Sweet every day, if there were any more to interview.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
October 2, 1915
M. Owston-Booth
PICTURES AND PICTUREGOER
A Sweet Half-Hour
"You don't mind me getting on with the make-up, do you?" asked my victim
with a charming smile when, preliminaries over, I had taken a chair by her
dressing-table for a quiet chat. I assured her that I did not, and inwardly
blessed Fate and a good chauffeur for getting me to the studios in time to
become a spectator of so important an event. It was an opportunity I
wouldn't have missed for the world.
I believe I hinted at something of the kind to Blanche Sweet, for I
distinctly remember that there was a little pink blush on her cheeks when she
made me familiar with a box of delicious chocolates and begged me to feel at
home.
"I can scarcely help feeling that," I said, "when you give me so kind a
reception. In fact, you make me so much at home that I am almost forgetting
I have come to you on business."
She opened her eyes in mock distress.
"Oh, dear! how very formidable that sounds!"
I laughed.
"Yes," I assured her; "I come as deputy for the British public, and I
know you will--"
"Just how many pages am I to fill?" she interrupted, gazing at the
notebook in my hand. There was a wicked little light in her eyes that was
quite irresistible; and we laughed together.
"I am sure there must be lots to tell me about yourself!" I pleaded.
"No, there really isn't much that's interesting," she corrected,
modestly; "but at any rate I'll fire away or you will be getting impatient."
She gave her chair a businesslike little jerk, and looked seriously into
the glass.
"My first theatrical appearance I remember very vividly," she began.
"I had gone to New York with my mother, and was seeking a position on the
stage. We had a letter to Thomas Wise, who was then about to star in 'A
Gentleman from Mississippi.' Mother did my hair up and let me put on my
first long dress, and sent me to see him. After a talk--this was at the
theatre--he sent me to see William A. Brady, the producer, who was standing
in the wings. Mr. Brady looked at me, and then called to Mr. Wise that he
could not use me. Mr. Wise asked the reason, and Brady said, 'How can I use
a leading woman who is not old enough to have all her teeth yet?'
"It was true. I was just getting my second crop of teeth, and had a big
vacant space in the center of the upper row!
"Shortly after that I went to the Biograph and got a job as extra girl
in the pictures. Nearly every one was an extra then, and no one received
more than a pound a day. Mary Pickford was there, Florence Lawrence, and a
number of others. The first picture I appeared in was 'A Corner in Wheat,'
and then I was far, far in the background. At that time one was a leading
woman one day and an extra the next. The first picture I played lead was
'The Long Road.' I think it was Miss Pickford's turn to hold up the back
wall that day."
"You came into prominence as 'Little Blanche?' I queried.
"Yes," the fair-haired star admitted; "but for some time I was not
properly on the stage. I varied my career with intermittent periods of
study. I would get tired of the pictures or the stage--I was principal
dancer with Gertrude Hoffman for quite a while--and then fly to California
for a few months at school. When I became tired of study I would go back to
work."
"Quite an ideal arrangement," I broke in, with enthusiasm. "You have
really had a most interesting life."
"I don't know." She shrugged her shoulders. "I have never had to take
any daredevil chances as lots of us do. And I never played heavies either"--
after a brief mental review--"I suppose because I am a blonde. No blonde can
look like a villainess. I have always been the heroine or the fair-haired c-
h-e-i-l-d, whichever it chanced to be.
"And your favourite role?" I put in.
"Ah, my favourite role--that was Judith of Bethulia. But I loved my
part in 'Home, Sweet Home,' and in 'The Avenging Conscience' too. In fact I
love all my roles, and live through them so earnestly that often I imagine
myself to be some one else when the day is done. After acting in 'Stolen
Goods' I remained for some little time under the impression that I was a Red
Cross nurse!"
"Should you like to be one?" I asked.
"I should. But I have just fixed up a contract with the Jesse L. Lasky
Feature Play Company, and am working hard in the new series of Lasky-Belasco
productions now being staged for the screen. They are all well-known
dramas," she explained, "and I make my first appearance in 'The Woman,'
'Sweet Kitty Bellairs,' and 'The Warrens of Virginia.'"
"And is it true," I ventured, "about the record-breaking salary?"
She admitted that it was.
"Really it is delightful, and I am perfectly happy at the Lasky studio.
Every one, from Mr. Lasky down, is trying to turn out the best in moving
pictures, and one feels inspired. I had a little fear when I first went
there, because I had been accustomed to the same director for so long, and
many directors are noisy and excitable--frighten one out of one's wits. The
first time I saw Cecil B. De Mille (the Lasky director) I thought he was that
way, but he is as quiet and considerate as one could wish. He gets the best
work out of his cast, too. Everything is done just the way he wants it, but
without any fuss. Even in the big battle-scenes of 'The Warrens of Virginia'
he was not a bit flustered."
Miss Sweet paused a moment as she threw back her head to view her make-
up in the mirror, and I noted that, although slim, she had the true athletic
figure of the American woman.
"Are you fond of sports?" I asked, a little irrelevantly, perhaps.
"Indeed I am," came the ready reply. "I go to all kinds of sports.
That is, I intend to go in for all kinds, but I never seem to have the time.
I am driving my own car now. I have an owner's and a driver's licence. I'll
never forget the day I went down to get my driver's licence. I wanted to
drive up to the place in such a grand manner they would come out and beg me
to accept a licence with their compliments. Naturally I was nervous, and
nearly wrecked a couple of telegraph-poles before I finally managed to stop
in front of the place. I am all right now."
I happened to note a surreptitious glance at the watch on milady's
wrist, and suspected that I was hindering work.
"I would like to ask you one more question, Miss Sweet," I said as I
rose to go, "Are you married or not?"
She looked at me with just the least suspicion of coyness in her bright,
laughing eyes, "I am only eighteen, remember?"
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
April 1916
Roberta Courtlandt
MOTION PICTURE
The Girl Who Reads Tennyson Between Scenes
It all happened at the studios of the Lasky Company, just a short time
ago. Since joining this company, Blanche Sweet has been usually elusive to
magazine people, for there doesn't seem to be anything she cares to say for
publication, but despite this, I persisted, hoping that I might possibly
persuade her to divulge some of her past life.
Mr. McGaffey, publicity director of the Lasky Company, was my guide
through the labyrinth of stages, props, directors, actors and scene-workers.
