Louise Glaum — The Luxurious Louise (1919) 🇺🇸
Out of the chrysalis seclusion of unpleasant experiences, both business and domestic, comes now a regenerated, more sparkling Louise Glaum.
by Mary Keane Taylor
Unfortunately for Thomas Ince, he was unable to take Louise under his wing personally, for his releasing contract called for but four stars, but as he’s mighty fond of the Lady of the Peacocks, he suggested that J. Parker Reed be his proxy. In this way, Miss Glaum has all the advantages of the most up-to-date studio in the world, advantages which cover stages, props, laboratories, interior decorators, and every possible accoutrement of the modern motion picture.
Louise Glaum’s new dressing-room suite is in “Star Row.” She’s right next to Charlie Ray and Enid Bennett, and opposite the big swimming tank which will furnish her with lots of amusement in spare moments. You never saw Louise in a swimming outfit, did you? Miss Glaum says for once in her life she will allow the fans to see her in what she calls her “naughty-naughties” because most folks seem to think she lives in flowing draperies and fish-tail gowns.
The decorators at the Ince studio finished the little suite up beautifully, of course, each star bearing his or her own expense of interior fittings. One steps into a reception room whose windows are draped in pongee with side-drapes of heavy, dull blue. The wall paper is in blues and grays, and the pictures are soft tones of blue, gold or gray. f.
There’s a couch in the blue and gold with very lovely hand-bullioned cushions, wicker chairs, a harmonious rug, a tiny desk which never in the world is going to hold Louise’s fan letters, and best of all, a new-fangled gas-heater which keeps the place comfy in the chilliest times. Any one who has lived thru the oil-heater stage of Los Angeles studios will appreciate this innovation.
Adjoining this room one finds a tiny dressing-room, separated from it by monks’ cloth curtains stenciled in blue. Could a star possibly be more comfortably housed?
“Are you going to light-housekeep here, Miss Glaum?” I nosed in.
“I really could live here, couldn’t I? If we ever get flooded out in rainy season, I may stay overnight on my box-couch and cook a simple breakfast on the gas-heater. Anyway, I’m going to have tea things here and you’re invited right now to partake.”
But Miss Glaum doesn’t have to live in tiny quarters like this, for you see she has a beautiful closed car, a reliable chauffeur and a house in Los Angeles which is run by a maid who adores her, and protected by “Runtie” — her most beloved possession, the little bulldog who was left to die by some unfeeling folk, and whom Louise nursed back to life for three months of his early career. Runtie, being a grateful little brat, lived to be his mistress’ shock-absorber and he endeavors in every way to keep her from harm.
“Runtie hates to ride on the front seat with my chauffeur,” said Miss Glaum. “He wants to sit inside in state, but he gets so excited if other dogs pass us in machines, that he tumbles all over my clothes, and chiffon draperies wont stay pretty with doggie-toes digging into them — for, you see, I often dress at home and then motor out. Sometimes my frocks are just yards and yards of georgette, net or chiffon put on by my dressmaker at home as it would waste too much of her time to go to the studio with me. I have shelves upon shelves of goods, lengths from ten to twenty yards, and one of the things I’ll wear in Sahara is made of wide georgette which I had specially dyed from cream to the deepest cerise. You can buy things of this kind in New York, but not out here. It’s the same way about train gowns — the Eastern costumers carry them, but there’s no call for many out here, and I do love trains. That is why I have a little dressmaker who makes things according to my own designs. The shaded chiffons look beautiful in a picture, even tho their colors are not seen.”
As she talked, her chin always tilted upward, a little habit Miss Glaum has, her intelligent eyes shining sympathetically, her smile encouraging one to stay and chat, I studied this girl who has been registering vampire “impressions” for so long, and whose whole being is so utterly feminine, motherly and domestic. You see, Louise Glaum’s real life is entirely different from her stage conceptions. She loves housekeeping, likes to stay alone with a fire, a good book and Runtie, and has risen bravely out of the chaos of heartaches caused by her divorce and business mismanagement.
“It was very hard at first,” said Louise. “You see, I had always been romantic, and when I married, I had pictured a life of home-making and domestic bliss. I was always idealizing home, husband and even tiny happenings.”
“Do you think that very early marriages are a mistake? Is it because i people marry too young that they tire of each other?”
