My Autobiography (30 page)

Elinor, though a monument of English respectability, had shocked the Edwardian world with her novel
Three Weeks
. The hero, Paul, is a well-bred young Englishman who has an affair with a queen – her last fling before marrying the old king. The baby Crown Prince is, of course, secretly Paul’s son. While we waited for her guests to arrive, Elinor took me into her other room, where framed on the walls were pictures of young English officers of the First World War. With a sweeping gesture she said: ‘These are all my Pauls.’

She was ardently imbued with the occult. I remember one afternoon Mary Pickford complained of fatigue and sleeplessness. We were in Mary’s bedroom. ‘Show me the north,’ commanded Elinor. Then she placed her finger gently on Mary’s brow and repeated: ‘Now she’s fast asleep!’ Douglas and I crept over and took a look at Mary, whose eyelids were fluttering. Mary told us later that she had to endure the pretence of sleeping for more than an hour, because Elinor stayed in the room and watched her.

Elinor had the reputation of being sensational, but no one was more staid. Her amorous conceptions for the movies were girlish and naïve – ladies brushing their eyelashes against the cheeks of their beloveds and languishing on tiger-rugs.

The trilogy she wrote for Hollywood was of a time-diminishing nature. The first was called
Three Weeks
, the second
His Hour
, and the third
Her Moment. Her Moment
had terrific implications. The plot concerns a distinguished lady, played by Gloria Swanson, who is to marry a man she does not love. They are stationed in a tropical jungle. One day she goes horse-back riding alone, and, being interested in botany, gets off her horse to inspect a rare flower. As she bends over it, a deadly viper strikes and bites her right on the bosom. Gloria clutches her breast and screams, and is heard by the man she really loves, who happens, opportunely, to be passing close by. It is handsome Tommy Meighan. Quickly he appears through the bush. ‘What has happened?’

She points to the poisonous reptile. ‘I have been bitten!’

‘Where?’

She points to her bosom.

‘That’s the deadliest viper of all!’ says Tommy, meaning of course the snake. ‘Quick, something must be done! There is not a moment to spare!’

They are miles from a doctor, and the usual remedy of a tourniquet – twisting a handkerchief around the affected part to stop blood circulating – is unthinkable. Suddenly he picks her up, tears at her shirt-waist, and bares her gleaming white shoulders, then turns her from the vulgar glare of the camera, bends over her and with his mouth extracts the poison, spitting it out as he does so. As a result of this suctorial operation she marries him.

A
T
the end of the Mutual contract I was anxious to get started with First National, but we had no studio. I decided to buy land in Hollywood and build one. The site was the corner of Sunset and La Brea and had a very fine ten-roomed house and five acres of lemon, orange and peach trees. We built a perfect unit, complete with developing plant, cutting-rooms and offices.

During the studio’s construction, I took a trip to Honolulu with Edna Purviance, for a month’s rest. Hawaii was a beautiful island in those days. Yet the thought of living there, two thousand miles from the mainland, was depressing; in spite of its effulgent beauty, its pineapples, sugar-cane, exotic fruits and flowers, I was glad to return, for I felt a subtle claustrophobia, as if imprisoned inside a lily.

It was inevitable that the propinquity of a beautiful girl like Edna Purviance would eventually involve my heart. When we first came to work in Los Angeles, Edna rented an apartment near the Athletic Club, and almost every night I would bring her there for dinner. We were serious about each other, and at the back of my mind I had an idea that some day we might marry, but I had reservations about Edna. I was uncertain of her, and for that matter uncertain of myself.

In 1916 we were inseparable and went to all the Red Cross fêtes and galas. At these affairs Edna would get jealous and had a gentle and insidious way of showing it. If someone paid too much attention to me, Edna would disappear and a message would come that she had fainted and was asking for me, and of course I would go and stay with her for the rest of the evening. On one occasion a pretty hostess, who was giving a garden fête in my honour, pranced me about from one society belle to
another and eventually led me into an alcove. Again the message came that Edna had fainted. Although I was flattered that such a beautiful girl always asked for me after she came to, the habit was becoming a little annoying.

