Marguerite Courtot — Tea for Three (1920) 🇺🇸
The time was a golden afternoon in autumn. The place was the Commodore, almost newest of New York’s mammoth, perfectly appointed hotels. The girl — and hostess — was Marguerite Courtot, petite, gracious, modishly dressed. The guests, a friend vampirishly attired in a black velvet gown and turban, and — the interviewer.
by Lillian Montanye
“I want a table for three, with pink candles and — I hope the orchestra is going to play,” confided Marguerite to the waiter, who outdistanced the others in their efforts to reach us.
“Yes’m,” he said, leading the way to a cosy corner, and “yes’m, the orchestra will play,” he promised, beaming fatuously while he waited for us to decide as to the advisability of cinnamon toast and tea, frivolously named ices and assorted cakes.
There came the opening strains of Poet and Peasant. “Isn’t music wonderful!” exclaimed Marguerite. “The only time I feel that I would like to be on the stage is when I hear music like that — just beginning. It must be so wonderfully inspiring to the players back stage when the orchestra begins playing and they know that the audience is out front waiting — just for them. But the desire doesn’t last long,” she laughed, “and I’m glad, because I want to stick to pictures, now that I’m back.”
Marguerite Courtot was lost to the screen tor a couple of years for the best reason in the world. She had not time or inclination for anything but war work. She gave her time unreservedly to Red Cross and canteen work, speaking for Liberty Loan and War Saving Stamps, sewing, knitting, writing myriads of letters to the boys overseas. And then, as unobtrusively as she went, she came back and with Guy Empey [Arthur Guy Empey] in Undercurrents [The Undercurrent (1919)], with David Powell in Teeth of the Tiger, with Eugene O’Brien in The Perfect Lover, she has slipped back into popular favor — the same Marguerite, with the same fetching little French air, and as refreshingly modest and natural as in the Kalem days when she dawned, a little star, upon the photoplay firmament.
Thru my mind flitted memories of the picture beloved by fans of all ages, “The Barefoot Boy.” Children loved it because perhaps only that day they had droned from their third reader:
“Blessings on thee, little man,
barefoot boy with cheeks of tan.”
And there he was! “with his turned-up pantaloons,” and they could just imagine his “merry whistled tunes,” because schools had evidently not yet been instituted, they thought, enviously, as they saw the carefree youngster visualized on the screen. Grown-ups loved it because it brought back their own childish, happy days and, as the little figure on the screen splashed and rollicked its way straight into their hearts, they breathed a prayer and a tender recollection:
“With my heart I wish thee joy;
I was once a barefoot boy.”
Curiously, Marguerite began speaking about this very picture. “It’s the best thing I ever did,” she said, reminiscently, a wistful light in her hazel eyes. “Of course, it appealed to me then, because I was just a child and it didn’t seem like work.”
“But weren’t you only fifteen when you did Zoe in ‘The Octoroon’? — And that was an emotional role, quite a big one.”
“Yes,” she admitted, “but acting before the camera not as hard for me as for the usual beginners, because I had posed for a great many Harrison Fisher pictures. It was a preparation for my motion picture work, altho I did not realize it at the time, but it cured me of the inevitable self-consciousness, so that the camera had no terrors for me whatever. I had taken a great many dancing lessons, too, and that helps,” pausing a moment as the rollicking strains of I Have My Captain Working for Me Now were wafted to our corner.
“I adore to dance, I never tire of it, but not in noisy cabarets and restaurants — I dislike them very much, also subways and crowded streets and New York in general. I live in Jersey, and love it there and don’t care who knows it. If I have a hobby, it is my home and mother and sister, and I like to change furniture about and arrange the rooms tastefully and study out color schemes for the bedrooms.”
Miss Courtot doesn’t think it hurts a star in the least to do serial work; in fact, she is very firm in her championship of this particular kind of picture. A serial keeps a star before the public for weeks and weeks and is the best kind of advertising, she said, frankly, and, as for the pictures, serials are as carefully produced and in some cases they are much higher class than so-called features.
“Not since the old Kalem days have I been so happy and contented in my work. Such wonderful people to work for! Mr. Seitz [George B. Seitz], who produced the picture I just finished, was also the director and played the leading part. He is the busiest man in the profession — but he is ideal to work with and for. You know the studio is in an impossible part of the city — impossible to find a place to eat especially. But Mr. Seitz inaugurated a lunchroom and we have delicious home-cooked meals every day. We work from ten until five and until one on Saturdays — quite different from some studios I have met — but Mr. Seitz is such a human dynamo, accomplishes so much himself — and does so much for all of us that we are on our mettle to do our best. “We have finished our picture and I have a two weeks’ rest before beginning the next one. Please don’t judge my last picture Bound and Gagged by its name; it sounds like a regular ten-reel thriller — but the name is erroneous. No one is bound and no one is gagged. The story is about a young man who goes adventuring into far places in possession of a certain secret which he was bound not to tell. See?”
If I were asked suddenly to state the most charming characteristic of Marguerite Courtot, I should say “her lisp,” which is entirely unconscious, and instead of impeding her speech, it adds quaintness and charm to her prettily modulated voice. Again, I would say that her principal attraction is her indescribable girlishness, her quiet vivacity. One can’t imagine her being wildly enthusiastic or boisterous, but in her half-shy way she is thoroly convincing. There is wisdom in her pretty head and simple ideals — in her heart — the same pure, unspoiled ideals that she cherished in the old days — before she came back.
—
Marguerite Courtot was lost to the screen for a couple of years for the best reason in the world. She had not time or inclination for anything but war work
—
One can’t imagine her being wildly enthusiastic or boisterous, but in her half-shy way she is thoroly convincing
—
—
Collection: Motion Picture Magazine, February 1920
—
Marguerite Courtot
Marguerite is another young “old star” — one doesn’t quite remember when she didn’t come to the screen now and then to please them with some portrayal. She has been “serialling” lately, having started on another Pathé serial almost immediately upon the completion of Bound and Gagged.
Photo by Bradley Studios, N. Y.
Collection: Motion Picture Magazine, March 1920