Aileen Pringle Tells Her Untold Tale (1929) 🇺🇸

Aileen Pringle has been widely known as "the darling of the Literati" — meaning, really, that the Messers. Mencken, Hergesheimer, Van Vechten and other giants of letters move in her social orbit and take pleasure in consulting with her, conversationally. She has been known as the suave, finished sophisticate, well born, well bred, charming. A dilettante playing with life and love and letters, and including the movies only as one amusing facet out of many. She is reported to say clever things, do clever things, have clever people about her, prefer men to women, know the vintages of wines, the most aristocratic cocktails, the epicurean combination of foods, and what wine to serve with what course. These things are all true things.

by Gladys Hall

Aileen, known to her intimates as Pringle, has in her blood the Basque country, a dash of the Argentine. Her grandparents sailed round the Horn and settled in San Francisco, owning most of Market Street at one time. Aileen went to school with a carafe of wine under one arm because her Basque grandmother feared and scorned the tepid taint of tap water. She was liberally educated, traveled, polished. She was married at eighteen and has never been divorced. She played on Broadway with George Arliss and was eventually singled out by Madame Glyn to play the biologically yearning Queen in "Three Weeks." And thereby leapt into cinematic prominence. She has recently played vis-a-vis to Lew Cody. These and other things akin are known of her.

You are going to read some things that have not been known. Like many sophisticated women, Aileen does not at once delve into profundities. The circus of life and the antics of her fellow clowns sufficiently engage her. She accepts the elemental facts of life with a shrug and a bon mot and leaves them, for the most part, to the Babbitts and the yokels. We dined and lunched together. We spent a long, shadowy afternoon together in her patio, with the murmur of the Pacific a stretch away from the front gate, among cyclamens, pruned chrysanthemums, rock gardens, Chow puppies, clippings of the Smith campaign forwarded her by their author, H. L. Mencken; and chosen viands set before us by an impeccable couple. And gradually there was brought forth a piece box of information and reminiscence never before given to the public — seldom given to anyone.

This is another group of facets that go to make up the color-dipped life of Pringle. The real Aileen Pringle, as told by herself: (Author's Note.)

"I suppose we begin with birth. Mine was pretty grand, really. Viewed, I mean, from a dramatic angle. "I was born with a clubfoot, a crossed eye, convulsions, yellow jaundice, and a head like a squashed egg. My mother, insisting upon a look at what she had produced, after fifty-eight hours of hell, took one look at me and fainted. "She said, 'I have given birth to a monstrosity.'"

"When she came to, she came to, fighting. A small and gallant soul, my mother. When I look at other mothers, I could hug the small jewel that is mine. The only woman whose good opinion I covet. And up to three years ago she had never said a complimentary thing to me in all my life. She always told me what was wrong with me, and why. When pressed as to the reasons for this unmaternal reticence, she said that there were enough people to tell me how swell I was, and that as I was not perfect it was just as well for me to hear the other side of things. I saw them. She saw to that my father adored me and spoiled me outrageously. That helped, too. Three years ago — perhaps because she is growing older — mother informed me that she didn't know why she should have been vouchsafed the most perfect daughter in all the world. I was driving the car when she came out with that. I parked on the side of the road and asked her if she had gone mad. But she hadn't, it appeared.

Made Over by Her Mother

"To get back to the nativity: for three months after my birth I was literally never out of my mother's hands. She slept by my side and constantly, constantly, massaged my crooked foot and crooked eye with olive oil and her own hands. A baby's bones are only cartilage, she said, and she would straighten me out herself without benefit of the operations scheduled for me at six months.

"By the time I had reached six months my foot had straightened. By the time I was three years old my eye had straightened. When I finally went to school, I was whole. I've never had the knife used on me in all my life. My mother did it all.

"Then I had some ghastly thing called sugar poisoning or something. Which meant that I couldn't imbibe one gram of sugar in any form, either cake, candy or fruit. If I did, I went goofy. I mean, really goofy. I'd chant, 'I won't have the post-cards strung round my neck,' and things of that strange ilk.

"When I was nine, I had T. B. My mother brought me to Long Beach, threw me out in the sun every morning at eight, had slides made once every month or so and wrastled it out of my system. She devoted her entire life to me and here I am, today, a pretty husky specimen.

"When I was sixteen or so, I began to have beaux.

