Mady Christians — So Much Ability (1935) 🇺🇸
Hollywood, attention! Don't "type" Mady Christians, she's too versatile.
A dazzling beauty in Vienna, Mady Christians was imported to Hollywood only to find herself cast as a drab, hard-working drudge in "A Wicked Woman."
As we chatted over the luncheon table at the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer studio, I recalled that lovely Berlin-made film, The Waltz Dream, which introduced an exciting Mady to our screens a few years ago and I wondered how she felt about drab roles.
Her reply was diplomatic, "Perhaps," she said, "it is well to establish me as an actress first, not just as a personality. We need all sides of life in our film dramas but I believe screen audiences, especially the American ones, prefer romances with glamor."
She added, I thought a bit wistfully, "I hope in my other pictures I can sometimes be decked out in peacock feathers and dazzling frocks. And I want to sing and laugh, too."
Her name, Mady Christians, intrigues one. And the girl herself, a tall, willowy blonde with exuberant spirits and sensitive moods, very definitely stirs the imagination. There's nothing exotic about her and she has no desire to envelop herself in mystery. She's a laughing, wholesome girl finding joy in each hour of the day.
She greets you with a firm clasp of the hand, like a man. She is utterly sincere and has no pretenses whatsoever. She looks straight at you when she talks — and her eyes are the bluest, most expressive I've ever seen. Fearless, independent, yet she is always deliciously feminine.
Born in Vienna, Mady is, however, a citizen of the world, a true cosmopolite. She has lived in many countries and this contact with the peoples of various nations has influenced her basic character and her emotions; her understanding embraces all humanity.
While A Wicked Woman, offered opportunity for her ability and one senses the power and authority of the finished actress whenever she is on the screen, this story of a Texas swamp woman and her rise in life never once revealed Mady's beauty, her humor or her glamorous personality, which is rather too bad considering how much of all three she has to give.
Nothing could have kept Mady from becoming an actress. Her father was Rudolph Christians, one of Germany's foremost actors. Her mother was an opera singer whose greatest fame was won in singing the role of Marguerite in Faust. So, it was but natural that this name, lovingly shortened to Mady, should be chosen by the romantic young couple for their baby.
Mady spent her childhood traveling all over Europe with her parents on their professional tours and, while she was still very young, the family came to New York where they established the German Theatre. Their home became the center of a brilliant group of artists, writers and actors. The child was reared in an environment of the finest traditions of the theatre.
Oddly enough, in view of their own successes, neither her father nor her mother wanted her to go on the stage. She explains this by saying that all actors have a sentimental yearning for a home and a quiet family life, both so impossible in their profession. With this in mind, they urged their daughter to marry, have children and settle down far from the excitement of the treatre. But already the love of the stage was in her blood.
After a brief fling in her father's company, when he reluctantly permitted her to play the part of a German girl because she could speak the language fluently, she knew definitely that the stage was her very life.
So, in 1917, after months of discussions, her father gave in and Mady was sent to Berlin where she entered the Max Reinhardt School.
Being Rudolph Christians' daughter made it hard, for all her father's friends expected so much of her. She didn't know it at the time, but Christians had written ahead to Reinhardt, telling him to disregard all the sentiment of their life-long friendship and make it as difficult as possible for his daughter. He wished to test her sincerity for the career she had chosen.
Mady says she was a tall, lanky girl, terribly scared but stubbornly determined. The more obstacles that appeared, the harder she worked. She knew she had to succeed not only for herself but for her father, whom she adored so extravagantly.
Now, it takes much more than a certain temperament and an inherent aptitude to develop a really fine actress. It requires hard work, hours upon hours of study. It takes experience in a variety of roles in order to learn how to visualize emotions. Above all, one must be imbued with a burning passion to achieve his goal.
Mady was diligent. She studied music and now sings everything from grand opera to the latest jazz in a rich mezzo-soprano voice. She is also, an accomplished pianist. She studied elocution, history, languages. She speaks five languages fluently and has appeared in plays and films in Vienna, Paris, Berlin and London. Already she has eighteen talking pictures to her credit and most of these were made in three languages. To show how sincere she is, she employed a Texas gardener and learned from him how to give the Southern slur to words of her dialogue for A Wicked Woman, so as to create the authentic color and atmosphere of the Texas locale.
