8
THE SUNDAY OREGOXLO, PORTLAND, MARCH 21, 1915.
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BT LEONE CASS BAER. Which for an editor to hear was just
When interviewing duty's to be done mce shaking a red rag in a bull's
(To be done!) face interviewed Lily should be.
My life is aot al-ways.a happy one And j ha(J tQ do u AU usual
(Apologies to Gilbert ahndPPSumvan. channels managers, stage door tend-
-Pirates of Penzance." and De Wolf era and private secretaries failed.
Hopper.) So I walked over to the Portland ho
tel, told the clerk where I was going
IT IS if you can get people to talk. and why and j walted like a
It is, also, if you can get them to fenlale Raffles for my tlUed prey
stop talking when they're come to (tltled by marriage only). I had .
the end of their sentence. But, like timed my walt g0 that soon she calne
the poet's inevitable brook, most of HWR(,n,nE. .if,,,., the corridor, nre-
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them keep on babbling along till the
interview is fell overflowed.
Scenario writers, wrongly in
formed fictionists and what-nots of
the modern-day story world would
give out the impression that it is
easier to find an auk's egg than to
get audience with a celebrity. It is
easier than that far-famed pastime
of taking candy from an infant. Al
ways provided you hold credentials
that will let the aforementioned ce
lebrity know that his or her brilliant
utterances will reach the light of day
in print, so that he who runs may
read, provided he can read or wants
to read. I've had to sneak up and
waylay but one subject for an in
terview. That one exception was
Li'y Langtry (Lady de Bathe), Eng
land's Jersey Lily. Somehow the
idea prevails that the interviewed
one is always In a condition of haul
ing back on the halter and that the
ceded by an ebon maid and her pri
vate secretary. Lily's private sec
retary, not the maid's.
Way up near the elevator I halted
her. ' I had planned this knowing
that In traversing the hall's length
one or both of us could get a lot
said. ' And we did. Her Ideas on the
American press and public wouldn't
get past the censor board. But be
fore she bade me good-by at her
door, saying she "hadn't the slight
est doubt but that I was a most esti
mable person, Btill she absolutely
could not talk." I had got enough
for a big story.
From" the sublime, a memorable
wonder day with Sarah Bernhardt,
to the ridiculous, a chat with the
race horses in "The Whip" have my
interviewing perigrinations carried
me. I've met and talked with Adele
Blood's perfect knee, Wilton Lack-
ayes ego, Kitty Gordon s back, Anna
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managing editor says, "If you don't Held's eyes. Billie Burke's red curls.
get the interview you needn't show Eddie Poy's kids and Nat Goodwin's
up tomorrow for work." That's the ast three wives. In print I have
way it happens only in stories about embalmed the Milwaukee-Wisconsin-newspaper
life. Russian accent of Olga Petrova, the
What really happens Is this: The handmade dimnles in Leslie Carter's
progressive company manager tells shoulders, Margaret Illington's real-
ine local tn eater manager ana no estatlsh
ad said: "Buy your Furs Early."
I'll be an old gray-haired woman
husband. Valeska Suratfa t iuiBT" "t' VC
v .jit.. Mint.. roii . ... mai aeDonnaire Don vivant ui mo uai-
. 77, v , r? pearls ana Daa grammar, Marie clum Wilton Lackaye. He was the
ing will be very glad to see a repre- Lioyra abominable' Scotch whisky bright and particular star in that
sentative of the paper. The city and originai ideas on matrimony, and constellation of six which visited the
editor tells me. It's one of those juiian Eltinge's corsets. Heilig in "Fine Feathers." Individ-
"Captaln tellg the bos'n and the Every actor and actress is bounded uallT an( collectively they gave me
bos'n tells the mate" cycles. I go on the nortn by hl3 present la on stories. Max Figman and his pretty
to see Mister Calling and out of the the 80uth by ' t successes with "f" Ui KH.!ftso V
b?taenerelPUrSaTted --Pbooksbtyo p4 ATthVweft Slaneax soTll
of his life he gives me I cull and by future starring plans usually Robert Edeson told me of a fishing '
pick a few things that might prove wltb Davia Belasco and on the east trip he was planning to our North
interesting reading. Fairly tame by exaggerated ego vanity grease wesfc streams; Amelia Summerville
proceeding, eh? Never yet have I paint, superstition, a country' place, a looked pleasant and Wilton Lack
had to peer through keyholes, hide limousine and n ldpa for th Tt ae had 80 much to tel1 me that be
in closets, disguise my voice on the Se?S Draym" The aveael fore hl'd S?