We encountered Laura Hope Crews very hard at work in one set. In the next
one, a scene from "The Explorer" was being rehearsed, and in the scene were
Lou-Tellegen, Dorothy Davenport and Tom Forman, all hard at work. And then--
marvelous sight--there was Geraldine Farrar, hard at work under the direction
of Cecil B. De Mille, and playing opposite her was Wallace Reid.
It was all so very, very interesting and I should have liked immensely
to have stopped and looked on for awhile. But Mr. McGaffey forged straight
ahead and I, perforce, followed.
In a shady, cool corner we found the object of our search, curled up
with a book, looking very cool and comfortable. Business of introductions.
Business of scared interviewer asking for a "Chat." Business of Miss Sweet
puckering her straight brows and looking pathetic.
"Oh, please let's don't bother about interviews. It's too hot," she
pleaded. Mr. McGaffey seemed to think we might safely be left alone, so,
with a serene look, he hurried back to the office, and Miss Sweet and I
settled down and began getting acquainted.
"It must be a mighty interesting book to keep you reading it on a day
like this," I suggested, with a meaning look towards her book.
For answer, she turned the title-page towards me, and I realized with a
little surprise that it was a volume of Tennyson. Any girl who spends a
warm, lazy morning reading Tennyson certainly has my sincerest respect.
"I am very fond of him," she confided, with a little, lazy smile.
"I like Lord Byron, too. I adore Kipling," she added shamelessly; "and for
fiction give me Phillips Oppenheim."
My respect was rising by leaps and bounds.
"Do you often spend your mornings this way?" I asked.
"Hardly," she laughed; "I seldom have a morning that I can spend this
way. Today I was to have worked in 'The Secret Sin,' in which I am doing the
double role of the twins. So I came down to the studio all primed for work,
only to find that I wouldn't be needed for an hour or so. And the hour
doesn't seem to be finished yet," she answered gaily.
"What companies have you been with, save Lasky, Miss Sweet?" I ventured.
"Biography, then Reliance (Mutual, you know), and now Lasky. I've been
in Motion Pictures for six years," she answered, a little wearily.
"Were you on the stage before entering Motion Pictures?" I persisted.
"Yes, as premiere danseuse with Gertrude Hoffman. But after my first
work in pictures, I didn't care for the stage any more."
"And where were you born?"
She sat up, with a little bored gesture that was rather amusing because
of the twinkle in her blue eyes. She pretended to straighten the disorder of
her blonde hair, then she sighed and dropped her hands in her lap.
"So it's going to be an interview, after all," she sighed, with an air
of utter hopelessness. "Very well. What is to be, will be, I suppose. And
who am I that I should dare to attempt to stop the tide of destiny? Where
was I born? Chicago, in 1896. I suppose the date of the month doesn't
matter?"
"No," I muttered, so delighted at the other information that I wouldn't
be greedy and insist on more.
"Do you care for photoplays, other than your own? Seeing them, I mean?"
I stammered.
"Yes, indeed. I am in inveterate photoplay fan. I think every player
who has any ambition at all, any desire to get ahead in his work, should
spend as much or more time seeing other people's pictures as in his own.
I think that only by comparison and good hard work can we hope to succeed.
And it is my highest ambition to reach the zenith of a professional career."
Her voice was very sweet and earnest as she made this little preachment.
"What pictures have you most enjoyed seeing, Miss Sweet?"
"'The Warrens of Virginia,'" she answered promptly, "and 'The Escape.'"
"And will you name some of the great photoplayers?" I persisted.
"Of course. I'll name some that I consider the greatest--Mary Fuller
and Mary Pickford. I enjoy their work on the screen more than any others I
have ever seen."
"I suppose you are interested in woman suffrage?" I asked.
"Decidedly I am interested in it," she said, with a bit of flash in her
blue eyes, "but I can't say that I approve of it. Men have managed things
pretty well so far--let them continue. I don't think a woman has any
business in politics, except in so far as any woman can influence her
husband's vote," she returned.
For the rest, before she was called to work, I managed to discover that
she lives with her grandmother, since she was unfortunate enough to lose both
parents when she was quite young. She is a very sane, level-headed young
girl, who has her eye on a certain goal and who means to get there some day.
She designs all her own frocks and hats and often constructs them as
well, when her duties at the studio will permit. She is fond of motoring,
swimming, hunting and dancing--chiefly dancing, for it's her greatest
pleasure--outside of the letters she receives from her admirers and friends.
She is also in favor of censorship of films, and she is single, heart-
whole and fancy-free.
In appearance, Blanche Sweet is about five feet four inches in height
and weighs about one hundred and thirty. Perhaps her hair has contributed
more than any other physical characteristic to make her famous--it is thick,
fine-spun and of a wonderful pale gold color. She hasn't a nickname, though
in her Biograph days she was known as "The Biograph Blonde."
As a parting word, see Blanche Sweet as the twins in "The Secret Sin."
I am sure you'll like seeing it quite as much as I enjoyed interviewing the
dainty star.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
February 1918
Sue Roberts
MOTION PICTURE
Where Have They Gone?
...Heartened by the success of my first endeavor, I set out on the trail
of Blanche Sweet.
Good luck alone was responsible for my being fortunate enough to get a
trace of her. I happened to be lunching with a friend when he remarked,
"I had tea with Edna Purviance the other afternoon, and who do you think is
in New York with her?"
"I don't know, I'm sure," I answered, boredly.
"Blanche Sweet."
"Blanche Sweet!" I shouted excitedly, at last seeing an opportunity of
satisfying those thousands of unanswered missives, "Where is Blanche Sweet?"
that had been raining on me like shrapnel.
"Quick, tell me where she is," I commanded.
"Knickerbocker Hotel," was the salient reply.
Forthwith luncheon was forgotten. I excused myself breathlessly and
never did find out whether the meringue glace I had already ordered was eaten
by my friend or the waiter.
At the Knickerbocker Hotel I sent up my name.
"Would Miss Sweet see me?"
"Miss Sweet would, and please go right up to Room 1000."
Mignonette in an old-fashioned garden, lavender chiffon under the pale
light of the new moon, the delicate fragrance of garden violet in a dewy
spring morning--these are just a few of the impressions that Blanche Sweet
suggested to me as she placed her rather frail white hand in mine.
"Tell me," I began, "your main reason for being in New York."
"Mainly, I am here to buy clothes. But I am not going to spend a whole
lot of money. I am going to get only what I absolutely need. I can't bear
to spend money on gowns when all those poor wretches are starving and dying
of want 'over there.' Why, today, when I was walking up Fifth Avenue and saw
all those big, wonderful fellows clad in khaki filling the sidewalks and
street corners, only waiting for the chance to sacrifice their lives for our
liberty, I felt it was positively sinful for me to be planning costumes in
purple and pink chiffon. I felt so absolutely selfish, yet it is business
for an actress to be well dressed."
