Hope Hampton — “The Worldly Hope” (1921) 🇺🇸
Hope Hampton may not know it, but she was an Occasion. She was the subject of my first interview in New York. In fact, she was the first person of the movie genus I had met in the East to whom I could talk the familiar cinema lingo of California and not have to translate it into the jargon of the layman.
by Emma-Lindsay Squier
I had put off the interview quite a while — Hope deferred, you might say — because getting lost in subway entrances was so exciting, and because I kept taxi men busy carting me back to Times Square — at twenty cents each quarter of a mile — so I could touch base at the only landmark I knew, and get lost again.
But when she invited me to have dinner at her Riverside Drive apartment, the prospect was too enchanting to be delayed, even by the thousand and one sights which I wanted to see, including Coney Island, Grant’s Tomb, and moonlight on the Hudson.
As I taxied up Riverside Drive, chauffed by a lordly person who had no respect for pedestrians, speed laws, or my feelings, I found myself linking the young star with a snatch of Omar’s stanzas, “The worldly hope men set their hearts on —” For everything was so worldly, so shoutingly suggestive of wealth: the massive gray buildings, looking more like public libraries than private homes, the ultra smart women stepping from ultra smart limousines, the respectful servitors at iron-grilled doors — and I wondered what Hope would be like. Whether she would be as worldly as the environment in which she lived. I couldn’t picture an ingénue ingénuing effectively in the sophisticated environs of Riverside Drive. I expected at least two butlers with sideburns, and a French maid with a musical-comedy cap and apron, who would say, “Oui, mademoiselle,” and upstage me when she discovered by the label in my hat that it had come from Los Angeles instead of Fifth Avenue or the Rue de la Paix.
As for Hope herself — I somehow pictured a magnificent young woman who would successfully combine hauteur with graciousness. who would impress me — subtly of course — with her wealth and prestige, and at whose table I would have to be very, very careful about which fork I used. A combination, you understand, of artist, aristocrat, and snob.
The apartment building itself completely fulfilled my expectations. There was a doorman, properly respectful, an elevator boy. who was valet to an upholstered elevator, and a maid who received me at the door of the suite occupied by Miss Hampton and led me into the magnificent boudoir of her mistress to remove my wraps. Miss Hampton, she explained, had been delayed uptown, she would be back any moment.
That boudoir! If you could see it! I felt as if I had stepped into a rose-colored cream puff. It was done in rose — or perhaps it was orchid — with a canopied bed that looked like a fairy’s couch, a chaise longue piled fluffily with silk and satin pillows, a dressing table sparkling with luxurious perfume bottles, jewel-incrusted hand mirrors, gold monogrammed brushes and cosmetic boxes. The carpet was some soft shade of rose — or was it orchid — and delicately tinted lights shed over the whole a subdued radiance. It was the kind of room you see very often on the screen, but seldom in real life — even the luxurious real life of the movie queens.
Hope’s portraits were everywhere; she smiled from the ivory dressing table; from the wall by the bed; from the chiffonier.
There came suddenly the sharp slam of a door, the high-pitched bark of a small dog, the patter of small, doggish feet, then a girl’s voice, a young, every-day sort of voice — “Is she here?” — an answering murmur, doubtless from the maid. Then, “Oh, that long? I didn’t know I was so late” — and into the boudoir burst Hope, looking like a boarding-school flapper, in a naive, tight-bodiced dress, and with some sort of quaint blue hat crushed down around her curling auburn hair. Not at all a “worldly Hope.” Just a smiling, enthusiastic girl, who showed me the lovely things of her boudoir in the same spirit of ingenuous pride that every feminine heart takes in beautiful belongings. She made me smell all the perfume bottles, rubbed some of each fragrance on me until I surpassed the shah’s garden for variety of odors, and brought in the purchase which had delayed her, a jet-black Pekingese, which answered to the name of “Dotty.”
“I’m just crazy about dogs,” she volunteered. Then she led the way into the — let me see; was it living room, parlor, or drawing-room? — anyway, into the front room, which was carpeted and tapestried, furnished with soft sinky chairs, and ornamented with marble statuettes, a grand piano, and more framed pictures of Hope. “In fact, I’m so crazy about them,” she continued, “that I’m giving up this apartment in another two weeks, to buy a house in Yonkers where I can have all the dogs I want. The city is absolutely no place for them!”
Are you wondering what Hope Hampton looks like? If you have seen her on the screen in “A Modern Salome,” “Love’s Penalty,” or “The Bait” you know that she is beautiful and young, that there are dimples in her hands and wrists. But the screen cannot catch and give back the startling blue of her eyes, or the pallid auburn of her soft, curly hair. Neither can it translate into prosaic black and white the exquisite coloring of her cheeks and lips.
There was a dinner guest, Hope’s manager, Tules Brulatour. And we three sat down to an exquisitely appointed table with a gold service. Beside each plate was a glass of — but no, why speak in a dead language!
