Betty Compson Tells Her Untold Tale (1928) 🇺🇸

It has been frequently said that there is nothing new to tell about these First Favorites of the Films. We disagreed. There is something new to tell, or something old, something caged away in the heart, the mind, the soul of every human being. Something never before related because of inhibition, forgetfulness, reluctance, fear — an untold tale in every life, however public that life may have been. This untapped source awaits the bait of patience and persistence.

And it yields, does this source, the very essence of the life-story. For it is characteristic of people that they most reluctantly reveal the things newest to the heart. It is instinct to shield the intimacies of the soul, until one knows that these intimacies will not be violated.

Out of the gold and white fragility that is Betty Compson there comes this story of sturdy emotions, influences, fears, radical theories, modern love — Betty Compson's Untold Tale — Ladies and Gentlemen, for the first time in any publication! (Author's Note.)

by Gladys Hall

"The passion of my childhood was to be a tight-rope walker. In a circus.

"The second passion of my life occurred when I was three. It was for a grown man. And it was a passion. Nothing childlike. No imitation.

"I have always been in love. I've never been out of love in all my life. I never expect to be. One love after another. From the beginning to the present.

"I would rather make Money than Art. Why not tell the truth.

"My fear of poverty far outweighs my fear of death, old age — or any other casualty.

"I shall never be divorced.

"In our case divorce is impossible. Our marriage is founded on a rock — a different rock from that of any other marriage I know of.

"I think Lon Chaney has more sex appeal than any other man on the screen. And John Barrymore has less. He has nothing, nothing at all. I may as well go back and elaborate on these statements.

"My first powerful desire was for the circus. To be a part of the circus. It spelled Heaven to me. I'd been taken to the three-ring marvel and I saw Bird Millman. She was the heroine of my childhood. She was the incarnation of everything I desired to be. I saw her there, swaying, aerial, beautiful and brave, and I felt that life could hold no greater glory than just that. I met her a few years ago. Life was kind to me. My idol was not shattered.

"Everyone knows, I think, that I was brought up in a little mining town about as far from civilization and certainly as far from culture and 'advantages' as a girl could well be. No books. No social life. None of the things that constitute the average childhood.

"But I think few, even few of my intimates, know that one person and one person alone is responsible for what I have done, what I may do — my mother.

"And not because she is my mother. That has nothing to do with it. Because she was my good friend. Because she was an individual. Because I liked her as a human being.

"She never tried to 'bring me up' in the usual sense of those words. She didn't try to rule me. She never said 'You can't do this or that.' She didn't exact obedience — but she got it.

''She taught me to take care of my body. She wouldn't let me wash dishes or sweep or clean. 'You'll need your beauty some day' she said, 'you'll need your beautiful hands and you must keep them beautiful.'

"Most mothers are too inhibited to lay stress on the marketable value of a girl's body. My mother wasn't. She knew that life is niggardly and that we need all of our weapons whatever they may be. She knew what mine would be. She knew right.

"She wanted me to be a concert violinist. But to be a violinist takes money and there wasn't any.

"My mother was fearless. When I came to Hollywood and after I had been in comedies for some time, I had another offer from another comedy lot. I wanted to take it. I needed to take it. My mother suggested that I turn the offer down. She told me that I had done enough of that type of work and that it had nothing more to offer me. She knew what that advice would mean — hunger. It did. But as a result I am able to say that I was the second girl ever to make good in drama via comedy. Gloria Swanson was the first.

"I've always been in love. Never out of it.

"Never a month, a week, a day since birth when I have not been engaged in some passionate amour. When I was three I fell in love with a man of thirty or forty. And I experienced every pang I ever knew in more mature years. Possessiveness. Thrills. The whole gamut and range. Not jealousy. Never jealousy. I've never been jealous of a man in all my life. I couldn't be. Don't tell me that a mere baby has no sex life. I know better. I've seen it.

"I've been engaged times without number. I've never 'gone' with a man who has not eventually proposed to me and presented me with a piece of ice. May sound egotistical. It isn't. Fate worked that particular design for me.

