Irene Rich — Just What You’d Expect (1923) 🇺🇸

September 07, 2024

“Now, there’s my idea of a regular girl. That the kind of a woman I’d like to marry.”

by Elza Schallert

“You, marry? I thought you were a bachelor.”

“Well, I am. Incorrigible, too. But every time I see Irene Rich in a picture, I weaken. And I know if I ever met her in real life. I’d propose to her — just like that. She’s so splendid, so strong, so full of character — oh, just everything a woman should be. Besides, she looks healthy and athletic. Not like she’d keel over if a strong gale struck her. I bet she’d make a wonderful mother, too.”

“I understand. Suppressed fatherhood — paternal complex, eh?”

“No, indeed. No complex of any kind. I simply admire Irene Rich intensely, and I’m sorry there aren’t many women like her in real life.”

“Oh!”

My brother, the bachelor pessimist, thus expressed himself to me one night in a theater while we were watching Irene Rich as the sympathetic Mrs. G. in Brass, nearly lose out in the game of hearts.

The particular scene that inspired his confidence showed her kneeling, her arms crushing the form of a tiny golden-haired boy, her large, dark eyes overflowing with tears, and longingly following Monte Blue as he made a quick exit from the room.

The scene was gripping, I confess. And I felt very sorry for her. But then I always feel sorry for Irene Rich on the screen, because she invariably is obliged to play “second fiddle” in the great appasionata symphony of love.

The hero, you positively know, loves her in the first place, but he never marries her until he has tried out his “first love” and found it a disillusionment, a failure. Or else he marries her immediately, and doesn’t remain faithful.

Even in her latest role, as the Queen of Spain, in Mary Pickford’s production Rosita, the king forgets about her queenly presence by sneaking away from the throne and indulging in an outrageous flirtation with a gay little street dancer.

However, Irene has always seemed to be quite content with her lot. Her luscious eyes have smiled a bit pensively, mayhap, when her hero finally returned to her, but she has always gone to him joyously and without reproach. And when the final fade-out showed her fondly ensconced in his arms, I have been satisfied that he was a lucky thing and that she — well, that she was a sensible, sweet, unselfish, strong character — just as the bachelor reminded me.

That is precisely how she impressed me when I met her at dinner with her mother in their new home at the foot of a cool cañon in the Hollywood hills.

If ever a player was eligible to the “As You’d Expect Her” club, it’s Irene Rich. And if ever casting directors showed rare judgment in selecting a wholesome, substantial, womanly type, they did in the instance of Irene Rich.

I had come to talk to her about her new contract with Warner Brothers. She had been recently signed by them as a star for a number of years at a very comfortable salary, and she was just commencing work on Kathleen Norris’ story “Lucretia Lombard.”

Her professional stock had taken quite a jump since her performance of Mrs. G. in Brass. It was on the strength of that portrayal that Mary Pickford had engaged her, and also that she won the Warner contract.

Hers is another case of the old. experienced players coming into their own. She started as an extra six years ago in Stella Maris, with Mary Pickford, and for three years thereafter trudged from studio to studio playing extra or bits, as opportunity offered. Then one day she was signed by Goldwyn’s and for a year or more played leading woman to Will Rogers. This was her first screen work that attracted attention. After that she freelanced with different companies, playing in dozens of pictures, and finally achieving her present position.

Fortunately, at the beginning of her career, she was not picked up out of the nowhere, starred by some short-sighted producer, and left to die quickly, as has been the fate of a number of pretty, and perhaps, gifted girls!

Her talents were not forced. They were allowed to develop normally. As a result, she has built what is more and more proving to be one of the greatest assets of a screen player — a sure and sound technique. She is now at the threshold of her real career, and it will be interesting, I believe, to watch her progress.

“I have always felt,” she meditated, “that all of us have to serve our apprenticeship before we can expect to gain approval from the public and recognition from the producers. That is, any lasting approval and recognition. It takes years to master screen technique. But it shows in one’s work, believe me. Why is it that the public wait so eagerly for pictures by Mary Pickford, Fairbanks [Douglas Fairbanks Sr.], Chaplin [Charles Chaplin], Charles Ray, the Talmadges [Constance Talmadge, Norma Talmadge], and that large group of players who aren’t stars, like Blanche Sweet, Gladys Brockwell, Lew Cody, or any of the real ‘old-timers?’ Not because of their personalities alone, but because they know their business.”

“Is it easier or harder to get into pictures to-day than it was six years ago?” I asked.

“It is always difficult to get into anything worth while.”

Of course I expected that. She caught my expression and added with emphasis:

“But all this cry about the difficulty a girl has to get a chance can be largely traced to the individual. I have occasion to observe many attractive girls who think they are serious about a picture career. Most of them don’t want to play extras. They act like prima donnas, become temperamental, are seldom on time, are careless about their make-up and appearance, and get lazy after a couple of weeks’ work. That sort of conduct doesn’t make careers.

“Six years ago when I came to Hollywood, I pocketed my pride. I forgot past social connections. I had been married to an army colonel, and in the cantonments I was favored with a great deal of attention and courtesy, the things that mean much to a woman. In Hollywood, I was just one of a big ‘gang’ trying to break into the movies. But I made up my mind to start right at the bottom, and fight until I reached the top.”

And when she says “fight” you don’t doubt for a moment what she means. Perhaps the fighting spirit of a conqueror was an inherent quality with her, but I believe that being married to an army officer and leading the rigidly disciplined and more or less rigorous life of cantonments, in various parts of this country and the Hawaiian Islands, only strengthened it, even as it aroused other qualities that the gentility and protection offered women in civil life would have atrophied or left dormant.

Dining with Miss Rich and her mother, a tall, slender, youthful-looking woman with a spontaneous, merry laugh, had been charmingly en famille. The cuisine was excellent, the home-made bread baked by her Swedish cook made us denounce the march of progress that created bread factories and the like, and the repartee between Miss Rich and her mother was sparkling at moments, but always very human. They are more like friends than mother and daughter.

It was time for me to leave.

“Wait!” she requested. “You must see my kiddies first.”

We dashed up the broad stairway — she going two steps at a time — to her boudoir — a large, well-ventilated, bright room attractively furnished, but not so choked up with feminine frippery that you gasp for air after the first ten minutes. It’s the kind of room any girl would have who can stick in a saddle while riding through mountains, swim in the surf and play a good stiff game of tennis. All of these things Irene Rich can do.

We tiptoed onto a sleeping porch. The light from an adjoining room touched the back of a tousled head of burnished hair that jutted out of blankets burying a little form.

“She’s my baby. Eight years. Do you wonder now why playing ‘extra,’ or scrubbing floors, if it had been necessary, meant only joy to me?”

Then she introduced me to her twelve-year-old daughter — a remarkably poised and intelligent girl, who is taking high honors in her classes and holds championships for swimming and tennis. Her tanned skin would make any boy envious, and she has a grip that makes you feel for broken bones after she shakes your hand in “Good-by.”

I left. And when I was certain that Miss Rich was in the house, I stood for a moment at the turn in the road. All of nature reminded me of her. The cool, crisp air, the deep blue of the sky, the dancing stars, the fresh smell of the sod.

And then I raced to town to find my bachelor brother to tell him that for once in his life he was right — absolutely right. She was all that he said.