"Won't you tell me, Miss Sweet," I questioned, "why you left the
screen?"
"There comes a time in everybody's life, I think," mused this fragile
bit of Dresden china, whose round blue eyes seemed to be looking either far
into the past or into the future, I couldn't tell which, "when everything
goes wrong. Ever since last December I have been very ill. It just seemed
as if one thing followed on top of another. It was just a case of overwork.
I felt as if I would like to scream every time any one spoke to me, and I am
far from temperamental by nature. You see, I had been working for six years
steadily" (I might mention here that Miss Sweet started in the pictures when
she was very, very young) "and during all that time I never lost one week's
salary. I never even took a week between going to Griffith from Biograph and
from Griffith to Lasky. During all that time I had to be on hand for fear I
should be wanted. I was under a constant nervous tension, and at last my
strength gave out, that's all. And so I have been taking a rest, a vacation,
for I felt that I deserved one."
"Will you tell me what you have been doing during your absence from the
studio?" I questioned.
"I have just been resting and doctoring and living in Los Angeles like
an ordinary human being, with an occasional visit to 'Frisco. I have been
feeling so much better lately that I thought a change would interest me, and
so one day I suggested a trip to New York and asked Edna Purviance if she
wouldn't keep me company. She was charmed with the idea, and asked Mr.
Chaplin if she could take the time between pictures. He said yes, and so we
started, accompanied by Adele Rowland. We stopped off in Chicago for a
couple of days, then came on here. New York is doing me a world of good; the
air is so bracing and it makes one feel so alive to walk with the scurrying
crowds in the brisk air. We have had reunions with Alice Joyce, Mabel
Normand and Marie Doro and many other of our friends, and we are taking in
all the theaters and shops just like any other human beings that come to New
York solely for a change."
At length I ventured the momentous question, "When are you going to
return to pictures, Miss Sweet?"
"I can't tell you that," she said. "We are going to remain in New York
three weeks and then return to Los Angeles. Just at present I feel that I
still deserve a vacation. Remember, this has to make up for not having one
for six years. I really haven't felt like working at all, but now that I am
beginning to feel so much stronger, I am commencing to itch to get back into
harness. However, that is all in the future, and I really can't tell you
anything more definite at present."
All of which, I assure you, wasn't spoken as easily as it sounds, for
only by frequent questioning did I gain these answers, for, as Blanche Sweet
said:
"Even when I first started acting with Biograph, I couldn't bear to talk
about myself. I always used to say, 'Oh, send some one else to tell them,
can't you?' And it is the same way with flattery. Of course I like to hear
sweet things--every girl does--but flattery always embarrasses me terribly.
I always feel like running away whenever any one starts to compliment me, and
although I feel that I belong to the world because it gives me my living,
I do dread publicity; talking about oneself seems so egotistical."
Verily, Blanche Sweet is a fragrantly fragile garden violet who got
mixed in with the hothouse roses by mistake.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
May 1918
Harry Carr
PHOTOPLAY
Waiting for Tomorrow
Blanche Sweet lives in a house at the top of a hill where she waits for
tomorrow.
There is a school of philosophy which contends that everything we do in
this life has an inner significance. We take it into our heads to move from
Newman street to Olden avenue; that signifies that we have slipped back into
the past--and so on.
Perhaps then there is a special significance in the fact that Blanche
Sweet has gone to live in a lonely house on the top of a hill where she can
see the dawn's first flush steal over the rim of the mountains. She is
waiting for her tomorrow.
D. W. Griffith discovered Blanche Sweet; gave her a start on the screen
and produced her best pictures.
One day after she had left his company he told me about her.
"Blanche Sweet," he said, "is likely some day to be the greatest actress
the screen will ever see. Somewhere inside of her cosmos, the fires of real
genius burn. Just at present, she is going through a difficult stage of
development. She hates herself and all the rest of the world. She is having
a terrific battle with herself. Some day she will emerge from the conflict.
Then she will have something to give to the world."
Every one in motion pictures knows what happened to Blanche Sweet.
Her health declined. She became a sick shadow of the glowing young
beauty who starred in "Judith of Bethulia." She let herself become sardonic,
pessimistic. She became a victim of introspection and over self-analysis.
At last she collapsed. A nervous breakdown; retirement from the screen--a
year in virtual seclusion.
The battle that Griffith predicted has occurred.
And mark you, that which has happened to this girl could only happen to
a highly-organized super-brained woman.
Well, Blanche Sweet has found herself. Now that she is ready to go back
to work again, the most interesting problem of the screen presents itself.
It is this:
What will Blanche Sweet bring with her out of her long period of self-
adjustment?
I went out to see her in her little house on the top of the hill. A new
Blanche Sweet I had never seen before came to meet me in the long dimly-
lighted bungalow room. The whole place reminded me of a medieval cloister--
such a place as men and women have retired to for thought and reflection.
There followed one of the most extraordinary hours of my life. Blanche
Sweet has a remarkable mind. She has intellectual depths that few women or
men have sounded. Hers is a flashing mentality. We talked about war,
socialism, military strategy, the cardinal principles of diplomacy, of motion
pictures, of literature. It was an hour of golden talk.
Blanche Sweet is a small woman. Small and blond with the blondness of
the vikings. Her face has the strong bones of a determined race. Her eyes
are steel blue. They have a dynamic quality. When she turns to look at you
quickly, something seems actually to hit you. There is something strange,
almost mysterious about her. You feel yourself in the presence of a vital
and compelling force, wrapped up in a frail beautiful personality.
I told her frankly what was in my mind. I told her that every one is
waiting to see what she will bring back to the screen after her year of
sitting alone in the house on the top of the hill.
"A strong body; rested nerves and quite a few misgivings," she said with
a queer little smile. Before I could speak again she cut in herself with
this sweeping psychological truth:
"I am not going to pretend that I have been preparing myself for a
return to the screen. To tell the truth, I haven't studied at all.
I haven't thought anything about the screen in that way.
"Why should people assume that I have nothing to think about except
making a success on the screen. I have my own philosophy of life. My screen
success or my screen failure is a very small part of it.
"I have been sent here, like other people, to live a life. My work is
important to just this extent; that it is a medium of self-expression; but it
is not the only medium. I am concerned with my work--art if you want to call
it that. But that isn't everything. That is a part of living my life; but
there are other parts. During my year of rest, I have thought some of the
screen; but I have thought of other things too.
