Loretta
Young
The
New Movie magazine January 1934
συνέντευξη στον Franc Dillon
Θεάματα
Κινηματογραφικά
Loretta Young
YOUTH LOOKS AHEAD
At twenty, Loretta Young, already a star, thinks of
the time when she'll retire and become a mother
By FRANC DILLON
AS SHE THINKS
" I want a lot of romance In my life — and a
lot of children. . . . I want success, then leave it all and live my life. . .
. When I retire I want to live in Europe, because it is so different from
Hollywood. . . . It's funny to think of myself, as I am now, as just so much
stock, just an investment. But that's what I am."
At twenty,
Loretta Young is an investment. Her life is in the control of strangers. At twenty,
she can look back on a full life, more filled with events than that of the
average woman of fifty. But Loretta doesn't look back. She is too busy looking
forward.
What does the
future hold for Loretta? One can't, as she admits, go any higher than the
pinnacle. One can't do better than be a success in one's particular field. But
Loretta is looking further ahead than her immediate career. She is looking
forward to the time when, career over, she can retire to a normal, happy
married life.
"Of
course, I want to marry again," she told me quite frankly. "Being
married is the only normal way to live. During the past year my life would have
been empty without my work. I'm often terribly depressed. I think it's silly
for people to commit suicide, but there have been many times when I could
understand a person's reason for doing such a thing. I know I should simply die
without my work!
"Acting
is my profession," she continued. "I want to achieve success. And
then I want to leave it all and live my life. If I can I'd like to work eight
or nine years longer and then go to Europe, marry and have lots of children.
"I want
to give up my work entirely when I do quit. If I stayed in Hollywood, I
couldn't. I'd have to keep right on acting. I'm sure Europe is the place I want
to live because it is so different from Hollywood. I want to cut myself off completely.
"And I
think I ought to be able to find a husband when I'm twenty-nine years
old," she added, naively. "Perhaps my career won't last that long.
Think of all the stars you know. Few of them have maintained their positions as
stars for more than five years — even three years. So, when I say I hope to
work eight or nine years longer, I know there's just a chance.
"It's a
case now of fighting to retain my present position and that, in a way, is out
of my hands. It depends upon proper stories, good direction and excellent
casts. But I don't have to get gray-haired over those responsibilities because
I'm an investment to the studio, and the studio's going to look after me as it
would guard an investment in the stock market. It's funny," she said in
her husky voice, "to think of myself as just so much stock. But that's
what I am."
WHEN Loretta
was fourteen and still in school, her sister, Polly Ann Young, was a contract
player at First National. Polly Ann was wanted at the studio one day for a
retake, but she had gone out of town on a vacation. So Loretta was sent to the
studio to take her place. The sisters looked so much alike, that, dressed in
Polly Ann's costume, the substitution of Loretta was not noticed. It was
Loretta's opportunity, and she recognized it. Soon after that she was given a
contract, left school and began her career as an actress.
It was about
this time that she went to see "Seventh Heaven." She saw herself as a
great star. The next day she rushed into Jack Warner's office.
"I've found a director," she said breathlessly. "If you get Frank Borzage to direct me I'll be as good as Janet Gaynor."
Recently —
six years later — she worked under Prank Borzage's direction for the first time
in "A Man's Castle."
Elevated to
stardom during the past year, Loretta has, nevertheless, played several
supporting roles recently. "It doesn't matter whether I'm the star or
not," she explained. "All I want is good parts. And I'm not sure I
want the responsibility of carrying a picture by myself."
Sound logic,
surely, and worthy of a person older than Loretta. But, at twenty, Loretta
Young has an amazing maturity, as if she had seen all there is to see and done
most of what there is to be done. Yet she has lost few of her illusions and she
looks forward to the future with all the eagerness of a college girl.
"I
probably appreciate what life has to offer more than the average girl of my
age," she said, "because I have the comparison with what it has
already given me."
WHAT life
has given Loretta since the day she doubled for her sister, Polly Ann,
includes: one marriage, one divorce, a period of separation from the family
that is a passion with her, featured roles and, finally, stardom. And, of
course, there has been romance in plenty.
"I'd
hate to live if I thought the future didn't hold lots of romance for me,"
she said, frankly. "Some people think my unsuccessful marriage made me
cynical. That isn't true. I want to keep my illusions. I don't want to become
cynical, because I think it would show in my screen work, and it would make me
an impossible person, too. My marriage gave me an appetite for the sort of
beautiful romance that I know must exist. It didn't mar my illusions one bit. I
realize that older persons have the idea that my marriage ruined my life.
