Pearl Sindelar — Sans Grease Paint and Wig (1913) 🇺🇸

Pearl Sindelar was having a day off and was trying to figure out just how many of fifty-seven varieties of things she could do in that one day — three-fourths of a day, really, for it was already 10 a. m.

by Mabel Condon

“If I go to my dressmaker’s first, I’ll be late for my singing lesson, but if I don’t go, then I won’t get a chance to go later, for there’s that luncheon at 12:30 and you can’t rush madly away from a luncheon, you know!” “Of course not!” agreed Miss Winters and Miss Gore [Rosa Gore], from respective nooks of the co-operative dressing-room.

Miss Sindelar inspected herself and fluffy little turban in the opposite mirror, experimented with the turban at a new angle, drew her brows together and continued: “On the other hand, if I go to my dressmaker’s in a rush —!” Out-turned palms and a shrug of her shoulders said, as plainly as words, “Result — an out-of-temper dressmaker, a spoiled gown and a disappointed me!”

“Why not forego the singing lesson?” came from one of the nooks.

“My dear — and forfeit five dollars!” Miss Sindelar reprimanded. “The minute I ring that man up and say I’m coming I owe him five dollars, whether I come or not.” There was complete and absolute silence in both the nooks.

The Sindelar brows smoothed themselves out, the Sindelar mouth smiled two rows of pretty teeth into view and the Sindelar decision was, “I won’t go to the dressmaker’s.”

“Instead, tell me about yourself and the name ‘Sindelar,’” I suggested from the affluent depths of the “company chair.”

“Why, the name ‘Sindelar’ is that of my husband,” explained the half-owner of the name. “Wait — would you care to see his picture?”

“Very much,” I returned, sensing the suggested honor that awaited me.

“Here it is — this was taken in his studio. He’s a commercial artist and we have the nicest studio apartment; it’s on Forty-second street. And Charles does the loveliest work.”

The good-looking man in the photograph smiled out at the world as though in pleasure at the nice words of his wife and a voice from one of the nooks volunteered, “Pearl is dreadfully proud of him.”

Pearl laughed a musical, tinkly laugh and admitted willingly her “dreadful” pride in her husband.

“Awfully good looking,” I commented as she returned the photograph to its honor position on her dresser. “I think he is,” she modestly agreed, with a final look at the picture, which now divided space rights with the dresser’s array of twenty-nine or more articles conducive to make-up. Then she turned her back upon the dresser, seated herself on the creton-covered shirt-waist box and wished that she might bring a worthy share of fame to the name “Sindelar” by doing something very big, in Pathé pictures.

“But you’re doing that now in the leads you take,” I reminded the lady with the fluffy, golden-lit hair, the pleasant blue eyes and the ambition to do more and bigger things.

“But there’s always something else, something you haven’t quite reached yet, don’t you see,” returned Miss Sindelar. “I’m striving to reach that ‘something else’ because I like the work so well. I’ve been with the Pathé company for six months and before that, was at the Biograph studio.

“But acting is nothing new to me; I’ve done it since I was ten years old and lived in a trunk, really, from then until I married. That is why I appreciate my home so much, I know what it is to be without one. It’s great to plan meals and see that there’s no dust on the piano and that the woman who ‘comes in’ twice a week sweeps the corners clean.

“I don’t think, though, that I could be quite satisfied without my work; in fact, I know I couldn’t, so when I married I continued on the stage, but only accepted engagements in town. Previous to then, I had played two seasons with Al Woods’ Girl in the Taxi, was with W. A. Brady six years, in stock several years and vaudeville, three years. So you see the stage quite ‘had me,’” she summed up with a laugh.

“My husband was on the stage for a time; his best role was Antony in Cleopatra, but he liked his special branch of art better and returned to his studio, where he says he intends to remain. But for me — well, pictures give me the variety work I like best and they let me have a home and my evenings to do with as I please.”

“And let you take singing lessons and attend luncheons on off days,” came from one of the nooks.

“Which reminds me,” exclaimed Miss Sindelar, hurriedly deserting the shirt-waist box to embark on a still hunt through her dresser, “Where did I put that lemon? I should have swallowed it long ago, but I forgot. It helps my voice, you know.”

As the dresser failed to yield the sought for lemon, the quest was abandoned with a resigned, “I wouldn’t have time for it now, anyway.” And then, when she didn’t want it, one of the “nooks” remembered of a sudden, that the lemon had happened into her dresser instead of the Sindelar dresser and it was brought forth into the light of day and general disdain.

After a busy five minutes with her hat and gloves and card case, Miss Sindelar was pronounced, “Quite stunning, dear,” by the nook occupants, who hoped it wouldn’t rain, though they both agreed that the sun didn’t look as though it would last through the day.

It didn’t rain for a week, so Miss Sindelar’s engagement-filled “holiday” was most likely an enjoyable one.

There are “holidays” and holidays — I’d prefer the latter variety.

—

Collection: Motography Magazine, October 1913