The dénouement came at Fanny Ward’s party, where there was a galaxy of pretty girls and handsome young men. Again Edna fainted. But when she came to, she asked for Thomas Meighan, the tall, handsome leading man of Paramount. I knew nothing about it at the time. It was Fanny Ward who told me the next day; knowing my feelings for Edna, she did not wish to see me being made a fool of.

I could not believe it. My pride was hurt; I was outraged. If it were true it would be the end of our relationship. Yet I could not give her up so suddenly. The void would be too much. A resurgence of all that we had been to each other came over me.

The day after the incident I could not work. Towards afternoon I telephoned her for an explanation, intending to fume and fuss; but instead my ego took over and I became sarcastic. I even joked lightly about the matter: ‘I understand you called for the wrong man at Fanny Ward’s party – you must be losing your memory!’

She laughed and I detected a tinge of embarrassment. ‘What are you talking about?’ she said.

I was hoping she would fervently deny it. Instead she acted cleverly; she asked who had been telling me all this nonsense.

‘What difference does it make who told me? But I think I should mean more to you than that you should openly make a fool of me.’

She was very calm, and insisted that I had been listening to a lot of lies.

I wanted to hurt her by a show of indifference. ‘You don’t have to make any pretence with me,’ I said. ‘You’re free to do whatever you like. You’re not married to me; so long as you’re conscientious in your work, that’s all that matters.’

To all this Edna was amiably in agreement, and wanted nothing to interfere with our working together. We could always be good friends, she said, which made me all the more desperately miserable.

I talked for an hour on the phone nervous and upset, wanting
some excuse for a reconciliation. As is usual in such circumstances, I took a renewed and passionate interest in her, and the conversation tapered off by my asking her to dinner that evening on the pretext of talking over the situation.

She hesitated, but I insisted, in fact I pleaded and implored, all my pride and defences slipping away from me. Eventually she consented.… That night the two of us dined on ham and eggs, which she cooked in her apartment.

There was a reconciliation of a sort and I became less perturbed. At least I was able to work the next day. Nevertheless, there lingered a forlorn anguish and self-reproach. I blamed myself for having neglected her at times. I was cast into a dilemma. Should I completely break with her or not? Perhaps the story about Meighan was not true?

About three weeks later she called at the studio to get her cheque. As she was leaving I happened to bump into her. She was with a friend. ‘You know Tommy Meighan?’ she said blandly. I was somewhat shocked. In that brief moment Edna became a stranger as though I had just met her for the first time. ‘Of course,’ I said. ‘How are you, Tommy?’ He was a little embarrassed. We shook hands, and after we had exchanged one or two pleasantries they left the studio together.

However, life is another word for conflict which gives us little surcease. If it is not the problem of love it is something else. Success was wonderful, but with it grew the strain of trying to keep pace with that inconstant nymph, popularity. Nevertheless, my consolation was in work.

But writing, acting and directing fifty-two weeks in the year was strenuous, requiring an exorbitant expenditure of nervous energy. At the completion of a picture I would be left depressed and exhausted, so that I would have to rest in bed for a day.

Towards evening I would get up and go for a quiet walk. Feeling remote and melancholy, I would wander around town, looking vacantly into shop windows. I never tried to think on these occasions; my brain was numbed. But I was quick to recuperate. Usually the following morning, driving to the studio, my excitement would return and my mind would get activated again.

With a bare notion I would order sets, and during the building
of them the art director would come to me for details, and I would bluff and give him particulars about where I wanted doors and archways. In this desperate way I started many a comedy.

Sometimes my mind would tighten like a twisted cord and would need some form of loosening. At this juncture a night out was efficacious. I never cared much for alcoholic stimulus. In fact, when working, I had a superstition that the slightest stimulus of any kind affected one’s perspicacity. Nothing demanded more alertness of mind than contriving and directing comedy.

As for sex, most of it went in my work. When it did rear its delightful head, life was so inopportune that it was either a glut on the market or a serious shortage. However, I was a disciplinarian and took my work seriously. Like Balzac, who believed that a night of sex meant the loss of a good page of his novel, so I believed it meant the loss of a good day’s work at the studio.

