“Wanda” of the Totem Pole

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 236, 24 December 1927, Page 20

“Wanda” of the Totem Pole

StephanieDeste s Career Stephanie Deste, who plays the part of Wanda, the Red Indian half-caste in “Rose Marie,” is a Belgian by birth. When she first went to England Irene Vanbrugh helped her to cultivate the English language. Miss Deste was born in Liege, Belgium, but Nature has played a strange trick on her. Those heavy-lidded, black *eyes, the flashing smile, that olive clear skin, and bands of satin black hair belong rather to one of Pharaoh’s daughters, than a Belgium maid. Naively she explains: “I am at least two shades lighter after a Turkish bath has removed all traces of the brown stain used on me for the Indian character” —but the resemblance remains.

With her parents she went over to England during the war. She describes it as going from one bombardment to another.” In London the desire came to her to go on the stage—a new line of art in her family, which ran to music. Simon van Lier, the noted violinist, is her uncle. Her father was a musical conductor; the mother played the violin, and an aunt the ’cello; and they did not quite like this new departure from family traditions. Finally, little Stephanie had her way, and attended Beerbohm Tree’s Dramatic Academy, of which Mr. Barnes is the administrator. He. being a kindly man, interested his sister, Irene Vanbrugh, in the little Belgian girl, struggling to understand art in a foreign language. Miss Deste’s dark eyes light up with a fire of emotion as she expresses her opinion of that charming actress. “A wonderful woman, with a rare kindliness of heart; she had me at her house daily to recite in order to correct my accent. I shall never forget the trouble she took to make my English understandable, and think of the little leisure that is hers, always such a busy woman, and yet she made time to assist me. I will never forget it. “My first public appearance was in ‘Masks and Faces’—as the small boy —and my accent was still very thick. It is still noticeable, but no matter. Fate has been kind. I always play the part of someone who speaks with an accent, as, for instance, Wanda, so instead of being a handicap, my accent has helped me.” An engagement took Miss Deste to New York: there she associated for a season with the American actor, John Barrymore, and alsp did a lot of film work.

“No, I don’t like the film work at all,” she emphatically declared; “to me it seems fiat and unreal, without an audience: and I found it difficult to rise to dramatic heights at 9 o’clock in the morning. Miss Deste’s first venture into musical comedy was in New York. Since then she has played many character parts and was specially chosen to play in the J. C. Williamson Company for the “Rose Marie” tour.