I was so struck by that air of youthful witchery which she has so often conveyed on the screen that I ultimately asked her if she would not make some pictures for us. Up to this time her fame had been confined to the speaking stage. But she was at once enthusiastic about the opportunity I presented to her, and in a short time we concluded arrangements for her trip.
The vehicle which we selected for her was “The Marriage of Kitty.” But, alas and alack! The vehicle was unequipped with shock-absorbers or even ordinary springs. After some very rough going in California, during which time Mr. de Mille had expressed by wire his dissatisfaction with my newly found star, the picture was sent back East. And along with the picture was shipped Fanny herself.
Almost immediately I was apprised of the latter fact. “Miss Ward phoned you just now,” announced my secretary on an otherwise pleasant morning. “She wants you to call her immediately.”
That I did not heed this request was due to a misplaced confidence on my part in the healing quality of Time. When the actress finally succeeded in seeing me I found that Time had done no more for Fanny than it does for a fireless cooker. Instead of cooling it had merely conserved those inner fires.
I had just ordered my dinner on that night when she consummated my capture, and as I saw her bear down upon my table I resigned myself to the inevitable. The inevitable was punctual. “You!” cried she, glaring up at me: “what have you done?”
I was, however, given no time for this solicited autobiography. Instantaneously the actress proceeded to enlighten me upon the one predominant and vital activity of my career. “You have disgraced me in the eyes of Hollywood and New York,” she asserted; “that’s what you have done. Did I ask to go into pictures? Not much! I had a big reputation on the stage, and then—you come along! You tell me what a future I have in pictures; you persuade me to leave New York and go to California, and now here I am, disgraced, absolutely made a laughing-stock——”
I took advantage of this, her first pause. “There, there,” murmured I, fully conscious of the limitations of my soothing technique, “what’s the matter?”
“Matter!” she stormed. “Everything’s the matter. Your photography’s rotten—absolutely no good. And as for your director—say, haven’t I been on the stage some years—oughtn’t I to know something about the game? And am I to be told what’s what by Cecil de Mille?” Et cetera. Et cetera.
The dinner cooled. Not so, Fanny. For fully half an hour the outraged star poured into my ears the tale of her wrongs in that far-away studio. Only my assurance that I would look at the film, which had arrived simultaneously with her, succeeded in stemming the flood-gates.
I did look at it, and my impression was much more favourable than I had hoped. It seemed to me that she had screened well and I wired to De Mille and Lasky to ask a second opportunity for Fanny. When I communicated this decision to Miss Ward she was so happy and so grateful for my intervention that I felt quite reckless about any financial outcome.