The Expressions of Ivy Duke (1920) 🇬🇧
The All-British star on stage and screen, who has no use for luck.
Miss Ivy Duke, the beautiful musical comedy actress now appearing in Maid of the Mountains at Daly’s Theatre, London, is also a screen star of more than little fame. She attributes her climb up the ladder of fame to hard work. Miss Duke is possessed of a lot of paradoxical characteristics differing from her sister artistes. She is neither superstitious, credulous, or mascot loving. She has no use for luck. Hard work has done more to upset luck, she maintains, than all the incantations and precautions mortals can take.
A Real Britisher
Miss Duke is all-British, though, like Mary Pickford, she suffers from being mistaken for an American. Mary Pickford is a Canadian, and, as such, can claim the protection first hand of the British flag, but Miss Duke can beat her, for she was actually born in South Kensington, and thus she is British all through. The rumour that Miss Duke is American arose from the fact that she has lived a considerable portion of her short life in America. She was taken there in her early youth — as she will tell you — “with many vigorous vocal protests”; but it was on her return to England that she gained musical comedy fame.
Her First Stage Engagement
You will remember she appeased at Daly’s Theatre in Betty, and of this engagement she tells a good story, which proved that the stage had to call more than once before Miss Duke answered. A friend of hers thought she would like a stage career, and interviewed the management with the idea of going in the chorus. She was successful, and tried to persuade Ivy to try to get an engagement in the same company. The idea did not appeal to Miss Duke, and she said so. Then the friend dared her to try. Miss Duke showed her spirit by taking the dare,” with the result that the impresario wanted her to sign a touring contract for Manchester and the North. It was mid-winter; the prospect was not bright enough. Miss Duke refused, wished the manager a polite good-day, but she was not allowed to reach the door. She was called back and offered a small part in a London production. She accepted it.
A Happy Career
From Betty to The Happy Day, and from thence to the untiring and unending Maid of the Mountains was an easy journey. Her stage experience has been a particularly happy one. Then, while the war was still on, she met Mr. Guy Newall, then on military matters intent.
The Film Offer
Later she met him again, when he and Mr. George Clark — who gives his name, by the way, to the photoplays produced in the Ebury Street Studios — were formulating their plans for picture plays. Mr. Newall and Miss Duke had a slight disagreement over terms, but, with womanly persistence. Ivy won, and the result has been tremendously successful. From a small part to leading lady in such films as The Garden of Resurrection and The Lure of Crooning Water is ambitious and phenomenal, but Miss Duke has achieved it, and will achieve much more. Comparisons are always tiresome, but Miss Duke bids fair to become our English Pauline Frederick, and the fact that the new production — an adaptation of Cosmo Hamilton’s famous book, Duke’s Son — provides her with an exceedingly dramatic part, lends considerable interest to those who are watching the progress of this charming actress.
A Good Story
The story is that of an impecunious “younger son,” who starts life for himself, and whose spirit of impetuous independence eventually throws him into the company of a delightful society girl, possessed of his own love of taking chances and gambling with Fate. The two become partners, and disaster, overtakes, but does not quite overwhelm them. A convincing and eminently satisfactory happy ending proves the charm of the whole story. You will like her in this photoplay.
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Special to “The Picture Show.”
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Photo captions:
- Just pensive.
- The personification of grief.
- “I know you were there.”
- “Do I know you?”
- Unhappy.
Collection: Picture Show Magazine, April 1920
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