“No, I dont think it’s that — for you remember how many old folks we see who have lived together forty or more years happily, and who married in their teens. I think it is because, in this business, we become tired, strained, we are flattered; if we are a little weak we are misled by those who flatter us; we may become irritable, temperamental — and then a sudden word, a lack of self-control — we meet some one who appears to be more congenial — well, it all spells divorce,” said Miss Glaum very seriously.
Never has Louise Glaum looked so well, happy or childlike. Her skin is very clear, and the color in her cheeks isn’t from a rouge-box. In private life, she doesn’t use make-up, as most of us do nowadays. Her hair is the shiniest brown, rolled over the ears, softly coiled in back, and peeping out under a very new and stunning brown straw turban. Turbans seem made for Louise — any shape or size is becoming to her.
“Yes, I’m very happy now, happier than ever in my life,” said Miss Glaum in answer to my question. “I’ve gained much knowledge, I have philosophized and learnt that loss is often gain. It was hard at first to realize things — and I used to wish that I might die; I couldn’t see much joy in just acting and then going home and finding no family life such as I had dreamed of. But now — I would not go back to the old past. If I ever marry again, he will be a homely man, good, very intelligent, domestic — but not a man in the profession. He may be a business man or in any other profession, hut not in mine. When I say homely, I mean of that type which is so intelligently homely that one says after a time ‘Isn’t he a splendid looking man?’ But you see I’m idealizing and dreaming again. Somehow, I feel that I wont be making a second matrimonial mistake, tho.”
“And what of your subsequent plays?”
“I’m reading magazines, books, in fact anything suggested or sent to me. Just about the time I wire an option to New York, some one else seems to have gotten there first. You see, I want plays that are true to life. People aren’t shocked at reading domestic tragedies in newspapers; in fact, they seem to hunt those out particularly. It has been the custom too long to bar from the screen anything like the vivid sufferings of women who err in one direction, but are good at heart and who come thru all right, or else die before their regeneration, but still winning the sympathy of the audience.
“I want to do the real thing — I want to live the women who suffer nowadays. It’s not real to be sinless — none of us have reached that stage. The thing which matters is how we make use of our experiences, how we can teach others, sympathize with them, understand their motives. No one of us who condemns can know what she might have done under just such circumstances. I am always analyzing complex characters — whether in books, in newspapers or in the plays submitted to me. I want to understand the effect environment has on others.” ruminated this clever star.
“Your desire in that direction is going to carry you pretty far around the world, isn’t it? You seem always to be carried to foreign locations — it ought to be a mighty liberal education,” I ventured.
“Yes, and I hate shams, too. I want real camels when I do a desert scene, not an inserted Pathé bit from a travelogue. I want to be where the sand lies thick, not on the lot with a few tons shoveled in. We went to Oxnard desert this last time and, while we used a wind-machine for the sand-storm, everything was very realistic otherwise, including the bad camels who wanted to chew members of the company, and who did succeed in biting the negro attendant’s arm very badly.”
“Have you tamed your peacocks?”
“I hate to admit that they are the most horrid, unruly, disagreeable birds any one ever saw. They simply wont do what you want. They screech and run and, when it’s necessary to use them, the chauffeur catches them and has to hold them until we get started. In fact, for Sahara we hired trained birds which stood by calmly. I do love my peacocks, just because I’m strong for bright colors and barbaric splendor, and because I think they are sort of mysterious animals, but I cant tell you they are pets — for they are not, and probably- never will be, ungrateful things!”
Just imagine the girl who can emote until you are all shivers and thrills, who has always played parts which lead her away from Friend Husband, and who has seemed to live in an atmosphere of gorgeous frocks, male adulation and queenly power, preferring her own lonely fireside with a wee bull-dog for company!
But when you’ve talked with Louise Glaum — you understand just why, for she’s a perfectly unaffected, womanly, sincere bit of humanity.
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Louise Glaum is an odd type. Known to the screen as a “vampire,” she wholly loves home life and seclusion. Most of all she longs for housekeeping, a fireside, a good book and her pet dog, Runtie. Below is a home study of Miss Glaum and her mother
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Photo by Hoover
“I’m very happy now,” says Miss Glaum. “I’ve gained much knowledge, I have philosophized and learnt that loss is often gain… I want to play real women in the future. I want to live the women who suffer nowadays. It’s not real to be sinless, none of us have reached that stage”
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Collection: Motion Picture Classic Magazine, June 1919