Chapter Twelve
A MARRIAGE OF TWO MINDS
While I was having difficulties with Pauline Frederick I was not enjoying an untroubled business relationship with the star whose supposed advantage she so much resented. Earlier in my story I have told of how Geraldine Farrar’s first invasion of our field brought to our ears nothing but delighted comments on her director, her stories, and her general environment. Sadly I am now compelled to ascribe this first fine, careless rapture to her inexperience in pictures. For when she came to work for the Goldwyn Company she had acquired enough information about the screen to make her critical of stories, directorship, and various other production details.
Now, too, a personal element in her life contributed to her attitude toward pictures. For since she worked on the Lasky lot she had married Lou Tellegen.
At the same time that Pauline Frederick was discontented with any scenario not written by Willard Mack, Geraldine Farrar was discontented with any leading man who was not Lou Tellegen.
The second Summer of her engagement with us we deferred to this longing. We brought Mr. Tellegen on to play with his wife. He did more than that. He frequently played against her.
About this time, I believe Mr. Howard Dietz, the brilliant young chief of my publicity department, gave out an interview with Tellegen to the effect that he was delighted to be back in pictures, particularly when under such ideal conditions and when they afforded him the opportunity of playing with Miss Farrar, who “was as excellent an artiste as she was a wife.” This sentiment warranted a smile from those who saw how he embraced that privilege.
To be concrete: While they were playing together on a set Tellegen would frequently try to arrogate to himself the most advantageous focussing of the camera.
He was apt to become sulky if this campaign was frustrated, and, seeing this, we hit at last upon a harmless method of humouring him.
“Take him that way,” we whispered to the director, “and then we’ll throw away the negatives. The ones we’ll keep will be those where Farrar is played up.”
He was almost equally insatiable of “close-ups.” “You haven’t made a single one of me yet,” he would complain after a careful computation of his wife’s advantages in this respect.