*

A well-known lady novelist, hearing I was writing my autobiography, said: ‘I hope you have the courage to tell the truth.’ I thought she meant politically, but she was referring to my sex-life. I suppose a dissertation on one’s libido is expected in an autobiography, although I do not know why. To me it contributes little to the understanding or revealing of character. Unlike Freud, I do not believe sex is the most important element in the complexity of behaviour. Cold, hunger and the shame of poverty are more likely to affect one’s psychology.

Like everybody else’s my sex-life went in cycles. Sometimes I was potent, other times disappointing. But it was not the all-absorbing interest in my life. I had creative interests which were just as all-absorbing. However, in this book I do not intend to give a blow-by-blow description of a sex bout: I find them inartistic, clinical and unpoetic. The circumstances that lead up to sex I find more interesting.

Apropos of that subject, a delightful impromptu occurred to me at the Alexandria Hotel the first night I arrived back in Los Angeles from New York. I had retired early to my room and started undressing, humming to myself one of the latest New York songs. Occasionally I paused, lost in thought, and when I
did so a feminine voice from the next room took up the tune where I had left off. Then I took up where she left off, and so it became a joke. Eventually we finished the tune this way. Should I get acquainted? It was risky. Besides, I had no idea what she looked like. I whistled the tune again, and again the same thing happened.

‘Ha, ha, ha! that’s funny!’ I laughed, tempering my intonation so that it could be addressed to her or to myself.

A voice came from the other room: ‘I beg your pardon?’

Then I whispered through the key-hole: ‘Evidently you have just arrived from New York.’

‘I can’t hear you,’ she said.

‘Then open the door,’ I answered.

‘I’ll open it a little, but don’t you dare come in.’

‘I promise.’

She opened the door about four inches, and the most ravishing young blonde peered at me. I do not know exactly how she was dressed, but she was all silky negligée and the effect was dreamy.

‘Don’t come in or I’ll beat you up!’ she said charmingly, showing her pretty white teeth.

‘How do you do,’ I whispered, and introduced myself. She knew already who I was and that I had the room next door to hers.

Later that night she told me that under no circumstances was I to acknowledge her in public, or even nod if we passed each other in the hotel lobby. That was all she ever told me about herself.

The second night when I came to my room she frankly tapped on the door, and once more we embarked nocturnally. The third night I was getting rather weary; besides, I had work and a career to think about. So on the fourth night I surreptitiously opened my door and tiptoed into my room, hoping to get to bed unnoticed; but she had heard me, and began tapping on the door. This time I paid no attention and went straight to bed. Next day, when she passed me in the hotel lobby it was with an icy stare.

The following night she did not knock, but the handle of the door creaked and I saw it turning slowly. I had, however,
locked it from my side. She turned the handle violently, then knocked impatiently. The next morning I thought it advisable to leave the hotel, so again I took up quarters at the Athletic Club.

*

My first picture in my new studio was
A Dog’s Life
. The story had an element of satire, parallelling the life of a dog with that of a tramp. This leitmotif was the structure upon which I built sundry gags and slapstick routines. I was beginning to think of comedy in a structural sense, and to become conscious of its architectural form. Each sequence implied the next sequence, all of them relating to the whole.

The first sequence was rescuing a dog from a fight with other dogs. The next was rescuing a girl in a dance-hall who was also leading ‘a dog’s life’. There were many other sequences, all of which followed in a logical concatenation of events. As simple and obvious as these slapstick comedies were, a great deal of thought and invention went into them. If a gag interfered with the logic of events, no matter how funny it was, I would not use it.

In the Keystone days the tramp had been freer and less confined to plot. His brain was seldom active then – only his instincts, which were concerned with the basic essentials: food, warmth and shelter. But with each succeeding comedy the tramp was growing more complex. Sentiment was beginning to percolate through the character. This became a problem because he was bound by the limits of slapstick. This may sound pretentious, but slapstick demands a most exacting psychology.