And she, the beautiful Farrar, hitherto so much the conqueror in love—did she realise the rivalry, the antagonism back of these efforts? She certainly did. Time and again she tried to bring him into the conspicuous position he so much desired. When she failed her look was all for the pain of his hurt, not for that which she might so reasonably have felt at such an attitude on the part of a beloved human being.
Tellegen did not seem much more appreciative of her off the set. Often when they were lunching together, for example, you overheard some teasing reference on his part to the fact that she was some years older than he. She never replied angrily to such remarks. Indeed, the general criticism of her behaviour was that she was entirely too nice for him.
“Watch him! He’s as sure of her as he is of the ice-man coming around. Why doesn’t she make him wonder a little?” So remarked one of a group watching the famous pair as they sat together one day in the studio café. The objection was well taken. Geraldine was bending toward her husband with her accustomed look of rapt absorption. She was talking to him eagerly with a frequent flash of the perfect white teeth. He, on his part, was silent, absent-minded, even a little sulky. When he answered her at all it was in monosyllables.
Time and again, in fact, studio folks beheld this metamorphosis of the romantic and ardent lover of another California Summer into the indifferent husband of this. And when it came time for the great prima donna to leave, what a saddening contrast to that former day when Tellegen had run madly beside the train bearing his love toward the East! A recent Summer Miss Farrar stood beside her special train. The fourteen personal attendants she had brought with her were running hither and thither with her baggage and possessions. She, however, seemed to know nothing of what was going on around her. For Lou Tellegen stood before her, and she was looking into his eyes.
At last, just before the train started, she threw her arms about him. All her dread of separation was in that embrace. You could see what it meant to her to leave him even for a few weeks. And he? Listlessly, with hardly one responsive gesture, he stood encircled by his wife’s arms.
Yet such apparent indifference never seemed to quench the fire kindled by that first glance of Tellegen’s on the Lasky lot. It was almost unbelievable—the reckless lengths to which she, this careful, methodical business woman, was driven by one despotic emotion. I am giving now what was perhaps her most tempestuous departure from usual standards.
During her second Summer with the Goldwyn Company, she had insisted that her husband’s name appear on the bill-boards in connection with her own. For some reason, however, the requested mention of Tellegen did not appear. When Farrar became aware of this omission, what did she do but take an automobile all through Los Angeles and tear down with her own hands every offending poster. I admit that I was infuriated. She, when I called her up over the phone, was scarcely more serene, and for some time it was a case of Farrar versus Goldwyn.
At this moment she was in the midst of a second picture, and she made prompt use of that advantage. “Very well,” she threatened, “if you will not feature Mr. Tellegen’s name I am going to stop work right in the middle of this new picture!”
“All right,” retorted I, “you do that and I am going to show the first part of the picture and then announce on the screen that at this point Madame Farrar would not proceed because the producer did not feature Lou Tellegen’s name.”
Lost to all consideration of business values as she then seemed, this threat succeeded. She went on with her story.