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About The Oregon daily journal. (Portland, Or.) 1902-1972 | View Entire Issue (Oct. 31, 1920)
"sifl ill I i 11 1 r ttfeU-LM 2e v Distinguished Artist and His Wife Attend a Broadway Theatre and Are Shocked at a Bold Caricature of Him Which Drives Mrs, Pogany to Leave the Artist and He Brings Suit for Vindication sT'M coins to take you to the theatre I this evening," said Mr. Willy Pogany, the distinguished portrait painter and designer of grand opera cos tumes and scenic effects. It was the day after he and Mrs. Pogany returned from their Summer outing on the coast of Maine. There's a play I'm told has some In teresting scenes of artist colony life," be explained as hit wife smiled in pleasur . able anticipation. Seated in orchestra chain a few rows from the stage the well-known artist and his wife settled themselves comfortably and the curtain rose on en attractive stage setting. ' Mr. Pogany was studying the scenic effect with interested eyes whea he caught the words of his own name coming across the footlights. What was the actress saying? To his startled ears came these lines "I have a sweetheart, Pogany. Willy Pogany. He have come to stay. So now we marry ourselves and go home to Buda pest. I meet him one day in a Hungarian restaurant. The first time he see me he love me at one look. Dear boy. Just now he have no work. His picture he do not yet sell, but I land a little money. He payme back when we marry may be. That Is not why he love me. I am not pretty, no, but I am clever like the devil. When I do facet I catch the light in the eyes, the shine of the hair. It is for that Willy love me, my talent and my style. . . . One cannot be great until they love and love so much that one minute they want to live and one minute they want to die. ... I send my Pdgany a note and tell him I stay." Scarcely grasping the ' thought that he. Willy Pog any, distinguished painter. medallist of foreign and American art ex hibitions, the creator of the famous and brilliantly original scenery of the opera Coq d'Or," which was the sensation of the Metropolitan Opera season, wis the tub-Ject-of humiliating caricature, be listened, and soon, these lines greeted his aston ished ears: "Joan flei', I have been so blue. I a big fool. I tell youwhat you think? Pogany Is not true 'to me. Money I give him all the time and he blow it on an American girl . "I "see them with my eyes. They eat and laugh , and talk In the res taurant, and my money pays. He go and - dance and I go home and eat my heart alone. . . . "More- timet than many X suppose, if he get the chance, and all the time he swear he love no one but me. In one week was ' Mr. THE OREGON : SUNDAY , JOURNAL, PORTLAND, SUNDAY MORNING, 5 tta ). ? 4",. ;0 y ,1 , -v f ' I j fc- - a . w y r 1 3 " Vf v:lt--- - j - in - i Willy Pogany, the Distin guished Artist. my weddfcg day. Oh, I sue, that is what I do. I sue htm for promise of breaches. Oh, the brute!" And again those words, "Pogany," "Willy," ''Willy Pogany" came: '""Joan, dear, please may' I use the tele phone, just for a little while? Something very much I want to say to him. . . . I give him one chance more . . . Joan, Joan. Pogany, Willy, have explain . . . Yes. I am to blame. What you think, she is all the time his cousin. I hurry now. I take my Pogany, Willy, to dinner. You postpone the case." Inexpressibly shocked, too Indignant for words, they left the theatre. Mrs. Pogany epent & sleepless night pondering over, what she bad heard.. What a revelation! Over the footlights had come suddenly D Tim r; ,y - -v . i 7 ;es ' 1 ciM 43 ' mm Which Was the Great Event of the Metropolitan Optnl Season. Mr. Pogany sat listless and distracted in front of his easel in his studio at Sixty one Washington Square. To a reporter the artist eald: "c "Yes, Mrs.' Pogany and our little boy Mrs. Pogany and Their Child. They Refused to Listen to Mr. Pogany Protests That the Lines of the Play Were Untrue and Have Left Him. what she believed must be the true but unsuspected picture of the life of decep tion her husband had practiced. Of course4, the last person to know the truth about a husband was the wife, she reasoned! If everybody knew Mr. PoKanv's habits of life bo that Ihey were common property, and were so well known that a Broadway . piay usea mm as a sort of typical frlvoler then thtlme had come for a self-respecting wife to cut loose from such a husband. Next morning Mr. Pogany was stunned when his wife notified him that she was taking their little boy and sailing imme diately for Europe. hjo tmonnt of protestation and asser tions of the injustice of the lines of the play were of any avail. "Of course, I expect you to deny It. Men always do.. But what seems to be common knowledge to everybody except your wifo must be true. This is a farewell." (O 1920. International Feat or Serrlee. too. ii isiressi M mm are 4f (V Original and Unique Scenery of the Grand Opera "Coque d'Or Designed are gone. Whether I can win them back I do not know. This is the great task be fore me my art, my painting, must wait until I have exhausted every means of proving to her the utter untruth of the things so lightly and flippantly said in the play which has destroyed the happiness of our home. "It is a great mystery to me who should have planned to dgthls thing, and why. It Is inconceivable. "For many years my wife and I have been the fondest of pals. We hare traveled the world together. She was my helpmate and my Inspiration when I was doing those Uiings in