MAE CLARK DISCUSSES MYRA OF “WATERLOO BRIDGE”

Dominion, Volume 25, Issue 69, 15 December 1931, Page 32 (Supplement)

MAE CLARK DISCUSSES MYRA OF “WATERLOO BRIDGE”

Little Miss Mae Clarke swaggered into the Indian Room of the restaurant at the big Universal studios, Universal City, California. It was exactly one week since Director Janies Whale had placed “Waterloo Bridge” well within the cameras—to use a studio term, and the test preview, held in an outlying California town, had characterised the picture as a rare “hit.” Mae was all dressed up in a blue and white Lido shirt, dark blue sailor trousers, and a blue beret—which has little or nothing to do with what we are talking about. “Have you seen the picture?” asked Mae, eagerly, when congratulated on her performance in it. “Yes, and your work is superb!” we told her enthusiastically. “I’m glad of that,” said Mae. “I was simply crazy about ‘Myra,’ and if the picture hadn’t been good I’d always have felt like apologising to her —if you know what I mean.” “Myra” is the name of the girl Mae Clarke plays in “Waterloo Bridge,” as may have been deduced. “So you liked Myra?” we asked. “But how would you have liked ‘Myra’ marrying a brother of yours?” “I’ve thought of that, too,” said Mae Clarke. “I think sincerity is a greater virtue than conventional morality !” said browneyed Mae. “There’s no latitude or longitude to sincerity. Not that ‘Myra’ didn’t realise the ‘degradation’ of being but a so-called ‘lady of the streets.’ She showed that from the fact that she didn’t want the boy she loved to know what her life had been. “You know, there are few of us women who really could understand her life. This age and generation is too wideawake to pretend, arid I'm not going to say that the ‘Myras’ of the world would find a welcome in my family circle. I think ‘Myra’ would despise such deceit on my part.” Mae Clarke’s mind is like that. So is her nature. She is as sincere as the character she enjoyed playing in “Waterloo Bridge.” My own mind went back to Mae Clarke’s big scene in the picture. The view of “Myra” who had fallen in love with a wholesome boy home from the War and on his first “leave.” She had tried to evade him; she didn't want to get hurt. Later, she did it because she didn’t want to hurt him. He forced his way into her room- and she fought with him. “Oh, why can’t you leave me alone?” she hurled the words at him. And he, not knowing about her life, couldn’t understand.