Mother says if I had been older I would have felt it more deeply — the failure
of it, that is — and my life would have been permanently affected."
Loretta would
have you think she wasn't deeply affected, but it isn't true, for though she
was young at the time of her divorce — just eighteen — she was deeply hurt. It
is a part of her gay, young courage to pretend a frivolity she doesn't really
feel. She was sincerely in love, but aside from that fact, failure in anything
is not a part of Loretta's scheme of things. When she found her marriage was a
mistake, she ended it by getting a divorce. She put the whole thing behind her
and out of her mind as much as she was able. That's the way she does things —
quickly.
"One
mistake doesn't fill a lifetime," she said, with an air of imparting
something new. "And I'd hate to think my life wouldn't be as full as my
mother's."
Loretta looks
toward her mother as the ancients looked toward the oracles. And, indeed, while
Loretta is popular with the younger set and is continually being reported
engaged to first this one and then another of the Hollywood swains, her real
friends are mostly older people. That is, people much older than Loretta.
"I like
the companionship of older people because they talk sense to me. I learn from
them. I know they have nothing to gain from me, so I am sure their friendship
is sincere," she explains.
Loretta's
adoration of her family isn't a wordy sort of affection that makes itself felt
in compliments and sweet nothings. She does things for them; for the two
beautiful sisters, Polly Ann Young and Sally Blaine; for the brother, Jack, now
in college, and the baby sister, Georgianna, who is too busy with her dolls to
think of a career; for the mother who sacrificed her youth to them after they
were deserted by the father.
Recently she
built a fourteen-room, Colonial house for her family. The only thing she fears
for the future, she says, is the loss of some member of the family.
"I think
I could bear almost anything but that," she said passionately. "I'd
rather lose my stardom. No one knows what it has meant to me to have an
understanding mother. I don't know what I would have done without her. She
keeps my feet on the ground.
"I'm not
trying to give the impression that I don't like the glory that comes with
stardom. I love it! It pleases my ego. But I realize that I'm very young and
that makes me reckless. That's what is so wonderful about being young. If I
were older, I'd be afraid to be reckless. Youth makes me superior to older
people.
"The
most important thing I have to look forward to now is my work, my new contract
with Twentieth Century, which is for the next five years. After that I look
forward to marrying again. But who can tell what may happen before that? I'm
not in love with anyone now but I can't promise I won't be tomorrow. And if I
should fall in love tomorrow, I would immediately give up my work. From my own
experience and also from observation, I do not think a girl can have a
successful marriage and work at a career, too. Marriage, when and if I marry
again, is going to mean more than that to me.
"I want
to make more money. When I was making fifty dollars a week I wanted two
hundred. When I was making two hundred I wanted five hundred. Now I'm hoping
for thousands. I want to be terribly rich so I can travel, educate myself, so I
can have all the freedom and all the children I want!"
Loretta Young photo from The New Movie magazine, February 1934 (Gallery of Stars)
Loretta Young
LORETTA YOUNG — Gretchen's really her name. And she's
still so Young — just turned twenty-one, in spite of a cinema career which
dates back seven years. Now playing in Twentieth Century's "Born To Be
Bad," with Cary Grant.
Salt Lake
City's her birthplace; Los Angeles her educational ground. Slender without
dieting. Radiant without make-up. Wide blue eyes. Light brown hair. She's an
ardent movie fan.
Her favorites
are Chatterton, Barthelmess, Leslie Howard and Constance Bennett.
First entered
pictures through accident when her sister, Polly Ann, was unable to make a test
for Director Mervyn LeRoy. Loretta, the youngest of three sisters, one of whom
is Sally Blane, was the only one available and won the part.
Loves pretty
clothes. Keeps scrapbook containing everything ever printed about herself.
Hates Brussels sprouts. Is no longer interested in matrimonial domesticity, she
avers. Divorced from Grant Withers.
The New Movie magazine, February 1934.
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[ ανάρτηση 17 Μαρτίου 2024 :
Loretta Young
The New Movie magazine January 1934
συνέντευξη
στον Franc
Dillon
Gallery of Stars
Θεάματα
Κινηματογραφικά ]
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