October 3, 1921. Ambassador Hotel, Los Angeles.
I asked how long it would take me to get to Los Angeles. They said three days. I had expected it to take ten hours. I cannot get used to distances in this country.
So this is Los Angeles!
For two months, at breakfast, lunch and dinner, Mr. Washington B. Vanderlip used to tell me, at Moscow, about Los Angeles. He would not listen to anything about Russia. The Russians would have been interested to hear about America, but he did not tell us about America, he always talked about Los Angeles. No matter how remotely conversation drifted onto other subjects, he always brought it back to Los Angeles. Finally, one day at breakfast, about the end of the 5th week, I suddenly realized I hated Los Angeles, and when he began again I put my hand on his: “stop—” I said, “and let me say something about London.” He could not bear it, and left the room. And now here I am, as I never expected to be, actually in Los Angeles.
Mr. Goldwyn, whom I met in New York, has telegraphed to his studio president, Mr. Lehr, and asked him to take care of me. Mr. Lehr has placed a car at my disposal all day and every day. He has introduced me to Gouverneur Morris and Rupert Hughes, but above all he has shown me a new world of which I was totally ignorant.
My initiation into the realm of film production has been a revelation to me. Possibly the great big world that pays its 25 cents to see a “movie” show, understands all about it, knows what it costs to produce, appreciates the toil and the thought and the plan involved. But I did not know. Truth to tell I have seen very few films besides “The Birth of a Nation” which taught me all I know of American History. I have seen bits of plays being photographed out in the open “on location” in film language, and I had gathered an idea that to be a film actress meant that one had rather a lovely time, doing spectacular things in beautiful and interesting surroundings. I saw their lovely photographs in magazines. I knew that some of them became millionaires, and that internationally known ones were mobbed through admiration if they walked abroad. An easy path to fame, I thought, if one had the right kind of face.
I really came to Los Angeles for no other reason than to have a glimpse of its amusing play-land, and it has been a revelation to me.
My surprise grew as I followed Mr. Lehr from building to building. There were departments of dress-making and store-rooms full of lovely frocks and materials, some of the finest cloth of gold and brocades of Italian weaving. There were cassones containing real sables and other furs, tailors, hair-dressers, manicurists, carpenters and barbers were all part of the organization, and a canteen that recalled to my mind the Communist restaurants of Moscow, but where, unlike Moscow, I was able to get an ice cream soda at almost any time of the day! There were a bewilderment of storehouses, a sort of dreamland full of everything and anything that anyone could want in a hurry. Tin tacks and paste, Florentine shrines and Henry II chairs (so efficiently home-made as to perplex an antiquary!), canary birds in cages, Buddhas, invalid crutches and Persian carpets. Stores and stores full of what they called “props” which I would gladly have looted. As for the “Studios” there were three or more and they looked like the familiar “orangerie” of some old country estate, amid trim lawns, such as I thought only England could boast.
I was surprised that in the midst of this great industry there should have been found time and thought to spend on abstract decoration and beauty. The garden was full of flowers, and stone urns cast long shadows on the grass. Strange figures passed me by; a pirate, and then some Russian refugees and Russian children turned joyful somersaults upon the grass. And then—the village! So quaint and old world, so exactly like our village at home. It enchanted me, I thought it would be a lovely place to live. I asked questions and they told me it was a sham. I could not believe this until I had walked all round it. Such a splendid solid sham it was, with such an unflinching front.
Then I began to wonder what was real and what was mere illusion. I seemed to go to Russia and then to China. I looked for my Romeo in Venice, and then felt sadly transplanted to an East Side slum. I looked at the ground to be sure I was walking on real grass, and up at the sky to see if I was still in the world, and then I pinched myself and it was still me.