“I never Intended to marry any one of them. Not for one moment. I always knew I wouldn't.

"There is only one man in my life I ever had any intention of marrying. / married him.

"My one unrequited love was Lon Chaney.

"He never even knew about it. He'll never know about it unless he reads this: I saw him on a bus one day years ago. I didn't know who he was. Few did at that time. But every day thereafter for weeks and weeks I made it my business to be on that bus just so that I could sit and gaze at him. He had sex appeal for me — and I knew it.

"Perhaps my ideas on sex appeal are curious. To me John Barrymore has nothing. Absolutely nothing. Not even the ability to play a love scene.

"Apart from love the dominant passion in my life is money.

"Not babies — money.

"I have a horrible, haunting fear of poverty. I don't give a hang whether I am starring or working on a big lot or creating for posterity so long as I am working and getting well paid for it.

"When my screen life is at an end I shall go into advertising. Sounds odd but actually I am now divulging the long cherished and hidden mania of my working life. I've always been rabid about it and believe I'd be good at it. I spend most of my spare time now doping out copy and ideas and campaigns. I have an idea right now for busses that ought to keep me in luxury until I have a beard down to the ground.

"I may not be very sentimental. At least I think straight.

"I don't want babies. I'm not a mother-type. That sort of life doesn't interest me.

"I've told lies about it — to sob-sisters and the like. It has occasionally seemed the thing to do — to look wistful and moist-eyed and to murmur something sweet about the longing for baby feet about our free-for-all home. It's been a lie. I never meant it. I'm not fond of most children and what I'm doing interests me sufficiently. I'm too busy to have them.

"I suppose if I ever do have one, Nature will see to it that the proper emotions come along, too. So that's that.

"My chief gratification in life is what I have been able to do for my mother. She is independent. No matter what happens to me she will never have to work or worry again. She has her own home. Her own money. Her own work, too, in caring for my real estate and investments. And we, she and I, get the most enormous kick in the world out of the revolution of the Wheel. We never drive down town in our limousine, done up in our new furs, sparkling with a few jewels, that we do not clutch hands, gasp and turn back to reminisce about the days when things were NOT like this.

"Of course it's a thrill having money and having it young and talking about it. Whoever says it isn't is a poseur, a liar or an imbecile.

"We shall never be divorced, Jim and I. [Transcriber’s note: Betty Compson and James Cruze divorced in 1930]

"In a world so unpredictable I dare to make such a statement.

"I've been in love with him for a long, long while. There were others in between — but I never forgot my very first impression of him. It was from a photograph in a fan magazine. When he was an actor and long before I went into pictures. I remember that he wore checked knickers and looked — well, just as a man should look.

"I fell in love with his photograph and I never got over it.

"Some years later I was dancing one night at an out of town cafe. Jim was there. I had never seen him before. He kept looking at me. Not a habit of his — looking at strange women — as I came to know. Soon he came directly over to me and asked me to dance. Whatever he had asked me to do, I would have done.

"We danced, then, and he asked me how I would like to play in one of his pictures. I said 'Oh, yes —'

"Then I went to Europe or something, things intervened and I didn't see him again for another span of time. There came the occasion when I was called to the Famous Players lot to make tests for a big part. I didn't get it. James Cruze had to tell me the sad results.

"I sat in his office and cried. I was heart-broken and beyond caring what impression I was making. I'd wanted that part so much.

"He was so kindly, so sympathetic. I remember he said to me 'Never mind, the next time we meet you will be a star!'

"I was!

"Later on he told me that he fell in love with me then. That day in his office when I sat and wept. He wanted to ask me to marry him then and there. It was just as well he didn't. I would have accepted him. And he wasn't free.

"Again time intervened — other things — and one day I met him again on the Famous Players lot and he invited me to take tea with him at his home. I accepted — more than the tea.

"He drew me aside shortly after my arrival. He said 'I think you've worked long enough. I can take care of you rather nicely. We'd better get married.'

"I said I agreed with him. That's all there was to it. Not one other word.

