Elsie Ferguson — An Orchid Speaks (1920) 🇺🇸

There is no more perfect as there is no more beautiful simile than that of a beautiful woman to a flower to which she is somehow intrinsically kindred. Referentially, Tennyson’s “Lily Maid,” the famous “Rosebud Garden of Girls,” the vivid “Tiger Rose” and many others.

by Gladys Hall

When one sees Miss Ferguson, one sees an orchid. A particular, a delicately poetical kind of an orchid. Not the purple variety, haughty and scentless and rather forbidding … a white orchid, say, rather, with a veiling of moonlight and a heart of pink and gold. Fantasy, no doubt. But there is fantasy in the personality of Miss Ferguson. Fantasy, whimsicality, fragility and sub-stratum, a mentality which is all of these and none of them. Paradoxical, no doubt again. But so is Miss Ferguson paradoxical.

There is a sort of super-nicety about Miss Ferguson. It is in her physical make-up and in her manner of speaking and, psychologically, in her aura. Perhaps she has retained it consciously, not without effort. Who knows? After combat, after struggle, after fight, but she has retained it, which is tremendously indicative of qualities far stronger than fantasy and fragility.

There is this aura about her which one senses rather than feels… a sense of dreams rather than realities… of realities which still are dreams… and there is the flushed heart of gold, humanly warm, which causes this orchid person to drop on her knees to fondle a stray studio dog which entered, all unceremoniously, the partially opened door of her ivory-and-mauve dressing-room at the Famous-Players Lasky studio. The dog, like the proverbial fool, rushing in where angels, etc., etc….

There is a naiveté, too, an ingenuousness which is the antithesis of the poseur.

“I am still afraid of people,” admitted Miss Ferguson, “just as I was when I was a child… so sensitive… so timid. Even now, I am afraid…”

It is hard to be literal when writing of Miss Ferguson. There is so much of the literal in the world. One dwells on her fantasy. One remembers her whimsicality, deliciously. The quizzical light in her grey eyes when she discusses herself… herself most of all… the enveloping sense of delicate accomplishment about her… even to flicking ash of cigaret into a blue enameled ash-receiver.

The delicacy with which she establishes contact with the world… this is her personality, her ego, if you will. She is an attar of rare things, rare persons and there is a rare atmosphere about her…

And she dwells upon a Mission…

“I like to touch as unobtrusively as possible on the sordid side of things,” she said. “Sometimes that is not possible, but when I can do as I please, I lay no stress upon them, especially in the lives of women. I know these things exist, of course; I am not discounting their reality nor their import. But I should like to stand to women for the thing beyond. I should like to have women see me and go away feeling, even vaguely, that these things need not exist, need not be permanent. I should like to hold out to them the hope of an inner development, the belief that that development, call it a spiritual one if you will, or a mental, or both, is the only thing that counts really. That this development has nothing more to do with the luxurious externalities than it has with the sordid ones; that it is irrespective of all things save that which is within. A higher plane as a reality… the admission of no limitations…” — came the little, deprecatory shrug of the shoulders — “perhaps I hope too much…”

I, fatuously, with conviction: “You have that aura… the aristocracy of things…”

“Not only that the aristocracy of things exists — I am mounting my favorite hobby — for me or for you— but for everybody. That they are possibilities — the things beyond experience — the hope of these things.”

There was an interlude during which the aforementioned canine stalked in and be petted, and Miss Ferguson’s favorite cat was discussed with some minuteness, and I was blinded by the colors of some gorgiferous Spanish costumes she is to wear in her forthcoming picture.

“I wanted to go to Spain this year,” said Miss Ferguson; “I don’t care about going to the war-torn countries, but I do want to go and steep myself in the atmosphere of Spain. I believe it would teach me a very great deal.

There is a sort of a call… perhaps it comes from delving about for these genuine old-Spain things. I think I have had an instinct for them.”

Which led her to speak of instinct. “I believe in trusting instinct absolutely,” she said, “providing one does not confound instinct with impulse, which is neither one. If one went by one’s instinct one would go a very long way in the right direction. By impulse” — the little, quasi-humorous shrug Again — what mad things might one not do! Of course, like all questions which are really great, it simmers down to the individual.”

‘One would not precisely picture Miss Ferguson doing “mad things.” They are not, could not be her forte. Unless, indeed, one might do them with a subtle charm and an ingenuous. But even then — she has too nice a sense of balance, too fine an equilibrium

We touched on hobbies. “Hobbies,” she said, “are at once the curse and the hope of the interviewer and the curse, certainly, of the interviewee. We both have it. Well, then — tapestries. At present, I care most for the things which are imaginative, for the things which suggest other realms of thought and fancy, other visions, other scopes. And there is the charm of finding tapestries, of coming across them, always with a thrill. Then, being possessed of their histories, which often mean lifetimes of romance and tragedy, of dreams and death… cloisters… and infinite patience…

“It is, I believe,” she went on, rather more thoughtfully, “largely infinite patience and time and the necessary mellowing of time that makes for the sheerest beauty — not only of tapestries. Patience is the gold from which all the alloy has been taken out. It is the ultimate refinement. And it is not necessarily the puerile thing one thinks it to be. It can be vital. It can have red blood. And it can still be patience, a sort of a splendid holding in leash and a great developing. Art, especially, must have it, because art, truly, is seldom the burgeoning to life of a sudden flower. It is essentially a growth of the sensibilities, the responses, the reactions. All sorts of things go to its perfection and for perfection there must be patience — and there you are!”

When we left it was with reluctance, not with the feeling of a necessary talk concluded, but of a charming talk which had not well begun. For every topic Miss Ferguson has the same rare whimsicality, the same delicate profundity of thought, the same hope… hope, which is her keynote. An orchid, an aristocrat, an intellect — Miss Ferguson.

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There is a sort of super-nicety about Miss Ferguson. It is in her physical makeup and in her manner of speaking and, psychologically, in her aura… and there is the flushed heart of gold… humanly warm… which causes her to drop on her knees and fondle a stray studio dog.

Photo by Campbell

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It is hard to be literal when writing of her. There is so much of the literal in the world. One dwells on her fantasy. One remembers her whimsicality, deliciously… the quizzical light In her grey eyes when she disguises herself…

Photo by De Strelecki

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When one sees Miss Ferguson one sees an orchid — a particular, a delicately poetical kind of an orchid. Not the purple variety, haughty and scentless and rather Forbidding… a white orchid, say rather, with a veiling of moonlight and a heart of pink and gold… An orchid, an aristocrat, an intellect — Miss Ferguson.

Photo by Campbell

Collection: Motion Picture Magazine, February 1920