I spoke of New York; Hope spoke of California. I enthused about the East; Hope dwelt lingeringly on the beauties of Los Angeles.
“I loved it there.” She sighed. “Such good times!”
“Parties?” I suggested reminiscently.
She shook her head.
“No, my house. I had a fountain out in front, with goldfish in it, and I used to wade in it and try to catch the fish with my hands. My maid and I used to make mud pies, too — do you like to make mud pies?”
Mr. Brulatour glanced at me rather anxiously. Perhaps I would be shocked
I wasn’t. We discussed, rather fully, the technique of mud pastry. “And you made A Modern Salome in California?” I asked.
“Yes, I did, but oh, what a terrible picture! I hope people don’t think I liked it, because honestly, it was awful. It was my first, you see, the first dramatic work of any kind I had ever done —”
“Then you weren’t on the stage first?” I interrupted.
“No, never. The way I got into pictures — it reads like — well, just the way most stories do not read like — if you know what I mean. I was born in Texas — Dallas, to be exact — and won a beauty contest — you won’t think I’m terribly vain to say that?” She broke off suddenly.
“Beauty is just a stock in trade you know. I don’t see why it shouldn’t be acknowledged as well as talent of any sort — well, as I was saying, my picture was in the paper — oh, you tell her about it!” The command was directed at Mr. Brulatour.
He smiled indulgently. He is evidently used to Hope’s caprices and moods. She reminds one of a rainbow; iridescent, changeable. She flashes from childlike naïveté to Broadway slang. From a Puritanical mood to one of gay abandon. She is a delightful mimic, an ardent listener, quaintly frank about her own failings, generous in her praise of others.
“Well, it’s not a long story,” Mr. Brulatour said. “I have been in the picture business for many years as a producer. And in that time I have had literally thousands of girls brought to my attention by adoring friends and relatives who wanted me to star them. Some one spoke to me of Miss Hampton — her name was Mary Elizabeth Hampton then — and showed me her picture. I was impressed, but not greatly. I thought her just another would-be star, without brains or personality to back up her good looks. But when I met Miss Hampton I discovered my mistake. And I agreed, to give her a camera test. Then Léonce Perret met her, and was enthusiastic enough to write a story and direct her in it. Since then she has —”
“Have you seen any of the new pictures here in New York?” Hope broke in.
I gave an account of the ones I had seen. We agreed on a very few. I thought most of them were terrible. Hope loved them all.
“I guess I’m not critical, except with my own.” She confessed. “I am the greatest fan in the world. Going to movies is practically my only recreation. I love comedies — Charlie Chaplin, Louise Fazenda — and I adore Mae Murray!”
The little black Pekingese scurried into the dining room like an animated pen wiper. Hope left the table to romp with him. Her hair loosened and tumbled about her flushed face and sparkling eyes. She sent the dog into spasms of delighted barking.
But later, in the drawing-room, she played “Samson and Delilah” for my delectation. Then she solemnly discussed the star system, and the picture she has just finished, Star Dust. She assured me that girls with brains and beauty can get into the movies, many authorities to the contrary. And lastly, she showed me her wonderful wardrobe, with a collection of hats that would stock a Fifth Avenue millinery shop, and her jewels — dazzling bracelets of emeralds and diamonds, pearl and platinum lavallieres, jeweled vanity cases, and marvelous rings. She displayed them frankly, like a child with a box of toys.
I was sent home in her luxurious limousine, a liveried chauffeur at the wheel. A fur-lined rug lay at my feet, a cut-glass vase with an orchid nodded beside me. There was the subtle fragrance of crushed hothouse flowers. I remembered the ermine cape she had shown me, the hundred-thousand-dollar fur cloak, the jewels.
“The worldly hope men set their hearts on —”
And then I remembered the fountain; and the mud pies. The old-fashioned house at Yonkers which was to replace the gorgeous apartment I had just left.
So I don’t know; perhaps not such a worldly Hope after all.
[a]
There is no need of speaking about Hope Hampton’s beauty when her appearances on the screen and such photographs as this bear more glowing testimony than words could. But photographs have never given more than a hint of her personality — words can do that better. On the opposite page will be found an interview with Miss Hampton which gives a vivid and striking impression of her real personality.
Photo by: Edward Thayer Monroe
[b]
“HOME, JAMES”
When the order is given to a motion-picture star’s chauffeur, it may be a De Mille-like [Cecil B. DeMille] edifice that he heads toward, or it may be an unassuming dwelling such as Ethel Sands found when she visited Constance Binney. Their homes are as individual as themselves, and give an intimate view of their personalities that is interesting to every motion-picture fan and every student of human nature.
Hope Hampton’s home, as described in this article, shows you the fanciful young star in a revealing light.
[c]
Collection: Picture Play Magazine, August 1921