"When I think of going back to the screen I am not without misgivings.
The public forgets very easily. One about to go back to the screen always
has a terrible question confronting her.
"As to what I will bring back--
"Well I can answer that in this way: when I went into pictures, I was a
good deal younger than the public ever imagined. I was well grown and the
public imagined that I was a grown woman. As a matter of fact I was fourteen
years old. It was a severe strain for so young a girl. I went on without
any rest for years until at last my vitality was exhausted and I had a
nervous collapse.
"I feel stronger now than ever before in my life. I am physically equal
to the battle."
I asked her what changes she expected to find in pictures when she goes
back.
"Better stories," she said. "During the period of my retirement, I have
been a devoted movie fan. I had never seen so many pictures before. What
particularly impressed me was the marked improvement in the scenarios.
"When I left the screen, the literary end of pictures was at its lowest
ebb. The old method of having scenario writers to turn out cast iron plots
like wagon wheels had given way to a plan of coaxing writers of established
reputation into the movies.
"They were all practiced authors but they didn't understand the screen.
Some of the stories they put out were enough to make angels weep. Many of
them wrote in a kind of condescending way that was particularly irritating.
Those who did not patronize the movies by trying to 'get down to the level,'
were worse; they tried so hard they got stage fright. The result was about
the same.
"It was a dreadful experience to work in some of these plays. Those
they gave me seemed to always dolorous and dismal tragedies about female dope
fiends.
"I don't mind underworld stories. 'The Escape' was the finest story I
ever acted in. But the girl in that play gained something; she arrived
somewhere. There was a point of emergence. Those dope stories had no point
of emergence nor any other point. They just wallowed around in gloom and
despair."
My favorite Blanche Sweet play has always been "The Captive"--the story
of the Turkish officer set to work on the farm of an orphaned Bulgarian girl
as a war captive.
"That is Mr. De Mille's favorite too," said Miss Sweet. "For some
reason it has faded almost entirely out of my mind. I have only the vaguest
recollection of it."
"The Captive" led quite naturally to the dramatic literature about which
she expressed the most remarkable opinions I have ever heard on the subject.
"These plays they are writing now are not war literature," she said.
"These are only the dramatic communiques from the front as it were.
"The real war literature will not be written until long afterward.
We are too close to it. The finest play written about the Civil War was "The
Clansman"--fifty years afterward. The conflict is too huge; too enormous.
We cannot get the perspective. I have met war correspondents who tell me the
operations are so big that the closer you are the less you know. In
Washington, for instance, you can find out more about the war than in Berlin
or Paris.
"No one will ever be able to tell the story in a material way.
The dramatic unities are absolutely submerged in the appalling expanse.
"I don't know if I make my meaning clear. In 'Shenandoah' for instance,
the crisis of the drama depended upon the charge led by General Sheridan at
the Battle of Cedar Creek. Can you imagine a crisis in this war which could
depend upon a single charge?
"Here is the hero coming back from the charge. The dramatist asks him,
'And did your charge win the battle?'
"'Well not exactly,' says the hero. 'There were three thousand, nine
hundred and forty-eight charges that morning in our sector and mine was one
of them.'
"Whatever real drama comes out of this war must be spiritual rather than
material."
This interview seems to be wandering far from motion pictures, but Miss
Sweet made one remark that seems to be the most profound, the sagest remark I
ever have heard about the war.
"The war must be fought," she said, "to prevent Germany becoming the
ruler of the world. It would be unthinkable. Germany is too cruel and
exacting. When I say cruel I do not mean the physical cruelty of the Germans
toward the Belgians. I mean something deeper and more essential than that.
After all, the world can endure a good deal of physical cruelty. The reason
why a Teutonic world could not be endured is this: Germany expects all the
weak and inefficient nations of the world to behave like officers on the
General Staff in Berlin. She expects an efficiency that less intense races
are incapable of. When you come to analyze this, it becomes evident that
there could be no sharper cruelty. Germany must never be a world ruler.
She expects too much perfection."
I have rambled all over the war and literature because these remarks
from this slight little girl with her Indian sash and her girlish blue
walking gown told me a good deal of what she will bring back to the screen.
She has been thinking great thoughts.
Back of a remarkable intellect, she has a keen, unselfish appreciation
of good work.
She told me that she is an ardent movie fan. During her year's rest,
she has scarcely missed a week when she did not go to the pictures.
I was rather surprised to hear her say that two of her favorites were
Charlie Chaplin and Louise Fazenda.
"I adore comedies," she said. "In fact I don't care much what it is as
long as it is well done. There is nothing I like better than a good old
fashioned pie-throwing comedy if it is good pie throwing.
"Charlie Chaplin of course is one of the greatest artists that the
screen or any of the--shall I say the fine arts?--has produced. He is funny;
but being funny is only an incident to his art. I imagine he could be
anything else just as well."
Presently this little girl with the sardonic curl to her lips and the
eyes of Viking blue will go back to the studio herself and then we shall
see--what shall we see?
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
August 24, 1918
Edward Weitzel
MOVING PICTURE WORLD
Blanche Sweet Shops in Fifth Avenue
Applying the familiar trick of stringing together the titles of a number
of plays to the career of Blanche Sweet shows a curious want of affinity
between the name of her first motion picture and the title of her latest
release. "A Man With Three Wives," her first picture, does not suggest in
the slightest degree "The Hushed Hour," which has just been given to the
public. However, the title of the blonde star's next release suggests
perfectly the extent of the crime committed by the thrice married gentleman--
"The Unpardonable Sin." The Rupert Hughes story is to be produced by Harry
L. Garson, and Blanche Sweet is now touring the Fifth Avenue shops in search
of record-making and heart-breaking costumes.
The screen favorite whose retirement for over a year caused so many
motion picture fans to ask, "What has become of Blanche Sweet?" was born in
Chicago, but came to New York for her photoplay debut. This was made at the
old Edison studio, at the age of thirteen. She impersonated one of the trio
of better halfs of the bigamous gentleman. Experience on the spoken stage
and a long dress were her chief aids in deceiving the director and the public
as to her right to enter the bonds of matrimony and acquire a one-third
interest in the fickle affections of a badly damaged masculine heart. An
engagement at the Biograph under Griffith, brought her into association with
a body of now famous picture stars, Mary Pickford being one of them. Like
all of the Griffith graduates, Blanche Sweet is ready to acknowledge the
artistic debt she owes to the creator of "Hearts of the World."
