Kay Laurell — “A Sweet Gal” (1919) 🇺🇸
Manhattan can doubtless improve on the pronunciation, but not on the sentiment of Westchester County’s synonym for Kay Laurell.
by Delight Evans
I was walking down a village street with Kay Laurell [Kay Laurel].
She turned into a grocery store, nodding to a clerk as she passed. I waited for her.
“Nice weather, ain’t it?” said the clerk. He gazed after Miss Laurell and spat speculatively. “Sweet gal.”
That’s all I have to say about Kay Laurell. Florenz Ziegfeld, when he engaged her for his Follies, said to the world that she was the perfect type of feminine beauty. The native of Mamaroneck, New York, may be no such connoisseur as the manager of the National Institution, but he may, as we have hinted, know what he likes. Kay is universal because she is simple.
“You can imagine her in a crowded world-capital like Paris or Petrograd — ante-bellum period. She was the better one-half of a sister-act which toured the variety theatres of continental capitals. Of course she is at home in New York. But she is not out of place in Mamaroneck — the Mamaroneck where people live all the year round as well as the Mamaroneck of country places. The lovely blonde knows that there is a world outside Manhattan.
Kay is from near Pittsburgh; she was born on a little farm in western Pennsylvania. She has a mother — a real mother, whose hair is now snowy white and whose skin is as soft and white as Kay’s — and that milky complexion is one of Kay’s chief charms. Mrs. Leslie — the family name is that, you know — looks like an old faded miniature from — say — colonial days. Her mother is the most untheatrical person in the world; and I hear that it was only when Kay began to appear in pictures that she really lent her whole-souled support to her daughter’s dramatic leanings.
Kay sent for her mother to come on and keep house for her this summer, and sister Mary, too — and two-year-old niece Mary Eleanor and eight-year old nephew Charles. I hope the children do not remain into the autumn; she has hopelessly spoiled them as it is.
At the time of which I write — midsummer — Kay Laurell-Leslie was concerned not so much with future film plans as with Charles and a new, intractable bicycle she had bought him.
Charles — a gentle shy little fellow — couldn’t ride; he couldn’t make his feet behave. Kay took him up and down, up and down in front of the Italian palace she calls home, in the hot sun, sprinkling her immaculate nose with unborn freckles at every step, her sunny hair falling about her face, her Bendel frock streaked with dirt where she had followed Charles in his innumerable falls — well, acting all in all as a regular aunt that any fellow would be glad to acknowledge. Why, Charles even lets her kiss him!
It has been a rainy day; but Kay had a new car and she wanted to try it out. She did a dougfairbanks over the front seat and took the chauffeur’s place at the wheel. “Is your life insured?” she called back over her shoulder, “if not, Woodlawn is a nice cemetery.”
Home: “Shore Acres” — up a winding drive into the grounds that encircled the white house. An Italian palace with pergolas and statues and flowers and shady swings — and many fascinating balconies. And straight up to the door where Mrs. Leslie was waiting. And Charles; and lisping Mary Eleanor.
The ex-queen of the Follies rushed into her mother’s arms, smothered Charles in an embrace and imprinted a kiss which he promptly wiped off; gathered up Mary Eleanor and proceeded into the’ house. A long cold room in white opens off the sun parlor — white stone benches and huge white flower-pots glowing with live color. A step into the library — a room that’s been lived in — where Kay’s sister Mary was sewing on an intricate piece of embroidery.
Broken bits of records lay about the floor. “Now, see, Kay,” said Mrs. Moore reproachfully, “you let Mary Eleanor do as she pleased with the records yesterday and to-day she breaks them to pieces. I’ll have to spank her.”
“No,” said the New Aunt firmly, “I won’t let you. The way to make children behave is not to spank them but to show them the right way.”
“That’s not the right way” — Mrs. Moore began — but she surveyed the debris more tolerantly and even smiled at the two gold heads — Kay’s and Mary Eleanor’s — close together.
We went up to Kay’s room — up a winding stone stair that made me think of the medieval fairy-tales. Her room is low and cool and simply hung — and it has three balconies!
