Paul Lukas Is A Love Expert — That's Why Women Love Him (1931) 🇺🇸

Paul Lukas was born on a railroad train, a sufficient number of years ago for him to omit the date in his biography. The train was moving very fast in the direction of Budapest. Paul has been moving very fast ever since.

by Gladys Hall

The son of well-to-do parents, it was supposedly written in the Lukas horoscope that the youth should follow in the footsteps of the father, who conducted a large and prosperous advertising business. Else wherefore sons? argued Lukas père.

Paul had one sister. She died in girlhood. His sister's death is one of the two things Paul cannot talk about. He tries to and is dumb. Her passing was his deepest hurt. It changed the gay and smiling face of life for him. He never forgets pain. He nourishes grief; old injuries and slights and injustices live within him.

Paul had a happy, carefree childhood.

He doesn't remember much about it because it was-so smooth and carefree. He lived in an exclusive residential district of Budapest. His maternal grandmother had a farm in the country. Paul and his sister spent their Christmases and Easters on the farm. And Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny and other figures of legend came there to keep them company. There were Yule logs and snow on the ground and stockings hung and carols sung.

When Paul was ten he had a gang. He was the leader. They called themselves the Chicagos. They were so named because on the outskirts of Budapest there was a lively section called Chicago where ladies bright with paint, and gay with feathers, walked the squalid streets The young Chicagos (and their leader) observed these ladies from ambush with awe and admiration.

Paul's most vital statistic is expressed in three words — his own: “Women — women — WOMEN.” Wouldn't you know it? His life, from youth up, has been divided into two major interests — women and the theater. Other things are but pale shades of these.

Paul was interested in little girls when he was a very little boy. He had no illusions then and he has none now about the reason-for-being of that alluring sex. Little girls were made to be kissed by little boys, and largely, by himself. He did what their birthrights demanded of him — and has been doing the same ever since, either in shadow or in substance.

Takes to Acting

Paul was educated in the best colleges in Hungary, and developed into a good scholar. He was a very strong and virile lad. In 1912 he was in the Olympic games at Stockholm, carrying out a wrestling assignment.

In 1913 he was doing the requisite military service of his country. He thought the world was his. He led the kind of a life a movie actor leads when he is playing a young officer on the screen. There was unlimited money from the parental source.

There was wine and there was song — and there were women. Paul had sweethearts hidden here — and not hidden there. Once, he told me, he was an unmarried bigamist and had two sweethearts at one and the same time. They began to suspect the situation, and it ladies could fight duels — there would have been one.

After which came the War. It has been told to what a nauseous extent Paul loathed the War for the wanton killing of good fellows who might have been good companions in a more civilized state of affairs. It has been told how he feigned shell-shock so adroitly that he fooled his superior officers and was invalided home.

He returned home to face another war — father versus son — meeting in the front-line trench of Advertising versus Acting.

Paul capitulated to advertising for a few months and found that slogans and the smell of ink gave him another kind of shell-shock. He was pleasant, but firm. His father told him he could depart if it pleased him, but he could depart without funds. Paul departed, penniless. He knew what it meant. There would be no more rosy apartments, no more expensive ladies. But there would be the Theater — his other and, perhaps, greater Love.

Paul joined the Actors' Academy of Budapest. He got a job tutoring two small boys, for which he was given a substantial midday meal and no more. He went for days without breakfasts or dinner and for days without a clean shirt, which was worse. Paul is fanatically fastidious about his appearance, as are all Casanovas.

He bore these hardships philosophically while they lasted. But they bred in him a violent hatred of being poor. In all of its aspects. He sees nothing romantic about poverty. Money is vitally important to him. He isn't wealthy now. His salary is still below the thousand-dollars-a-week mark. Which is somehow surprising, considering the name he has made for himself on the screen.

Paul made his stage debut in the Comedy Theater, Budapest, in the title role of Liliom. During the years he appeared at the Comedy he also appeared in plays by Lajos Biro and Ernst Yajda, both of whom have since come to Hollywood and to Paramount. Paul also played every character ever conceived by Shakespeare, Shaw, Oscar Wilde, Moliere and Galsworthy.

He made his first screen appearance in Berlin, in the Ufa production of "Samson and Delilah." (He played Samson.)

A few months later Paul was cast in Antonia. Adolph Zukor was in the audience. If you put two and three together you will know that the next day Paul signed a contract that brought him to America to play with Pola Negri in "Loves of an Actress."