Vienna and Paris which earned me recognition from the greatest art mu seums of Europe. Always it was she who stood behind me when my completed pic tures were ready to be unveiled, and who enjoyed with me the thrill there was in the realization that I had accomplished something that would live through the ages of art. "We had many playtimes together, for we never were poor. "In the words of the play Willy Pogany is held up to ridicule as an artist who paints but cannot sell his paintings. That is slanderous. I speak only the truth, known throughout the art world, when I say that much greater measures of success have come to me than to most artists. I have sold fourteen paintings to the State t Hungary; twelve of my works have been bought by France. In California now there is a permanent exhibition of some of my more recent pictures. My studio always is busy much more work than I. can do. Nearly all the great publishers of books in the United States shower ma with com missions for illustrative paintings every year. We were prosperousmy wife and I and happy in our ability to enjoy the good .things of life." "But the actress in the play says of Willy Pogany, 'His picture be do not sell, but I give him a little money! "And this actress says, later on, 'Money Croat Brttaia Rirnta Beianud. l iff Ix-X f A W J 7) h i ATP ' r t r OCTOBER 3i, 1920. V ; . 5 i 1 TW - ... ' f WW ; . i v 41 I ITie Actress in the Play Who Innocently Babbled the Lines Which Destroyed Mr. Pogany's Home. I give my Pogany Willy, he blow on American glrL He so and dance with her and I go home and eat my heart alone!' "When my wife heard these words she went white. They were the ones that hurt her most of all. She knew I did not have to accept money from womenT hut she thought these later lines let out a truth about me I had been,going to dances and restaurants with some other woman! "My wife has always known what I was working on. A whole week I did not leave my studio even for meals when I was at work on the scenery for the Metropolitan Opera Company's production of 'Coq d'Or But my wife knew what I was doing. "Now, though, when she heard the ac tress speak those lines suspicion came to her. " 'It is all very well for you to tel me you have been busy at the studio she said to me whenI pleaded with her at home. 'But now-1 know you were busy at other things, too. You cannot tell me a great play producer, an actress who Is almost a star, and a theatre manager and a stage director and the other actors and ac tresses in the company and the playwright, too that all these people, familiar with the life of frivolous Broadway, would agree with each other that the best way to typify to a Broadway audience a man who fools bis wife and has affairs In public with other women would be to use your name if they did not know they were doing what everyone would understand. It is all very plain to me now. . A good wife always trusts until she knows she Is deceived. But It is only a foolish wife who trusts after she knows the unhappy truth.' "inexpressibly shocked, too indignant for words, they left the theatre. Mrs. Pogany spent a sleepless night pondering over what she had heard across the footlights." "1 brought my friend! to my home. They all assured my wife she was! wrong. They one and all said they knew I was as faithful a husband as ever lived. They said It was ridiculous for any one to think that I could have an affair with any other woman. "I could not say, 'Why, my dear,-that was just an accident Just a coin cidence. The man of whom the actress speaks is a Hungarian, and tha playwright picked a Hun ' garl&n name. That name happened to be the same y as mine.' I could not say that to her, because the Willy part of my name Is not Hungarian: I adopted that name la Paris when I was doing caricatures for a publi cation there in my w younger days. I selected it because it seemed more intimate for my caricature work than my own name. It )tuck to me throughout my ca reer. Now, wherever one speaks ox winy Pogany, in Europe or American, every one knows I -am referred to. I could not say to my wife, It is only a poor Joke, my dear!' Because It is no Joke to -say In public of an artist that he cannot sell his works. ' - , "In fact, there was-nothing I could ear to my wife. Is there? Can anyone explain it? I do not know the producer of the play. I never met the actress. I never met any one of the other actors or ac tresses, nor the manager of the theatre nor the playwright. They do not know me hence they could not Joke even so crudely. " "Very well, then,' said my wife, 'you may deny it all, of course. That is your privilege the privilege of every guilty husband. But if you cannot explain yeti must not expect me to believe your denials. I have been a fool for years, no doubt. I shairbe one no longer. My boy shall not be raised by a father of whom all Broad way may hear it said, "He is the world's best example of the man who deceives his wife." I shall go home to my parents. Ton may continue to enjoy the reputation you evidently have so thoroughly earned.' "And she is gone. And my ' boy, too. What am I to do about itr 'Mr. Pogany has partially answered Us own question by filing a suit in the Hew York Supreme Court against the theatre owner, the play owner and the young woman star, asking $200,000 damages, which he says will notat all recompense him for the loss of his wife and boy. In the meantime the actress continues every night and at every matinee to tell oWier faithless sweetheart, "Pogany WUly," . - 1. 1" - '