Over a glass of lemonade in the cafe of the Great Northern Hotel Blanche
Sweet gave the above information about herself, and then chatted of "The
Unpardonable Sin," and the disappointment that came to her through a fetching
hat and wrap that she bought to wear in "The Hushed Hour."
The remembrance of the affair made her quite pensive for a moment, but
she turned a sigh into a laugh, as she commenced the recital of the hat and
the wrap that were destined never to be perpetuated upon a strip of celluloid
and fill the feminine film fan's heart with envy.
"They are certainly dreams and I fell in love with them both the moment
I first saw them. I picked out the exact moment I should wear them in the
picture, before I paid for them and had them sent home. The hat was a--
pardon me, the description would be wasted on a mere man, wouldn't it?--but
the wrap matched the hat perfectly, and I felt I was creating a sensation
when I put them on at the studio and walked over to show them to Edwin
Mortimer, my director.
"'How do you like them?' I asked.
"'Stunning!' replied Mr. Mortimer, 'but you don't intend to wear them in
this scene, do you?'
"'Why, yes,' I faltered, all taken aback. 'I bought them on purpose for
this scene.'
"'We'll find a better place for them. Ready, please.'
"After the picture was completed I found out that the better place he
meant was in one of my wardrobe trunks. I tried to introduce that hat and
wrap into every scene where I could find any possible excuse, but that
unfeeling man succeeded in discovering weighty reason for preventing me from
wearing them, and all the time he pretended to admire the way they matched my
gown and my complexion."
"Didn't you smuggle them into at least one of the scenes?"
"Yes. I gave Mr. Mortimer such a defiant glance the last time he
started to object to their being used, he was afraid to do anything but smile
and say 'All right!' He won the battle, just the same: When the picture was
cut the one and only appearance of the hat and the cloak was eliminated."
Blanche Sweet looked up with a half serious smile. "Perhaps I set too great
a store by them, but they certainly were very becoming."
"Now for the usual question, Miss Sweet: What is your favorite line of
parts?"
"I haven't any. I like any part I feel is suited to me."
"And your role in the Rupert Hughes story?"
"I hope the public will like me in it as well as I like the character
myself."
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
November 1918
Frederick James Smith
MOTION PICTURE CLASSIC
The New Blanche Sweet
An introspective blonde!
Which doesn't quite express it vigorously enough. For Blanche Sweet is
very, very blonde and very, very introspective.
Miss Sweet left the screen nearly two years ago. A nervous breakdown
led up to her temporary retirement. Months passed--and finally the new
Blanche Sweet returned at the head of her own producing company.
It was over a breakfast table in a New York hotel that Miss Sweet talked
to me--a breakfast that should have been a luncheon, the time being one
o'clock. But Miss Sweet, with typical stellar daylight-saving ideas, had
just arisen.
Across the table, she seemed slender and tremendously girlish. A large,
round, tilted hat half hid her sheer blondness. Now and then she smiled an
odd little twisted smile that seemed--yes--cynical. And the eyes studied me
with a tired consideration.
"Well," began Miss Sweet over her blackberries and cream, "my favorite
color is blue--"
I hastily protested. "This isn't going to be THAT kind of an interview.
Let's just talk."
And we did. Of pictures, the war, New York, Griffith, feminine
fashions, literature and other things. Out of it all I formed an estimate of
this little girl with the tired eyes. Here was a young woman who can--and
does--think.
"You fancy that I've developed during my rest," repeated Miss Sweet.
"But I didn't consciously do a thing to develop myself during all those
lonely months. Not a thing. I didn't read half a dozen books. I did go
quite a lot to pictures. I didn't study. I guess I just sat and thought and
thought."
Out of it all--out of this nervous maze of self-adjustment--Miss Sweet
has formed a philosophy of life all her own. She wouldn't tell me just what
this philosophy consists of. "I often read interviews," remarked Miss Sweet,
"and I wonder how these summaries compare with the real person. I know that
I keep my real self hidden. I do it consciously and carefully. I couldn't
tell you my real innermost thoughts--I couldn't tell any one. You can only
guess."
I asked Miss Sweet why she had avoided books in her seclusion. "They
cloud and confuse one's view of life," she answered. "A book is but the view
of one person, and frequently it isn't that person's real view, since her or
she may be living in exact variance with his writing. I prefer to build my
philosophy at first hand."
Despite that nervous little smile and those tired eyes, I doubt the
cynicism of Miss Sweet. Her study of humanity--for I realize that it is from
actual personal contact that the changes in Miss Sweet have been wrought--has
not embittered her. Rather it has mellowed her viewpoint, extended her
horizon. Motion Pictures are but a part of her interests, for Miss Sweet is
too broad to be centered in any one thing.
For instance, Miss Sweet--in her quest for information--reversed the
interview. "I've been thinking for several weeks about interviewing," she
confided, "and I want you to tell me one thing: what would you do if you HAD
to interview a person you didn't like? Of course, there ARE persons you
don't like on the screen, because their work does not please you, or their
personality irritates you, or--something. Could you help coloring the
interview with your dislike?"
I told Miss Sweet just that very thing had happened to me a short time
before--that the person had won me completely by their unusual mentality--yet
all the time my estimate of their screen abilities had remained unchanged.
"How interesting!" remarked Miss Sweet. "That person let you catch a
gleam of his or her real self or else cleverly created a personality for your
benefit."
Miss Sweet paused for a moment. "That sounds cynical," she continued.
"It's so human to criticize. And so wrong. We should all be trying to help
each other. Life is so short. You know how we go to see a rival's picture
and say: 'Terrible! I don't understand how they can do it,' and go right
back to our own studio and make one worse.
"We go to see a Griffith picture and we chatter about it--Griffith is
far greater than we now think him in many things, far less in others.
I won't attempt to tell you just how. Anyway, only time can truthfully
estimate his work.
"When I look back to the old Biograph days," reminisced Miss Sweet,
"I seem to see myself as another person. It seems so remote now, how, during
a lay-off in the theatrical season, I worked a little at the Edison studio.
Then I heard that at the Biograph plant they paid five whole dollars a day,
with five days' work guaranteed a week. I applied, and Director Frank Powell
gave me my first chance. I gradually got better parts. But I was
dissatisfied because I loved the stage--and dancing most of all. Indeed,
I do yet. I left when the Biography Company went to the Coast and went back
to the footlights. I danced with Gertrude Hoffmann. Then came another lay-
off, and I wired to Mr. Powell in California. They still remembered me as
the 'little blonde' and told me to come right on."