A dressing-table bears a precious weight of monogrammed silver and crystal perfume containers from France and framed photographs — Ann Pennington’s, chiefly, and Anna Nilsson’s [Anna Q. Nilsson] — Kay’s best friends.
In this Leslie menage there are Toto, a very black educated maid from Madagascar with whom Kay chatters in French; the housekeeper — and dogs. I forget how many dogs. I remember Lasky, a beautiful decorative Russian wolf-hound and Erin, an Airedale. Kay liked Russia.
The nicest thing about her, I think, is her keen interest in everything. She has a lovely time at dinner with the folks, teaching Charles to say “please” and “thank you.” She likes very large raspberries with sugar and lots of cream. If the little girl from the adjoining estate comes over to play with Charles, and won’t play croquet unless Charles’ aunt Kay will play, too, she grabs a mallet and lets them win. She likes pictures and plays, and books, and perfume, and babies — and other utterly feminine things.
Her career is the career of a great beauty; the conquest of good looks. The fact that she is a celebrity now instead of somebody’s stenographer in a Pittsburgh law office is, undoubtedly, because she is beautiful. But she happens also to have a head that is as level as it is well-poised.
She became famous over-night. One day she was a Follies show-girl among other show-girls; the next day all Manhattan knew her. It was in this edition of the Follies that she, literally, had the world at her feet: she was the figure atop the globe that revolved before the gaze of usually indifferent first-nighters. Now she wants to be a dramatic actress: and the ambition is not ridiculous if you know Miss Laurell. There has always been a staunchness of purpose, a sunny sort of courage in all her theatrical wanderings; and I shouldn’t be surprised one day to find her with the world at her feet again — this time by virtue of brains plus personality.
She will have her own film company this fall and she has chosen as the initial vehicle the story of an Indian girl. Imagine — Kay — the blonde, the almost-ethereal — sacrificing her gossamer appeal to play a young squaw with a straight black wig and bronzed skin!
You know how she came to pictures, don’t you? She was at dinner one night and met two friends of hers — Mr. and Mrs. Rex Beach. They were all talking about pictures. In particular the picturization of Beach’s story, The Brand. Mrs. Beach looked at Kay: “Why can’t you play the part?”
“All right,” said Kay — and the next thing she knew she was in Culver City, California.
That was a tough premier for a girl whose only previous dramatic experience had been doing the Follies walk across a glittering stage! Later she went to Lasky’s [Jesse L. Lasky] to do the leading part, opposite Wally Reid [Wallace Reid], in Peter B. Kyne’s “The Valley of the Giants.” They had a great time on that picture; they went up to Truckee for the snow-scenes and Kay had the time of her life.
Back to Manhattan: she can never stay away from the island for very long at a time. But they’re wrong when they say that Kay is bounded by Forty-second street on the south and Columbus Circle on the north. She has been to Greenwich Village — and as I say she loves the country — Mamaroneck — although if anyone told her she had to live there she’d very likely stay in her apartment at the Hotel Savoy all the year ‘round.
When you read this, she’ll have started work in earnest; she considers this the real beginning of her film career. Her first story will be by Edgar Selwyn. The old Thanhouser studios in New Rochelle have been rented — Kay can motor home to lunch with the kids and mother if she cares to, for New Rochelle is just this side of Mamaroneck.
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Kay Laurell in her “Follies” costume. Incidentally, the French government ordered twenty thousand copies of this picture for posters.
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Try This Over on Your Horse
Horses are not, as might be supposed at first glance, for the purpose of riding — but for trying new stunts on. Such as standing on one’s head in the saddle, or doing a delsarte under and over the saddle. These movements, Douglas Fairbanks [Douglas Fairbanks Sr.] assures us, are quite simple — oh, quite. The only thing about it is, that if you landed on your head it might spoil the picture. Understand: Doug CAN ride — he’s ridden a horse ever since he was that high; they never bought a hobbyhorse for him; he wouldn’t have one. But now that stunt riding is one of his film specialties, he does this sort of thing for diversion.
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Her career is the career of a great beauty. And she happens to have a head that is as level as it is well-poised.
Photo by: Edward Thayer-Monroe
Collection: Photoplay Magazine, October 1919