"The winter I was sixteen, in San Francisco, I had six proposals during the season. I had to arrange matters so that I breakfasted with one man, walked with another, lunched with a third, tea'd with a fourth and took dinner with all six together. No one could stand that gaff. And I began to think I was pret-ty swell. Pretty grand. No man could resist me, I decided. No matter who, no matter what the conditions. Black or white, long or short, married or single, one ray from my eyes meant sure death.

The Undefeated Male

"I hadn’t any intention of marrying any one of them, but to have them propose to me became a point of honor. Something like hanging scalps on the old wampum belt or something. Death rather than dishonor.

"Bee Di Giorgio, a friend of mine, visited us. She laughed at my pretensions and said, 'I know one man you couldn't get. One man who would never propose to you. His name is Charlie Pringle. He's a darling and he lives in Jamaica.'

"As there didn't seem to be much likelihood of Charlie Pringle's coming under the gavel, I didn't argue the point. I simply looked superior, laughed it off; and sorrowed for her and for him, if ever —

"The following winter we were all in New York. Mr. and Mrs. Di Giorgio were sailing for Jamaica. They invited me to accompany them. My father, who never refused me anything, permitted me to go with them and off we went.

"En route, Bee again informed me that the one man I could never capture was Charlie Pringle. I should meet him and — I should see. She bet me that I couldn't make him propose. I bet her I could, without half-trying.

"Mr. Di Giorgio didn't take the gamesters point of view about the matter. He gave me very thoroughly to understand that he was bound for Jamaica on business which very much needed the time and co-operation of Charlie Pringle. He further gave me to understand that I was to lay off, and no funny business.

Charming Charlie

"I spotted Charlie Pringle on the wharf as we docked. And said, 'What! He will be simpler than all the rest!'

"Mrs. Di Giorgio became severe and informed me — again — that Charlie was a darling and she would not have him interfered with by any heartless minx of my variety.

"It was funny. Charlie read me Kipling and other bedtime stories. Br'er Rabbit, I think. I was most demure and most innocuous. He didn't know that I had graduated from Kipling when I was seven.

"It came time for Mr. Di Giorgio to take a trip inland. He had expected Charlie Pringle to go with him. Charlie volunteered to send one of his men in his stead. Mr. Di Giorgio immediately sent for me. He was towering. He said, 'I came down here on purpose to have Charlie Pringle go with me on these expeditions. Now he won't go. It's all your fault, you —!'

"I said, wide-eyed, 'Why, what have I done?' Mr. Di Giorgio was blessedly inarticulate. But he went off — alone.

"One night a very formal dinner party was given in honor of Princess Marie of Schleswig-Holstein, then visiting Jamaica. We were all presented. After dinner Charlie took me out into the moonlight — and proposed.

"I felt guilty, but didn't act the part. I told him it was all a jolly sell. I had bet Bee Di Giorgio he would and Bee had bet me he wouldn't. And he had. I was sure his heart couldn't be broken, as he had only known me for seven days. I was going away. And that was that.

The Prophecy Comes True

"He remained serious and said that he knew I had that in my heart, but one day he would make me his wife. And I thought, 'Don't be funny!'

"We returned to New York. Charlie followed me there. We went back to San Francisco. I again refused him. And then the war. And I knew that he was going. My inflammable imagination had no difficulty in placing him in the front-line trenches, gutted and riddled. I thought, 'He will probably try to die. A man in love with me could do no less. It will be the beau geste.' And I pictured unpleasant aftermaths of regret on my own part. Uncomfortable things. And he was charming and distinguished and in love with me. I wired him I would marry him in April. I did.

"While he was at war I took a course in scenario writing at the University of California. I wrote the prize scenario and graduated with honors and more self-esteem. My career was before me. I knew that what I really wanted was the stage, but I was camouflaging, leading up to it by easy steps. My father was of that school of men who cannot tolerate the idea of their daughters — their own daughters — working. Wouldn't all their friends say, 'What's the matter with you? Can't you support your own daughter?' Besides which, there was the once violent opposition to the stage with its implicit rumation of sweet young things.

"We went to New York and I sold two scenarios. This was pretty grand. I was on my way. I was active on my own account. Swell!