"No other words were needed. He had said exactly the right ones. Every other man I had been engaged to had 'encouraged' me to keep on with my work. They had all suggested that it would be a shame for me to abandon my career. I knew that line. Jim was the first man who didn't encourage, me, who didn't give a damn about my career, who wanted to take care of me, the woman, not the star. I like men.

"Jim and I planned a different marriage.

"We talked it all out beforehand.

"A marriage based on individualism and non-interference.

"We were old enough to know what we wanted and what we didn't want. Wise enough to get it.

"And we keep to it. I know nothing whatever about his work. Half the time I don't even know what picture he is working on. And that goes both ways. I have never been on his set and he has never been on mine. I wouldn't embarrass his leading woman by sitting around — another actress and the wife!

"We each have our own financial arrangements, our own friends, our own hours, our own hobbies.

"I have frequently come home for dinner to find Jim entertaining a couple of his women friends, I may never have met them or heard of them before. It's quite all right with me.

"Our house is open house. Our marriage is open marriage.

"I know that he would never hurt me. By hurt I mean that he would never have an actual affair with another woman. That would hurt, of course. Normally. But having the confidence I have I don't care what he does and he feels the same about me. It may be egotism. I think I'm pretty nice and I doubt that he would find anyone much nicer. Perhaps he feels the same way. He ought to.

"I like him as well as love him. He's the most interesting man I have ever talked to. We've had about three dinners alone since we were married, keeping open house as we do, but on these rare occasions we've had the time of our lives. We always have so much to talk about.

"I'm perfectly happy. Perfectly.

"If I had it all to do over again, I would do exactly what I have done, in every way, large and small, good and bad, the mistakes along with the successes. Only by living as I have has it been possible for me to come to the understanding I have.

"I have no regrets. None whatever. And I wouldn't waste time thinking about them if I did have.

"Live and let live — Make love and make money — that's my philosophy!"

Betty Compson, self-confessed.

Photo by: Lansing Brown (1900–1962)

Photo by: Kornman-Bruno

Photo by: Lansing Brown (1900–1962)

Photo by: Kornman-Bruno

Movie stars reveal all

Series of Confessions Bares Hitherto Unknown Secrets  — Fans storm newsstands

NEW YORK — Reports from throughout the country indicate that the most sensational interest in motion picture personalities ever developed is following the publication of a series of confessions of the screen stars in Motion Picture Classic. These confessionals are written by Gladys Hall, one of the most brilliant and authoritative writers of motion picture celebrities and their activities.

Readers of periodicals devoted to the cinema and its people have for the last several months been storming newsstands on the tenth of every month, the date of issuance of the magazine containing these articles. In several instances police report measures of violence against newsdealers whose supply of Classics has been sold out before the entire populace had opportunity to make purchases.

Henry J. Smurt, president of the Brotherhood of Newsvendors, in a statement to the press today, pleaded for tolerance from the public under such circumstances.

"Newsdealers," said Mr. Smurt, '"are every month ordering nearly double the number of Classics they compute to be sufficient. They are taking every possible precaution against a disappointment of the public. If there is fault to be found, let me direct the attention of readers to the publishers of Classic. They are steadily and remorselessly making the magazine so much better every month that excessive demand is inevitable."

When shown Mr. Smurt 's comment, the publishers of Classic said:

"It is true that we are every month improving the magazine. But for this we have no apology to offer. We intend to continue in that policy, regardless of the personal risk to newsdealers and the occasional demolition of their stands at the hands of a confession-hungry public. Let the newsdealers, if they fear further outbreaks of indignation, insure themselves against it by not only doubling but quadrupling their order.

"Classic, however, has one suggestion to make for the purpose of bringing about a more amicable arrangement between the buyer and the distributor of itself. It is that the fan make a definite reservation when he buys his one month's Classic, for another the following month. This will at once insure him against disappointment and the newsdealer against the unjustified ravages of public fury. Classic appears the tenth of every month. A reservation then for the following month should straighten out the entire distressing situation."

Collection: Motion Picture Classic Magazine, December 1928

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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)