Marjorie Rambeau — Sliding Down the Banisters to Success (1919) 🇺🇸
“No,” Marjorie Rambeau laughed, over her dainty cup, “I never was stage-struck. For a San Francisco girl, I was unusually slim and frail, because I had sprouted so rapidly. I am not an inch taller at present than I was when I wore pig-tails!
by C. Blythe Sherwood
“So, as a means of strengthening my health, I was sent, when a child, to the Paul Gerson School of Acting. They had an exceptional gymnasium course, and their dancing and calisthenic and fencing branches were, at the time, the best in the country. It just happened, that’s all” — offering some Parisian pastry — “that it was my lot to go on the stage. I had never given it a thought, remember, and yet, one day, a Mr. McLane came to the school to ask if he might choose a pupil to go on the vaudeville circuit in one of his sketches. He spied me as I was sliding down the banisters, and turned to the director, claiming I was the one he wanted! I was a youngster of twelve. I had never acted before. And yet he wanted me to play the part of a wife of thirty-four!” Miss Rambeau’s musical trill of joy re-trilled thru the rooms of her apartment.
“Of course, with little or no theatrical aspirations, I was tickled at the idea, and because Mr. McLane was so sincere in his conceptions that I had possibilities of being an actress, and his promise that he would make me a good one, mother — for she had been asked to accompany me — let me go. Well, for the first time in my life — it was then that I donned long skirts, corsets, high heels and put my hair on top of my head.
“I loved it. Mr. McLane felt that, so the next year he put me on in a play which happened to be none other than Dumas’ [Alexandre Dumas fils] masterpiece — only, I am sure I am not speaking at random when I say that that was the first time, I believe, Camille had ever been played by a girl of thirteen! Mr. McLane vowed he would make me the youngest leading lady… and it is so… out West… altho it was in stock… that is what I became.” Miss Rambeau flourished the radiation of her smile effulgently. “There! What have I been doing? Rambling on about myself! Oh, my dear… I think that will do for a while.” And she buoyantly arose and glided over to the victrola. “Here is a new record I want you to hear. I think it will please you.”
It was a pretty thing. A gossamer tune, most exquisitely wafted by the lambent wand of Heifetz [Jascha Heifetz]. After that she gave me another of his idylls, and then came Galli-Curci [Amelita Galli-Curci], Kreisler [Fritz Kreisler], McCormack [John McCormack]. Each one of them exhilarated her, then sobered her, in turn. She smiled at the seriousness of her felicity. After a while she said, “Please dont think me one-sided. Jazz music gives me a good time, too.” Whereupon for a half-hour the two of us experienced thrill upon thrill of sinking to the depths of uplifting, harmonious discord.
“I guess it’s that way with every one,” she confided, “our want of extremes. Why, my music cabinet is just like my fancies for food, or as my childhood goals used to be, either all good or all bad.
“Which reminds me of Alaska. There, there are only two kinds of women — good or bad. How I came to discover that was when I was sixteen years old. Mother and I and the company in which I had been starring were stranded in one of their mining villages, due to the neglect and disappearance of our drunken manager. Without him, we had nothing to do and were absolutely with no funds. The people of the center waited to see whether or not we would succumb to their cabarets. They were skeptical about the legitimacy of our purpose. They did not want to dare any more chances, so many times had they been fooled by the bad. After two weeks, mother and I were the only ones left. The others had by some way or other managed to reach Fairbanks. Doggedly we held out. One offer on top of the other, to sing and dance in the halls, were refused by us, until finally, when the cultured and wealthy inhabitants of the place realized our sincerity, we were, of a sudden, swamped with invitations to visit their homes, and even give private performances. You see, as soon as they came to make sure exactly which extreme we were, the good or bad, they acquiesced their acknowledgment.
“Life, following that, was wonderful. They gave a big benefit for me, and I remember now how, for almost an hour, I could not speak, after they had come to my cabin and let $438 fall into my lap! They suggested I organize a school of dramatic expression; they even presented me with the wood for the construction of the building. Their tiny children came… I taught them how to sing and recite and dance. The women joined and learnt how to give pageants and tableaux. And the men — well, they were just God’s men… big and clean… and boyish… and bright… and ever so eager to learn. As for me, oh, it was fabulous — like some of the moving pictures I see now! I was so happy… there with those real people… the kind who came running from miles away if they thought the smoke of their friend’s chimney wasn’t blowing right! I had my own dog-sled, too, composed of eight gorgeous canine specimens, and many a night I had to travel around alone — with this to say as a conclusion, that never, in all my two years’ existence up there, was I once insulted by one of the men, drinkers and gamblers tho they may have been.
“I promised myself, and mother and I promised each other, that some day we are going back. Then we’ll see old Bill Williams, the kindest, dearest Irishman that ever sleighed those parts in fur-skins. He was the one who drove us away the week we left. I shall never forget his concern about our comfort.
“I have so much to be thankful for, so many people to whom I owe my gratitude. There is Mr. McLane, for instance. Unpolished tho his methods of teaching may have been, often, of late, I have wished I had him here to give me his crude idea of the rudiments of a certain action. That is why I do not regret one bit of sorrow I have had to undergo, or any of the hardships I had been forced to combat. All those difficulties have made me stronger in the end, and now I cannot help but sense that it was right for me to suffer. Yes, of course, it was hard. Because I was led to big things right at the beginning does not signify that there were no knocks. There was youth, you know — youth, with its assets and handicaps. Many were the disappointments and discouragements, but, as I said, I feel now that they were all given to me with a dose of whyfore. They have taught me, so subtly and thoroly, how to appreciate what is worth appreciation.
“That is the way I feel about the movies. I wanted to do the interesting work they provide. I got what I wanted, so it must have been right, and I must have worked and wanted tremendously hard, because I get to love them more and more every day.”
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Marjorie Rambeau as she appears in Where Poppies Bloom. A San Francisco girl, Miss Rambeau was sent to a dramatic school. One day she chanced to slide down the banisters. A theatrical manager was standing at the bottom and he engaged her on the spot — to play a wife of thirty-four
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Once, stranded in Alaska, Marjorie Rambeau opened a school for dramatic expression in the wilds. Miss Rambeau owned her own dog-sled, in which she rode home at night after instructing the miners’ kiddies in the art of acting
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Collection: Motion Picture Classic Magazine, February 1919
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[Transcriber’s Note: For most blog posts, we include scans from the original article; for this post, we do not include the scans, because some words are cut off in the scans]