"When Charlie came home from the war neither gutted nor riddled but very anxious to establish a home and a family after the most approved fashion, I knew that I couldn't carry on. I told him so. Jamaica held nothing for me. Hollywood, certainly, held nothing for him. We would try separate paths.

"He was indulgent, tolerant. If I had something within me and wanted to express it — well, run along, little girl, try the gauzy wings and when they are singed I'll always be here waiting. That sort of thing.

Her Pringle, Her Husband

"We’ve been taking separate paths ever since. There have been occasional rumors of divorce. Unfounded. It stands like this, really — if Charlie ever wishes to marry again, or if I do, the divorce proceedings shall be begun. If not — well, who can tell? And I have, besides, a curious feeling about it all. I dislike the idea of going to strangers — even to lawyers — and permitting them to* pry into affairs which, after all, belong to Charlie and to me and to no one else. More than that is the feeling that he is my husband— he and no one else. Mr. Pringle, my husband; my husband, Mr. Pringle. I couldn't imagine having another husband. There is something, perhaps, to the theme of Pascal's 'Marriage Bed', no matter how divergent the paths of the married partners may have been.

"I've fancied myself in love many times. Or thought I was. Which comes to the same thing. It's usually a deep affection. I enjoy mental gymnastics; after a repetition the spark dies, the contest is over and a life-long friendship results.

"I think sometimes of the years ahead. When I am older. Sometimes people ask me if I will be lonely — but we're all lonely, really. I've always been very active and doubtless one activity will lead to another. I give a great deal of time, thought and energy to my friends. And I've always been amply repaid. Somehow I feel that this state of affairs will continue always to be my existence.

"I don't know anything about the Hereafter, about God. I know nothing about such matters. If I were pressed I think I should say that I believe there is something. When I look at those Chow puppies of mine, not here at all a few weeks back, so very much here now; when I look at a bridal couple and, a few months later, a baby; when I plant a little footling seed in the ground, and see — then I wonder. It makes me confident that there is a greater something; I call that something God. Born in other parts of the world, I would call it by another name.

She Thinks She's All Right

"You’ve asked me what kind of person I really am. Not in terms of superficial aspects, easy enough to appraise and catalogue. The kind of things, I mean, that I like: good food, and wouldn't eat a dinner alone for anything in the world; that I like to arrange flowers, breed puppies, hate shopping, never own a costume that matches, play tennis; admire my mother beyond any human being — not these things, but the central Me supposed to exist, cottonwool led but none the less there.

"Well, I think I'm pretty swell. Pretty grand. I like myself. I think I have nicer reactions than anyone else I know. I know of no one with better ones. I'm not mean, not jealous, not mercenary. I take nothing from nobody, and expect less. Pay my own way and dote upon my own independence.

"I'm not hard to look at. Not beautiful, not even pretty. But if a man has to take this face and form to dine in public, he wouldn't spend the afternoon brewing apologies that might be necessary offerings later. Like so many men with very devoted wives, for instance, men who think, 'I understand her and appreciate her even if others don't, but oh. Gawd, that figure.'

"I'd grace any man's home and I know it. I'd know how to run it. I'd make a swell sweetheart because I'd be passionately interested in the man I happened to care about. I'd make a pretty grand mother. I'd know how to bring up infants so that in later years they would bless me. They'd be decently bred and have intelligent surroundings. I'd never be jealous of any man because I would always think, ' If he prefers that woman to me, his taste isn't as superb as I thought it. Isn't it a pity I made a mistake?'

"I like my reactions and reflexes. Egotistical? Maybe I am. But I shouldn't have been if, three years ago, my mother hadn't complimented me. She has put her stamp of approval on me. She was the most difficult to please — and am I to be blamed for the pleasure I find in having satisfied us both?"

Aileen Pringle, self-appraised.

By her own admission, Aileen Pringle would grace any man's home. Perhaps we'd prefer to have the say ourselves. But we can't deny that we'd end up by agreeing with her.

Collection: Motion Picture Classic Magazine, February 1929

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Confessions of the Stars series:

• Blanche Sweet (October 1928)
• Constance Talmadge (November 1928)
• Betty Compson (December 1928)
• Bebe Daniels (January 1929)
• Aileen Pringle (February 1929)
• Anna Q. Nilsson (March 1929)
• Lois Wilson (April 1929) 
• Corinne Griffith (May 1929)
• Bessie Love (June 1929)