Miss Sweet paused. "I think I have those facts right. I've told them
so many times that they appear far, far away, hardly a part of me." The
tired eyes looked thoughtfully into the vague distance.
"By chance I did my first return picture, 'The Hushed Hour,' in part of
the studio used by Mr. Griffith for 'The Great Love.' I happened to be
standing outside on the studio steps one day when a boy dashed out, calling,
'Mr. Walthall! Mr. Walthall!' I half expected him to add, 'Miss Sweet!
Miss Sweet!' It was so like the old days. I told Mr. Walthall about it, and
a few seconds later Mr. Griffith himself appeared. 'I have just the right
role for you,' he told me, laughingly. 'Go away!' I told him; 'in another
moment you'll have me persuaded into doing it--for old time's sake.'"
Miss Sweet frankly confesses that she loves comedy most of all. This
comic desire surprised me. I had expected tragedienne longings. "My first
Biograph pictures, oddly, were comedies," she said, "and I have always longed
to do more of them." With which Miss Sweet defined the two kinds of screen
comedy; the Chaplin kind, in which all life is seen in terms of the comic,
and the other kind, which Miss Sweet terms the theatrical, which adroitly
inserts comedy as a relief to the dramatic element.
The waiter came with the breakfast check, which Miss Sweet seized upon.
She signed it, while I watched interestedly. "Blanche Sweet Corporation,"
she wrote. The naivete of it impressed me. This little girl--who so
strangely combined a frail girlishness with a blonde Viking vigor--wasn't so
world-weary but that she felt a glow of impressiveness in owning her own
company.
"How do you like having your own producing organization?" I asked.
"It's good stuff," she laughed; "everybody's doing it."
No, there's a very real Blanche Sweet behind that nervously impenetrable
mask--a thoughtful girl trying to understand the why of things, wondering at
the greatness and the shallowness, the meanness and the bigness of humanity.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
December 1920
C. Blythe Sherwood
MOTION PICTURE
Big Little Blanche
The impressions made by Blanche Sweet on one scribe one sunny day at the
Jesse D. Hampton lot in Hollywood were manifold. The distinctest of the
distinct were:
(a) She is going to Europe.
(b) She is working overtime to be able to sail sometime soon.
(c) She is an adorably natural person.
(d) She is dieting--to get fat.
"Hello," was the welcome to her ivoried dressing-room. "Please pardon
me for going ahead with my luncheon. I am so anxious to leave for Spain I
don't want to lose a second! I'd offer you some nuts, but the prescribed
amount I am to eat is two ounces, and if you take one almond it will make my
ration inadequate."
"Why only two ounces?"
"Oh, everything must be just so. I have to gain a considerable amount
of weight. I love to eat. But I don't assimilate. In this way, there's no
chance of anything going to waste."
Decidedly, there was no chance--for this very hungry little person's
reward after a morning of diligent registering was but two ounces of nuts--
and an apple.
To gaze upon Blanche Sweet, one would not think that even nuts--and an
apple--were necessary to her being. She is a fragile-appearing thing, a
cameo, with hair delicately blonde and eyes an infant's blue. One is content
to sit opposite her, in silence, tingeing idealistically her personality.
But one is not permitted to blend at one's own random. One is given a
subject, already complete.
She talks, and her voice is soft, mischievously melodious and animate.
She laughs, and one laughs, too, as though the little jokes she toys with
were not enough to make one laugh! She looks at one, and one dares not
flinch. One thinks twice before one speaks, but one thinks in a hurry,
realizing that although her eyes command an earnestness, her wit demands
quick repartee.
And she is so small, so dainty--a Dresden of 104 pounds! That she does
not "assimilate" is not surprising, with her avid desire to be active, her
inability to be calm. Not a hysterical person, no, but an imaginative,
restless body, insatiably void of fulfilling desire. It is said good things
come in small packages. Miss Sweet verifies that this is not half so true as
that complexities of emotions are apt to confine 104 pounds.
She is, what by the historian is considered the noblest tribute, "a good
trouper." Interpreted, the layman understands: one whose work is governed by
the golden rule. For Miss Sweet, unlike most celebrities to whom stardom
means the privilege of beginning business when the mood dictates, arrives at
the studio precisely on appointed time; is on the set with the first of the
company; reads unsolicited manuscripts; is continually poring over books on
the look-out for material; and, to the delight of press agents in general,
cooperates in still photograph. Her stride has been too steady, and she has
been in step too long, to have revolutionistic notions about what liberty is
due her. In fact, she says, she realizes that now that newer faces are being
introduced on the screen and the legitimate players are gradually becoming
interested in the cinema, her efforts must be more extraordinary than ever.
Competition promotes severer training. "She must not grow stale." That is
her fear--and her prayer against it, is work, observation, self-criticism,
progress.
"No role of mine in any picture has ever completely satisfied me.
I always come away from my review feeling I could have done better, resolving
never to fall short again. I wonder if that's conceit?"
Which, of course, that isn't. It is the gentle art of not being capably
asinine enough to jolly one's self along. It is the power that frees
development. It is what makes Blanche Sweet a big little person who will
always have something to give us as long as she lives.
When asked about her new director, she said, "Paul Scardon? We've both
been so very busy together, we haven't had the time to stop and think whether
or not we like each other. He is a dear; there's no doubt about that. He's
a bridegroom, you know. Betty Blythe is the bride. The other day he was
called away from the set to the 'phone. Betty's off, miles away on location.
A long-distance-wire honeymoon! All we poor strugglers of the workaday!
"Vacations? Once a motion picture person, always a motion picture
person--there is never any getting away from shop. For the entire part of
one's career, one is nailed to one's work. Why, I always thought that the
more influential I'd grow to be, the less I'd have to do, but it seems that
success is a labyrinth of intricate self-dedication. When I'm supposed to be
resting between pictures, I am getting future costumes ready. When I'm at
dinner, I'm thinking about the cast. When I'm out riding, I'm figuring on
the story. This idea about finding a player at home a radically different
personality is an illusion harbored by the public. We literally retire with
our work."
Straightway I questioned about screen people being different--off the
screen. "No," Miss Sweet repeated. "You usually meet us as you've seen us.
It is human naturalness which helps most. Publicity and personal probing are
too great obsessions to be able to afford a pose. Once in a while I see
people around the studio trying to make others believe them to be what
they're not. They're only standing in their own way. They never get far."
With all her sincerity in not dillydallying, this diminutive star takes
joy in holiday excursions, too. New York is her playground! Sometimes, she
can journey Eastward for only a fortnight, but, as she vouches, "If I'm on
Manhattan Island just ten days, I make it my point to see twenty shows."