Mady's enthusiasm might deny that struggle and hardship trailed her path, but her triumph as one of the most brilliant actresses of Europe was won slowly and painfully. No spectacular climb to the top, no sudden applause marked those early years of struggle. Her entire career is a lesson in fortitude that should be memorized by every aspiring young actress.
One time, when things were going badly and Reinhardt had no place for her in any of his plays, Mady sang torch songs in a little cafe in the basement of one of Reinhardt's theatres in Berlin. Here she found a warm response from the patrons that bolstered up her courage and renewed her confidence — both so desperately needed at that zero hour.
A year and a half later, she was starring in a great tragedy, Orestie, in the theatre above. Frequently during the four months' run of the play, Mady would slip down into the cellar cafe and sing a song just for old time's sake.
Looking back over these years of hard work, heartbreak and disappointments with an occasional bright spot, I think she is grateful that she had a hard beginning, for it built up a spirit of endurance and courage, of which she is very proud. Sudden and easy success is dangerous because it lacks foundation. She insists that to become a good actress requires a lifetime of effort.
"Among my cherished treasures," she told me, "are two yellowed theatre programs. One is of The Miser, the first play I did under Reinhardt's management. The other is that of The Son of Casanova, my first starring play in Berlin, after four years of intensive study. That marked the happiest moment in my life and — my saddest.
"Father had lost his German theatre in New York after the World War and when he was summoned to Hollywood to make 'Foolish Wives,' he accepted. He was there at this time and I sent him a cable on the opening night, the next morning I mailed a program and some clippings, hoping he would be proud of me. They were returned unopened; my father had died away off in California on the very day of my success in Berlin. He never knew I had won my fight."
Afraid of its memories, Mady determined never to come to Hollywood. Refusing many offers, she waited eleven years, then found that time had softened the sorrow.
It was while she was in New York last year doing Vicki Baum's play, The Divine Drudge, and Rachel Crothers' Talent, that she first seriously considered Hollywood. Neither of these plays scored but Mady Christians was lauded by every critic as one of the great artists of the stage. With her theory that all things work for the best, she looks upon this experience as a precious interlude in her career, for it fulfilled her girlhood ambition to return to New York as a dramatic star. Too, she considers both plays a success from a professional point, and the day Talent closed she received ten offers from stage, films and radio.
A dozen screen tests for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer sent the studio executives into raves and they heralded Mady as the next great foreign star. She was immediately put under contract and given what was considered a choice role of the season, that of the tragic wife in A Wicked Woman. Although the story was mediocre, Mady proved what a splendid actress she really is.
Now, Mady is settled in Hollywood. A tiny house with a tiny garden clinging to a sunny slope in Benedict Canyon is her home. It is all very simple, the only pretentious thing being an electric fountain which is her delight as it is a rendezvous for all the neighboring birds.
Hollywood being the crossroads of the theatrical world, she has met many old-time friends and has become popular with a lot of new ones. She is fast losing the relentlessness that has always been her curse. She is hoping that her young husband, Sven von Muller, a brilliant writer on German national financial affairs in Berlin, will visit her soon. Their marriage is one of those rare, understanding romances where each honors the other's career with no attempt whatever at interference.
She looks to be about thirty but she is the ageless type. Her beauty and appeal do not depend upon the more perishable feminine qualities. She is strong, vital, robust and one wouldn't associate nerves with this girl. Yet, she confesses that, despite her many stage and screen premieres, she has never suffered such agonies of apprehension as she did the night her first Hollywood film was to be previewed. It seemed the crux of her career.
She has the humble spirit of the truly great and is not striving for superficial fame that may be won in a single role and forgotten tomorrow. She is building to whatever is worth while in the acting art.
You are going to like her on the screen — she's so real. While laughter and bubbling merriment are always near the surface, Mady Christians is tremendously serious about her work. To her, acting is the greatest of all the Arts!
Hollywood gaiety at the popular night rendezvous, the Trocadero. Left to right, Frances Drake, Dick Powell and his best girl, Mary Brian, and the big horn blower, Bill Gargan.
Collection: Modern Screen Magazine, April 1935