' ? . ' ... American urayma. ine average g0nged and I accepted his bid to
phone or sneak In with the bell hop actor tte uttle fenoTr 8tlcka to one him carye en wag rtght ln
when he takes np the ice water. ot these boundaries for his inter- the middle of the soup, I think, that
As I said before, the only piece of viewlsh observations. It's only the a weird and fearful wall smote my
unorthodox work to which I must bIg ones who dare to for tympanum. The cabaret maids had
confess was when I pulled a story tplT(1, .-j da7.n.tn er.t fm 41 come in and an intentional blonde,
from the unwilling Hps of Lily Lang- a of bromWRnJlrh large enousn to dlV6 a llt?7
try. All the days of my life I shall fnstanCJ Mrs Fke will noiv 5 rSrblf f sf hern melo,dy-
w . . . . instance, Mrs. ilsKe will not talk of Lackaye first discovered it was
remember it. The statuesque lady the stage or her theatrical life. She southern. Also the singer was a
friend of kings and a few emperors js the best side-stepper I ever met. Southerner, he said. No, he didn't
has a horror of what she calls news- Of the Humane Society, of which she know her, but he could tell by the
paper persons in general, and a par- is a national officer, she will talk for way she rolled that final r. Not only
ticular antipathy for a petticoated hours. The last time she was here was she southern, but she was a Vir
wrlter. I use petticoated merely fig- an6led her ldeas on "sen and ginian. He knew everything. To
nrativelv because of course two for two sohd hours she to,d me about Prove It to doubting me, he said he
uratively. because, of course, two her p,ans for a society for th WQud her as we went out So
years ago we weren t wearing em. vention of cruelty to cats. She darts he did. With a nasal twang that
Lady de Bathe adores publicity, but away from a subject for which she jarred the lady told him she was a
she wants to blue pencil and edit all has no taste with the alertness of a native of Seattle, and Portland was
that's written of her and the writer trout, and It's done so prettily and the furthest south she'd ever been,
is limited to only two subjects, her smoothly that one can only smother Blanche Bates is wonderful copy,
horses and does or her theatrical chagrin and try a fresh tack. Mrs. particularly out here where she was
horses ana flogs or her theatrical F,ske ,g one of the mogt lntellectnaj aised. She has a wlde vocabulary,
successes. Well, she had come to personally charming and gracious opinions of her own and interviewing
Portland In a terribly bad vaudeville women of the stage it has ever been her is a rare delight,
sketch, one of those obvious things my rare good fortune to know. I re- Emma Trentini, called the "little
with plot and lines and situations call that her sense of humor was par- devil of 'grand opera," has a reputa-
buttericked to fit the fair Lily Ud tlcuteriy touched on the occasion of tion for carrying her title Into her
in Seattl some bold bad newsnanor her most recent visit when the in- private life. She is, on the contrary,
in Seattle some boia baa nspaper tervlew 6he gaye me happened to be a most fascinating little woman,
had said she was aging, or showed placed jjert t0 a local furrier's ad. natural and tremendously earnest.,
signs of wear, or some such little Tbe headlines on one story read: She is one of the few artists who do
observation, and 'Lily had renewed "Mrs. Fiske Decries Killing of Fur- not backbite their fellow artists. She .
her vow to say nothing for print. Bearing Animals." and the furrier's loathes American cooking, and no'
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matter where she goes she carries
Gertrude Elliott, Lady Robertson,
will chatter about her bable. her
lovely English home and domesticity;
Forbes-Robertson, her husband, one
of the finest gentlemen I've ever met,
talks amiably on everything, but pre
fers sticking to discussions of the
theater.
Tetrazzini, whose waist line hs
run to top notes, always stages ber
interviews. She is surrounded en
tirely by her manager, her private
secretary, her husband and his pri
vate secretary, two maids and a boy
who took my name, address, condi
tion of previous servitude and fu
ture plans, before he admitted me.
And when I did meet the purplelad
and voluble Tetrazzini she spoke
English most brokenly.
Margaret Illington's interviews are
always filtered through the Hps of
her husband, Edward Bowes, whose
knowledge of the stage has all been
gained since he married Miss Illing
ton. It is disconcerting, to say the
least, to listen to Mr. IUIngton talk
about the drayma. with his wife
punctuating his utterances with
"Yes. Eddie." and "Indeed, you're
right, Eddie."
Richard Carle I interviewed
mailer wnere sne goes n. am, tnrough th, ciOBed door ot bis dress
along her cooking apparatus and her roBom Rlchard w -indisposed"
maid concocts for her wonderful Ital
lan messes.
and
a masseuse was getting him In
"To the best prevaricator I ever
met through a closed door.
David Warfleld loves to ten tunny
firekj'J-x 7 ? 3or
in mesre. , . t on for the evening show.
. aaran aernnarai is iai.ras g rd k questlong the valet would
from every angle, though she has Richard, and back through the
flh tevrsrcrefn on She ha, same channel would come to answer,
flesh as the years creep on. She has Rtchard gent me a lot of pogle, and
;Y t" : th- , ,v VrpVt ones a framed photo on which he'd scrlb-
of this world, she Is approachable bled,
and gracious, she speaKs so nuie
knoT so Lou Tellgen. her hand- Tories. Some of them
some and certainly talented leading funny. Always he is an Inte resting
man, acted as interpretative medium figure. nd Pac'f lc,"n 1 !,PJ!
when I interviewed her. It was my he has an unique ""
great privilege to spend many happy from his PC"onal achieve , nts He
interesting moments with this great Is modest and gentle and to talk to
woman, and a picture of her. Telle- him is a Joy. ck.v
gen and myself, taken at the foot of E. H. Sothern alk. about Shake
the statue of Sacajawea. a photo on speare and Julla M"'hw?' '!
which she wrote a lot of nice per- Marlowe talks .hour Shakespeare and
onal things, is another of my treas- E. H. Sothern May Irwin Is . joy
... 0UB biK Kirl, and her chatter ranges
Mkude Adams will not talk back from ber famous cook book to the
for print, but she will talk delight- prize pullets on her big farm. ( N R
fully and at length if she feels sure Miss Irwin really is a landed pro
It isn't going to be read. Maxine prietor.)
Elliott I met in the same way. with- These are Just a few picked at
the understanding that-nothing she random from memory, borne day
aid would be printed. Her sister, I'll dig up another list.