She adores the theater--adores it! adores it! "I sit worshipping, just
like a kid, before the footlights, always too spellbound to rationally
criticize, yet intent on wondering how on earth I would feel doing the same
thing." I surmise that what she was unconsciously thinking of at the moment
was Mr. Hopkins's presentation of the Barrymore brothers in "The Jest"--a
play she went to see as many times as opportunities were offered. Her
devotion is not biased in the theater, either. She loves special matinee
performances, is keen for a bright musical comedy, and for one whose days are
mostly spent in California, she is remarkably aware of Stuart Walker's
Portmanteau, George Gaul's voice, and McKay Morris's limbs.
She, herself, was on the stage when a wee lass and, for a short time, a
while later, after she had left school. She boasts that therefore she
honestly comes by the title of stage-child. I asked her if she has any
desire to return and she hastily answered in the negative. I am sure that if
she did not have to travel 3,000 miles to become more closely affiliated with
the theater she would just as hastily answer in the affirmative. For she has
everything that would be required for instantaneous popularity. Combined
with the naive intuition not to choose a failure as the medium for her debut.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
December 1922
Agnes Smith
PICTURE-PLAY
Moment Musicale
There are stars who rush out and give you the glad hand. There are
stars who bubble with enthusiasm. There are stars who eagerly encourage
culture and the uplift. There are stars who are deeply concerned with the
moral and artistic future of the motion picture. And there is Blanche Sweet.
If you have conventional ideas about movie stars, please reverse them and
then you will have an idea of what Miss Sweet is like.
Miss Sweet and I went to an open-air concert at the Hollywood Bowl.
We talked about music, about the Einstein theory, and a little about movies.
Also about bobbed hair, permanent waves, swimming, horseback riding and
Heifetz. For the benefit of those who want to know what movie stars look
like I shall mention the fact that Miss Sweet wore a white polo coat, a blue
hat, a white dress, and a diamond ring on the fourth finger of her left hand.
Her hair--and she is a natural blonde--is bobbed, and her eyes are blue; her
face is both sensitive and stubborn. And she looks younger than any baby
star in Hollywood. In the land of the beaded eyelash, the rouged lip, and
the fixed blush, she uses no make-up.
For the benefit of those who want to know what pictures the stars are
going to appear in next, I shall mention the fact that Miss Sweet will play
in "Quincy Adams Sawyer" for Metro. She didn't tell me. The press agent
did. For the benefit of those who want to hear romances about famous movie
personages, I shall say that Blanche Sweet is married to Marshall Neilan, the
director. She didn't tell me. I read it in the newspapers. When speaking
about her husband, Miss Sweet refers to him as "Mr. Neilan." And now you
have all the information about Blanche Sweet.
As I have said, we went to an open-air concert. Miss Sweet had bought
tickets for the season. Community concerts, like cheap automobiles and the
course of true love, never run smoothly.
"No one ought to complain," Miss Sweet said; "the music is good and the
tickets are inexpensive."
We scrambled up a bank of sawdust and native California dirt. We found
two seats.
"I am afraid we can't see the orchestra," remarked Miss Sweet. Then she
laughed. "Isn't that just like a movie? After all, you don't come to a
concert to see music. I suppose I shall say 'I saw a fine concert last
night,' and that'll sound funny."
She pulled the protecting blue hat down over her face.
"Notice the drummer," she continued. We could see a part of the
orchestra, after all. "His enthusiasm is wonderful. Sometimes I got to
concerts just to watch him. You can tell when he is going to get a chance to
give the drums a good whack. It takes him a long time to tune up, his face
gets red, he beams with pleasure, and then he raises the sticks. He waits
and then--bang! I am sure he enjoys his work."
Miss Sweet consulted the program.
"Too bad. No Wagner tonight. My drummer is at his best in Wagner.
Wagner keeps him busy--he works all evening."
We watched the men file in and take their places at the stands. We
listened to them tune up.
"I wonder," I said, "why a man learns to play the bass viol and makes it
his life work."
"That's bothered me, too," answered Miss Sweet. "A man who plays the
bass viol never gets a chance to play a solo--no fame, no glory. But it's
that way in life. Most persons are content simply to play in the orchestra.
They don't want the nervous strain and the responsibility of being soloists.
I suppose if we were all given our choice of our instrument in life, we'd be
just what we are--bass viol players, oboe players, and drummers."
I realized that we were talking about music and not about the movies,
and I knew that it wasn't the proper thing to do--not in Hollywood. And so I
told Miss Sweet that I was glad she was coming back to the screen. It wasn't
a polite remark. I meant it.
"I wonder why people want me to come back. I thought that I was
forgotten. But I am glad I am not."
"Perhaps," I suggested, "it's because you never were an ingenue and you
never were a vamp. You didn't go in for extreme types. You played your
parts and you played them well."
"I have another theory," she answered. "You see, when I first played in
pictures, I had no name. Some of the exhibitors called me 'Daphne Wayne.'
I was nicknamed 'Daffy.' Anyway, no one knew anything about me. I was just
an actress. There were no stars then; the silent drama hadn't become noisy.
Movies were a mystery. Moving-picture actors and actresses were a mystery.
And, of course, the public loves mystery."
It was a good clue to Blanche Sweet's mind. Names do not mean much to
her; even her own name is not important. She doesn't attach labels to things
or people. She has an abstract, unattached and independent mind. She
reminds me of an algebra book. "Let X equal an unknown quantity."
We went back to music. "I like concerts," she told me. "And I like to
listen to music in my own way. When I was working in New York, I used to buy
a seat on the side of the hall--an aisle seat. Then I would sit there and
let the music roll over me in waves. It rested me. A few persons recognized
me; most of them thought I went to concerts to sleep. But I don't like
people who sit up very straight and important at concerts. They are the sort
who think that it is a duty to listen to 'good things.'
"As for me. I can't remember the names of much of the music I have
heard. But I like Wagner. I am ashamed to admit it, because it sounds like
an affectation, but honestly I do. When the Chicago Opera Company came to
Los Angeles last winter, the tickets were expensive. So I picked one
performance--'Tannhauser.' It was good to hear it. And it was good to see
it--the orchestra was busy."
Alfred Hertz, the conductor, made his way to the stand. The orchestra
jumped into "Fra Diavolo." Miss Sweet whispered, "The designs on the screens
at the back of the platform look like the charts in a dentist's office."
They did.
