Jeanne Eagels — The Way of an Eagle (1930) 🇺🇸
The passing of Jeanne Eagels was characteristic of her entire life. Always she had done the unexpected, always she had surprised, startled, and even shocked the world. In the face of defeat she had always triumphed, until death suddenly claimed her as she entered a hospital to await examination. But she left behind her a life story without precedent, even as the woman herself was like no other.
She was born in Boston of an Irish mother and a Spanish father, whose name, originally Aguilar, is a Spanish approximation for "eagle." And an eagle Jeanne turned out to be in her fierce ambition. By the time she was ten years old she was a veteran g~
trouper among the tent shows of the West, playing many roles but making little Eva, in Uncle Tom's Cabin, peculiarly her own through complete submergence of the precocity of a child who had already left childhood behind her. Soon she was playing more mature parts, even Camille, which she dressed in a muslin tea gown edged with marabou for the last act.
But Jeanne Eagels was not destined to spend the rest of her life in tent. shows. She saw to that. Eventually she played in obscure stock companies, waiting for her chance to be near enough to New York to try for a chance on Broadway. She got that chance through sheer nerve and 1911 found her, at seventeen, with a small part in Jumping Jupiter, a musical show. She might have made her way to better things in pieces of this sort, but she scorned a big increase in salary when Florenz Ziegfeld offered it, protesting that she was an actress, not a show girl.
Of many anecdotes told of her at this time in her career, her trick in obtaining a coveted role is characteristic of her undaunted determination to advance herself. Hearing that an actress was wanted for the leading role created by Elsie Ferguson, in Outcast, Miss Eagels dressed exactly as Miss Ferguson and called on the producer. She even gave an imitation of the better-known actress. It was not a shallow trick, though, for when she was given the part she was found to be letter-perfect.
From then on Miss Eagels' career took an upward curve, but it was not until 1922 that found her at her zenith in Rain, which ran for seventy-six weeks in New York and which she played for five years throughout the country. It brought her recognition, fame, and for the first time in her life, wealth. She followed her success as Sadie Thompson with a Continental comedy, Her Cardboard Lover, and proved her brilliant supremacy in an entirely different milieu.
It was during the road tour of this play that Miss Eagels was suspended from the stage by the Actors' Equity.
Undefeated by the ruling of Equity, she found a welcome in vaudeville and pictures, adding to her distinction by contributing to the audible screen its then-most-adult film, The Letter, in which her performance will ever remain a magnificent pioneering effort — subtle, febrile, and uniquely her own. Her second talking picture, "Jealousy," while not so strong a vehicle, was well calculated to display her talent, and she made Yvonne a more complex, mental character than in the stage original. Miss Eagels was preparing to return to the stage when the end came on October 3rd.
High-strung, nervous, her changes of mind unpredictable, she was held in devoted esteem by the few who knew her well. They delighted in her wit and humor, her biting sarcasm, her disarming, unexpected simplicity. Exquisitely dressed for a dinner party, she would insist on helping in the kitchen if the mood seized her. With all her spirited defiance of organization, she was as much afraid of the dark as a wrongly trained child. It amounted to a fixation with her. She kept every light burning all night wherever she lived. And though most of her life was spent in the theater, she shunned the noises of the city and escaped them whenever possible. Her escape to infinity has brought her the tranquillity she tried vainly to find in life.
Miss Eagels' last professional appearance was in the picture "Jealousy."
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Jeanne Eagels was born in poverty, spent her childhood in tent shows and by her own efforts rose to affluence greater, perhaps, than that of any other stage star.
Collection: Picture Play Magazine, January 1930