Froth Pulls This One
Belle—I don’t understand why Clarice lets that common grocery boy play around with her?
Buoy—Neither do I, unless it’s because he delivers the goods.
Our New York Gossip
Heaven forbid that I should be catty about this; but I marvel at the new medical malady introduced into the world by the great Mlle. Suzanne Lenglen, the French tennis star.
It is a peculiar kind of bronchial cough that only comes on when you are getting licked. The peculiarity of the disease that the paroxysm of coughing take place every time one loses a point; the gaining of a point is followed by an immediate, temporary recovery.
Brethren and sisters, I don’t want to bring on another European war; but we gotta have the truth about this French jane who came over here to mop up the tennis courts with our American girls.
The real malady from which Mlle. Lenglen was suffering was an overdose of publicity. They tell me that, at the time of the Olympic games in Belgium, the French star had begun to believe that the rest of the firmament where she was not was a comparatively dull affair.
One day, at Antwerp, she arrived at the stadium without her ticket of admission. To the gatekeeper who held out his mit for the accustomed cardboard, she said with freezing hauteur, “I am the great Lenglen.” I don’t know what the gatekeeper did; I suppose he dropped dead and was carried out by the heels; but anyhow, that is what she said.
When she arrived in America, the little French girl did a very foolish thing. She gave out an interview loftily pooh-poohing all the American stars—especially Molla Bjurstedt Mallory, whom she said she had defeated without trying.
Now it happens that Molla is a sweet, kind-hearted, unaffected, courageous little Norwegian girl. She was a professional masseuse when she came to America; but disarmed the snobbery of the Newport tennis set by her good sportsmanship.
She read the catty remarks that Lenglen had said about her and she came out on the tennis courts at Forest Hills looking for blood. The dander of her Norse Viking ancestors was up. The way she lit into the French girl filled the latter with dismay. In the face of the tornado, the “great Lenglen” retired shivering to the back courts and straightway developed a sensational cough.
At the end of the first set, she threw up her hands and quit cold, leaving the courts in tears. Molla retired from the battle in high dignity; but as soon as the club house doors closed upon her, she was almost smothered by the kisses and hugs of the other girl tennis players who had gathered for the tournament. Mlle. Lenglen during her brief stay of two days had managed to make herself thoroughly unpopular.
It is predicted that the other French champion, Carpentier, will not be basking in quite such a halo of hero worship when he comes back again, next winter, to fight Tom Gibbons.
Georges made a gallant and inspiring fight against Jack Dempsey but, around the neighborhood, they were not quite so strong for him.
It is certainly an awful thing to contemplate; but if the new picture censors of New York have their way, the world is due to be a lonely void without any one-piece bathing suit girls.
The first thing they did on taking office recently was to throw out the picture of some Dallas, Texas, young ladies who won the prizes for having the best—well, y’ know—bathing suits and so on.
Hardly had the metropolis recovered from this shock when the censors ruthlessly stepped on Hope Hampton’s thousand dollar bathing suit which recently gave Atlantic City a thrill.
Of course, you understand that Hope’s bath suit was made out of seal skin; and seal skin is so awfully expensive that she naturally couldn’t get such an awful lot of it for a thousand dollars—and that was the kind of suit it was.
The censors gave the indignant Miss Hampton a funny reason for their official “thumbs down” ruling. They said that her bath suit was against the city ordinances of Atlantic City—and they couldn’t stand for that—even if it was in New Jersey.
Whereupon most of the New York papers promptly proceeded to print both of the censor forbidden pictures, thereby giving them about a dozen times the publication they would have had on the screen.
It is practically a defi on the part of the Metropolitan daily papers, who say in effect to Governor Miller, “Why don’t you try censoring us, too?”
And now we are on the subject of Hope Hampton, they tell me that, although a really nice little girl, Hope has begun to feel her dignity. Not long ago, at her picture studio two electricians were fixing an overhead light. One of them, looking down upon the set, said, “Now we’ve got it right. It’s right above her head.”
Whereupon the lovely young star stared upward with a cold and terrible stare:
“Where do you get that stuff, ‘her’?” she demanded. “When you are talking about me, say ‘Miss Hampton.’”
There are alarming rumors that Hope is going onto the stage along with the other movie stars who are headed furiously in that direction.
On the other hand, Theda Bara, to counter-balance the exodus, is going back to the screen again.
Personally I quiver with excitement waiting to find out if T’eda is going to be a vamp on the screen again. She’s a queer girl—T’eda.
It used to be said of Oliver Goldsmith that he wrote like an angel and talked like a fool. Just the other way with T’eda.
Personally she is one of the most charming women I ever met. She has brains, wit, philosophy, humor and concentration. She is a brilliant conversationalist. I once heard her talk with a dramatist, renowned for his brilliant conversation, and the silver-tongued genius had nothing on her. She simply sizzled and coruscated with brilliancy.
But when she stops talking and turns to her professional life, the brains ooze out somewhere. The only thing worse than Theda’s pictures was Theda’s play, put on last season. At that, she has real ability as an actress—if she would take up sane subjects.
Theda was married the other day to one Charles Braban, a director.
A few days after the wedding, she was in court testifying as a witness. They asked her for her name. She said it was Theda Bara.
The lawyer was one of these bull-dozing gents. “I want to know your real name,” he said with cheap sarcasm.
The courts recently gave the lady the right to change her legal name from Theodosia Goodman, with which she was born, to her stage name Theda Bara; so she replied with dignity, “My real name is Theda Bara.” And annihilated the lawyer with a look. The examination had proceeded when she suddenly shrieked, “Oh, no. Excuse me. I forgot. I am Mrs. Charles Braban.”
The deeply regretted death of Caruso will be followed by a musical revolution.
It is an admitted fact that no good American name goes in musical circles. If you were not born on the other side, you have to pretend you were and apologize and take a foreign moniker; or you will not be accepted in your own, your native land.
The way things are now, no American singer can possibly break in without going to Europe for a long and expensive course of study—just to get the European stamp of approval.
Some of the bitterest tragedies of this world have been those of American girls who found the doors closed to them in their own country by foreign impressarios and who struggled their way to Europe in order to work for German or Italian permission to follow their own professions in their own country. A good many found heart-aches, poverty and other worse tragedies over there.
And now coming to the point: it looks as though the logical successor of Caruso might be a young California boy of good old American stock—Mario Chamley. He is a regular young “he” American who talks baseball; goes to all the fights and is “regular” from the basement up. He has a glorious golden voice and has gone to the front in the Metropolitan more rapidly than any other young tenor in the history of American opera. The future seems to have boundless possibilities for him.
Chamley is a charming young fellow to meet. Opera singing is just a job—like any other—to him. He tells some outrageously funny stories about life in an opera company. Among other adventures, the first time he appeared in a grand role in the Metropolitan, he burst the waist band that held up his pants.
When the curtain went down and the applause began, the excited impressario tried to drag him out in front of the curtain.
The young tenor tried to tell him his pants were coming down, but he couldn’t remember how to say it in Italian. The impressario thought it was just shyness and modesty that kept him back and tried to drag him along. Just in time, one of the other singers, explained the situation and the Metropolitan audience lost a chance for a comic thrill.
And now, brethren, that will be about all for today, except that the press agent of the Ziegfield Follies has announced with heat of excitement that the girls have formed a club to prosecute and reply to those who say they go to rough parties and live wild lives. Cross my heart, I have always believed that the Ziegfield girls spent all their spare time reading dictionaries and doing tatting work and helping mother with the dishes. So they can’t get anything on me, b’ gosh.
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