The next number was Bizet's "L'Arlesienne Suite." Miss Sweet nudged me
and pointed to a man who sat in front of us. He was chewing gum in perfect
time to the music. Fascinated, we watched him. The orchestra swung into a
waltz. The man's jaws stopped.
"He's lost the time," commented Miss Sweet.
We were disconcerted and annoyed. After a minute or so, the man began
chewing again.
"He's caught it!" exclaimed Miss Sweet.
After that I never saw such rhythmical gum chewing.
The mythical star of the movies spoke of Heifetz. "I like him better
than any violinist. I like his detached attitude. And he plays pure music.
In New York, we have the same throat doctor, and so I boast about it. It
makes me feel important."
During the "Coppelia" ballet music, there was a loud tooting from the
middle section of the orchestra. One lone player was having his innings.
Another nudge from Miss Sweet. "Do you see," she said, "that's why he
learned to play that instrument." During a march, she whispered again,
"Makes me see royalty. Kings and queens with crowns, royal purple and lots
of ermine."
With Blanche Sweet talking at random, no wonder we reached the Einstein
theory about the time we were ready to go home.
"I have a book called 'Easy Lessons in Einstein,' with an article by
Professor Einstein in the back. I don't understand the easy lessons, and I
don't understand the article, but I enjoyed the book. Tonight I watched the
stars and wondered if there is such a thing as a fourth dimension. I hope
so."
She talked about eclipses, comets, stars, and earthquakes. She has an
interest in "acts of God." In fact, Blanche Sweet likes anything she doesn't
quite understand. She has a capricious, tricky, and impish imagination. She
is fascinated by the theory that all persons do not see the same things--that
what is green to one man is not green to another, that every individual is
equipped with a pair of eyes made especially for him.
"It accounts for a lot of things," she added. "For instance, you see a
man who is devoted to a fat and impossible wife. You wonder, 'How does he
stand it?' But she isn't fat and impossible to him; she is beautiful and
slender and charming."
With all Hollywood interested in Freud and psychoanalysis, Miss Sweet is
diffident about it. When she acts, she analyzes the character she is
playing. With all Hollywood frantically reading the new novels, Miss Sweet
doesn't talk books. She dislikes the popular highbrow pose. I never met a
woman who was less influenced by public opinion. And with Hollywood a
regular Hickville Corners for gossip, Miss Sweet never mentions motion-
picture players. She likes to go about alone. Except for moments of
seriousness and moments of gay and original humor, she is a rather silent
girl.
We didn't talk about her marriage to Marshall Neilan. But she
volunteered the information that her honeymoon had been cut short by too much
business. I suspect that she admires Mr. Neilan, that her feeling toward him
is much the same as her feeling toward the busy and enthusiastic drummer.
When they find the right story, they may make a picture together. Then she
will be very happy. I am afraid I didn't ask her the conventional questions
of the conventional interview. Once some one asked her her favorite color.
She answered, "Plaid" and then stopped talking entirely. I suppose if I had
asked her her pet ambition she would have told me that she wanted to make
pictures with Mr. Neilan and buy a house in a secluded spot on the other side
of the moon.
After all this, need I tell you that Blanche Sweet has a triple nature
and is looking for a fourth dimension? In the first place, she is Blanche
Sweet, movie star. In the second place, she is Daphne Wayne, an early
favorite. In the third place, she is a nameless girl who likes to go to
concerts alone. And her fourth plane? The answer is easy: Mrs. Marshall
Neilan.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
[The following rumor was reported by Edward Doherty in the aftermath of the
Taylor murder. Wallace Smith's version of the same rumor was reprinted in
TAYLOROLOGY 8.]
February 8, 1922
Edward Doherty
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
...And yet the colony is on the verge of another scandal, another
earthquake that will rock it harder than the Taylor murder, that will shake
more illustrious names out of the skies and scatter them in the gutter. The
scandal is overdue.
It concerns a director and a famous star, one of the sweetest girls that
ever romped upon the screen.
You know her well, and him. You have wept with her, you have laughed
with her. You have looked at her sweet lips, and if you were a girl, wished
your own were like them, and if you are a man, you may, perhaps, have fancied
you'd like to kiss them.
Millions of mothers have looked at her and loved her, and wondered if
their daughters would be as sweet. Everything about this girl is sweet.
And yet those sweet lips utter ugly little Anglo-Saxon vulgarities,
coarse observations, obscenities. And they can blow smoke rings thick as
doughnuts.
The girl was one of the first of the picture stars. Taken when she was
young and not very wise, she was whipped into a pantomimist. She had a
peculiar beauty, a winsomeness, a sad smile that was infinitely affecting.
She fell in love with a chauffeur, a roughneck with nice shoulders and a
winning way, and the girl whom everybody in the world idolized threw herself
at the chauffeur's feet.
She made a director out of him. Oh, it wasn't much of a miracle; it does
not take much to make a director--a pair of puttees, a megaphone, a raucous
voice, an irritating manner, a brimstone vocabulary, a trick of the eyebrows,
and it's not hard to do, too-and there you are.
He was ambitious--but not grateful.
The other day he and the girl were in a room in the Alexandria Hotel with
some friends. The voice of the girl--you would never recognize it, never
associate it with those sweet lips--was raised and angry.
"You're not going to throw me over now," it was saying. "You can't get
away with it. If you try it, there'll be headlines in the papers bigger than
those in the Arbuckle case."
The director is still a director, though he wants to be free.
He had hitched his wagon to a star, and then sought the moon; but the
star turned out to be a comet, rocketing down, and rocketing fast.
You haven't seen the girl on the screen in a long time. You are not apt
to see her again. You would think she was her own understudy, some one made
up to look like her, too clumsily made up to fool you.
She has been going to the "hop" feasts. And she has been taking her
director. She features opium. He takes morphine.
All Hollywood knows of these things, and waits indifferently for the
smash that will end the situation. But all Hollywood is in a feverish
excitement of its own, and has no time for worry...
The Taylor scandal has broken. The volcano has erupted. The lava is
spreading. But the debauchees keep up their mad capricious dance, drugged,
drunk, senseless, dancing into oblivion.
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Back issues of Taylorology are available on the Web at any of the following:
http://www.angelfire.com/az/Taylorology/
http://www.etext.org/Zines/ASCII/Taylorology/
http://www.silent-movies.com/Taylorology/
Full text searches of back issues can be done at http://www.etext.org/Zines/
or at http://www.silent-movies.com/search.html. For more information about
Taylor, see
WILLIAM DESMOND TAYLOR: A DOSSIER (Scarecrow Press, 1991)
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