During the time that Paul was at the Comedy he married for the first time. This is that other thing Paul will not talk about. One gathers a pitiful, tender tale of young love and garrets, with too little to eat, and the Wolf breaking down the door and gnawing at young Romance. But one doesn't know...

Thoroughly Domesticated

Pail met his second wife while he was playing in her home-town. It was just before he made Antonia and attracted the attention of Mr. Zukor. He appeared upon the stage that certain night. SHE was sitting in the stage box. He looked at her just once and knew that he loved her Without wasting any time, he gave instant and successful pursuit — and they were married. Mrs. Paul is blonde and chic and colorful. She dresses in red and black by preference, and is distinctly an Hungarian type. She doesn't look the housewife as her husband would have her, but resembles the decorative type who lends background to elite social functions. Paul would have you believe that he is the boss in his own home. There can be only one and he is that one. He says, "My house in Hollywood is a little piece of Hungarian territory. My wife is an Hungarian wife. Other women may work — but not my woman. She is married to me. That is her occupation and her career."

If Paul had his life to live over again he would do two things differently. He would come to America five years earlier than he did — and he would not have pursued woman so soon or so often. He says that he is tired, not physically, but mentally. What interested him and intrigued him once, interests and intrigues him no longer.

Which, of course, makes him a good husband. He admits it. He says, "I do not cheat." He adds that if his wife did, or even appeared to, it would be "bang over the head — and out she goes!"

Paul is six feet, one and one-half inches tall. He wears a toupee for pictures, but looks even more dangerous without it. He weighs 186 pounds and has curious hazel brown eyes.

He is lazy, which is one of the reasons why he loves flying. He gets a feeling of the futility of all earthly things when he is in the air. Even the Theater and Woman look small and insignificant viewed from the clouds.

Seeks Success — Not Happiness

He is jealous. He wants success — what he has had does not begin to satisfy him — he wants more of it — and more and more. He loves being an actor. He is not happy. He knows that life is futile when you consider that there is only one certainty and that one Death. But he doesn't think about it.

He has two police dogs. They are his hobbies and his pets. He never goes to parties and seldom gives them. He reads all of his press notices, reviews and the cards sent in from previews and chuckles or groans over each and every one of them. I caught him going over them. There were more chuckles and exclamations of "Splen-did — splen-did!" than there were groans.

His wife came into the Paramount Commissary where we were lunching and Paul arose and gallantly kissed her hand.

He envies people with children.

He is exactly what he seems to be on the screen, suave, sophisticated, a little tired, rather touching, rather naughty, young enough to be exciting and old enough to be mellow with experiences savoured and lost.

If you are in love with him on the screen you'd be more so if you met him off, wife or no wife, toupee or no toupee. These Hungarians from Budapest have a manner all their own, especially when they have the dash and bearing of Paul Lukas.

ENOUGH OF HIS LIFE TO EXPLAIN HIS REPUTATION

Is a Hungarian who hails from Budapest. Has been interested in women all of his life. Had plenty of sweethearts in his youth, one of whom he married. The marriage failed. Was a wrestler at the Olympic Games in Stockholm in 1912. Served with Hungarian forces in World War. Was invalided home and took up acting, but hasn’t made much money at it. Played on stage in Budapest and Berlin, and clever acting brought him to Hollywood and a screen contract. If he had his life to live over again he would not have pursued women so soon or so often. Second marriage is successful — his wife being an Hungarian, blonde, chic and of striking appearance. Loves flying, but senses the futility or everything when in the air, including theaters and women. Is fastidious about his clothes. He is as suave and sophisticated in real life as he is on the screen. Has two police dogs, but envies people with children. Is six feet tall, weighs nearly two hundred pounds, has hazel brown eyes and wears a toupee. Looks just as dangerous without it.

Did You Know That —

• Johnny Weissmuller, the swimming champ, has been signed to play Tarzan in M-G-M's talkie version of Edgar Rice Burroughs' famous African yarn?
• Ronald Colman, now vacationing in Italy, has signed a new contract with Samuel Goldwyn to make two films a year for the next five years?
• Jimmy Durante will henceforth be billed as Jimmie (Schnozzle) Durante because the Schnozzle goes over big with the youngsters?
• Now that musicals are coming back, Stanley Smith — who almost became Buddy Rogers' rival — is returning to Hollywood from Broadway?
• Many actors who played gangsters are now looking for jobs?

Collection: Movie Classic Magazine, December 1931