Constance Howard — A Flapper Who Watches Her Step (1927) 🇺🇸

Constance Howard, the interesting younger sister of Frances Howard, who retired from the screen a year or so ago and married Samuel Goldwyn, had invited me to luncheon.

by Madeline Glass

The place she had designated is an elegant establishment where the cover charge suggests refined banditry and the bill looks as if you were buying an interest in the place.

I merely mention this fact so you will know she did not take me to an ordinary cafe — which would not have insulted me at all — nor to one of those colorful, bohemian emporiums where the walls are decorated with such signs as, “We trust your face but we can’t put it in the cash register.”

Constance is a flapper, and flappers believe in doing things up brown.

I was genuinely interested in meeting this sprightly newcomer whose screen work has attracted instant commendation from the press. Since the motion-picture industry is burdened with so many young women of insipid, artificial prettiness and practically nonexistent talent, it is a treat to find one who shows a flash of individuality.

Small, straight, neatly tailored, with nimble steps and elevated chin — that is Constance Howard. A small, wine-colored hat was pulled down over her very blond hair, and under her arm she carried a copy of a travel magazine. Constance swaggers just a trifle and looks a bit like Mae Murray, or rather as Miss Murray looked about three divorces ago.

As soon as we were seated at the table she asked for water without ice.

“I think ice water is bad for the digestion,” said she. “It chills the stomach. I don’t understand how some people can eat heavy, rich food and drink bootleg liquor. I try to guard my health, but I must confess to one vice — smoking. I am trying to quit, though.”

My Sherlock Holmes activities soon brought to light the information that Constance is nineteen years old, was educated in a convent, and had a season or two in the “Follies.”

She needed poise and training, she said, and her “Follies” experience helped her a great deal. While still very young she began earning her own livelihood. Acting, posing for artists, and dancing kept the old, well-known wolf at a safe distance. She played her first real screen role in Hold That Lion, with Douglas MacLean, after a year of extra work in the East.

Mr. MacLean, she said, was “wonderful,” and it had been a pleasure to work with Richard Barthelmess in The White Black Sheep. Barthelmess had taken her to Catalina in his sloop when she had missed the boat. Moreover, he had carried her suit cases for her.

“Can you imagine having Dick Barthelmess for a porter?” she exclaimed.

No, I couldn’t.

“Every one has been so kind to me lately,” said she, “that I feel as if I had been touched by a magic wand.”

Fan mail is coming in and that, as every one knows, is a good indication of a public interest.

“I get fan mail, too,” I said.

“Why, one well-meaning but eccentric young man wrote to say that I was the greatest artist on the screen ! He also said that it made him very unhappy to miss one of my pictures! I wonder,” I added, “how such people manage to keep out of the lunatic asylum?”

Constance didn’t know. No one does.

Attacking her salad with healthy interest, Miss Howard gave out bits of personal data between bites.

“Last night I had dinner with my sister. Frances. She is the most wonderful sister any one ever had. She is so kind and takes such an interest in me. When we were on the road together she used to get up at five in the morning, after traveling half the night, and take me to Mass. Last night she gave me one of her hats.”

Constance talks easily, interestingly. She does not call you “dear” nor does she refer to her escort as ‘“my friend.” Her ideas on marriage, birth control, and careers are uncommonly sound for one so young. Eventually, of course, we got onto the subject of moving pictures and I was surprised to find that she had not admired Mady Christians in The Waltz Dream. She had, however, been fascinated by Willy Fritsch.

‘“He stands a good chance of becoming a great idol if he can survive the enthusiasm of our man-eating flappers,” I observed.

Constance raised her head and gave me a long, level look.

*’I like flappers,” said she.

Here was an idea. Possibly Constance, with her quick mind and varied contacts, could offer a bit of flapper philosophy.

“What do you think of modern youth?” I inquired. “Don’t answer if it will incriminate yourself I”

‘‘Why. I think young people, most of them, anyway, are splendid.”

Turning to the waitress she inquired. “How did that ice get in my water?”

Then: “Take my little sister, for an example. She is only a thirteen-year-old flapper, yet I feel confident that, if necessary, she could go out and earn her own living and take care of herself. She knows the value of money — she earned eighty-five dollars’ on the Richard Dix set last summer.

“A few years ago a girl of that age could not even begin to care for herself. Of course, a young girl out alone has to use discrimination in choosing her friends. The business of living, either in the movies or out, is no job for a weakling. Most of the men I have met have been gentlemen, and I don’t understand all this talk about girls walking home from auto rides. I believe that if a girl respects herself she will be respected.”

I like Constance. Her clean, intelligent outlook on life is admirable. She had with her a little package of stockings with “runners” in them.

‘‘I am taking them to be mended.” said she. “It seems wicked to throw away stockings because of a small defect. I was taught economy.”

When the waitress came with the bill Constance asked gayly. “How many million dollars do I owe you?”

The last I saw of her she was swinging briskly up the street, a graceful and dignified little figure, breasting life with a shield of discrimination. A flapper, yes, but a flapper of the finest type.

Constance Howard is the younger sister of Frances Howard Goldwyn, and bids fair to carry on the career Frances cut short when she married the producer.

Photo by: Walter Fredrick Seely (1886–1959)

Slim, erect, Constance is a graceful and dignified little figure in Hollywood

Collection: Picture Play Magazine, June 1927