Surveying the “Stars”

Greymouth Evening Star, 24 September 1927, Page 9

Surveying the “Stars”

The Marchioness of Qucensberry, who is a painter of portraits, recently visited America and set upon canvas a number of celebrities, including Charles Chaplin. She writes, here, her impressions of the film industry and its people. a HOUGH I never cease to be amazed at the number of intelligent people who are fanatical film “fans,” I cannot see any reason why the average film or the average film star should appeal to an artist. The so-called “film-face” is in real life usually the equivalent of the pretty-pretty in art. The caiefully waved hair, the eyelashes like spikes, the regular, meaningless features, the mechanical smile, may please those who relish the chocolate-box school of painting. Those who seek some meaning in their entertainment as in their art are not content to gaze for two hours at an oval vacuum.

Some-of the film people, however, have faces which are interesting to the artist as well as pleasing to the “fans.”- Miss Gloria Swanson, for. instance, has a very, remarkable face, with that slightly odd and unusual look which is a sign of real beauty. Who was it said that all beauty and art were but a slight inaccuracy in proportions? Miss Swanson is rather spoilt, however, by. her shortness of neck, which makes her shoulders appear rather square and abrupt. Lillian Gish, too, has genuine beauty. Whether she would have been admired in other ages is perhaps doubtful. Our ancestors, as is revealed by eighteenth-century paintings (or, for that matter, photographs of

the early Gaiety chorus), preferred generous curves and a rotundity which the present fashions-.would- sadly caricature. But Miss Gish, with her straight lines and delicate, wistful face, is an outstanding beautiful type of the twentieth-century girlhood. ' * > ' An artist can find much to admire, too, in Miss Lya de Putti, the Hungarian who played in ; “vaudeville.” With her dark eyes, full curved lips and soft contours, she conforms far more closely than the majority of film actresses to the traditional essentially feminine type whichihas fascin ated men through the age's. Another striking beauty, of a very different kind, is Miss Greta Garbo, the Swede. A tall, slight blonde, with sorrowful eyes and lips half parted, she drifts through her dramas like some rare and exotic flower driven before the tempests of passion she is condemned to call ud- . I I am not really a hostile film teritic. I adore Charlie Chaplin’s films, which show real genius, although even in his pictures the decors are often execrable.

Almost the best films I shaver seen are of jungle life. I was particularly impressed by one in particular,’ called “Chang,” that I saw a short tiine ago in America. It was acted by Siamese and actually filmed in Sianf. From a painting point of view the faces of these actors were most inspiring. The film producers' spend so fnnch money on their spectacles that it is a pity they skimp the essentials; The plot of one production I saw recently centred in the portrait of the heroine painted by the heroJr Some rich patron of the arts sees the portrait and, staggered by its brilliance, pays a large sum for it and makes the artist’s fortune. Now the actual portrait in the film —it was not discreetly turned away as is usual in such painted (so the producer told me with some pride) by a small boy who did odd jobs with the electric light and volunteered to do this job as no one else was available. But at Hollywood they are a little obstinate. An English author .who went out there a few years ago to produce one of his stories told, me he had a very difficult time with his American producer, whom he found inclined to take offence at too many suggestions or criticisms. The author was ■ reluctant, for pbvipus reasons, to see Valentino in the role of the dlder son of some ancient English family He also explained that in our larger, houses the footmen do not- (as- they called it) "hand the ladles down the stairs” . ' .