Renée Adorée — A Couple of Vive Las! (1926) 🇺🇸

Renée Adorée was impersonating Elsie Ferguson while in New York. No one, it seemed, could see her. At her hotel she was incommunicado; the set on which she worked was inaccessible to alien spirits; Renée was what the publicity department euphemistically called “difficult.” She was immersed in her work, it was said — wrapped up in her Art. An interview was, unfortunately, out of the question.

by Malcolm H. Oettinger

Then we chanced to meet at Aileen Pringle’s. And the elusive Adorée proved to be not a temperamental prima donna but a fascinating soubrette loath to tie herself down to more or less formal rendezvous with the press.

“I do not like the appointments,” she explained volubly. “It is always the questions: Are you in love? Are you married? Will you leave your present home? Who is the fiancé? Is there a wedding to be?” She shrugged her shoulders and smiled childishly, appealingly. “Who would like to have such questions?” she asked. “Not I, you may believe me.”

A romantic figure, she has been subjected to the usual rumors of betrothal to one man and another ever since her divorce from Tom Moore. Direct information from the lady herself on this impertinent subject was this: “Engaged? Married? But why? I am in love with life!”

Her poignant performance in The Big Parade was probably the outstanding sensation of the past season. Here was characterization that was brilliant, human, sure, penetrating the heart of the spectator as deftly as the etcher’s fine point bites the steel. Here was a cinema creation who lived and loved and laughed so realistically as to confound criticism. And more than one hitherto sceptical observer left the theater seeking the identity of this French girl, whence she had come, why she had lingered.

Adorée had been making pictures for five years — program pictures, just as The Big Parade was designed to be until its magnitude impressed the official eye. No one had noticed her particularly. Comedy she had played, with Creighton Hale, Glyn flapdoodle with Lew Cody, idyllic romance with Conrad Nagel — unheralded and, as the saying goes, unsung. In other words she had trouped jauntily enough, but not with compelling success.

Then the big picture came, and the big part met the right actress. As the adorable heroine of The Big Parade, Renée marched to triumph overnight.

Two other actresses have shared the same plight up to the past season, Louise Dresser and Belle Bennett both having plodded steadily along for years until their chances came in The Goose Woman and Stella Dallas, just as Renée’s opportunity arrived with the war story. (It is interesting to note, in passing, that the studio executives all expected the picture to be a singular success for John Gilbert. It was considered the man’s picture. The advance predictions were partly right: it did make Gilbert. But it also established Adorée!)

Meeting Adorée, you tell yourself that, after all, once in a while it happens. Memories of million-dollar ingénues with thirty-cent ideas, and imperial importations with bourgeois intellects, starched gentlemen and half-baked Stellas, imitation people, all fade as you find yourself facing a real person with a genuine personality.

Renée Adorée (a stage name, should any one harbor doubt on that score) is not beautiful, but she is a rare, individual type not soon forgotten. You remember her sparkling eyes, her curiously high cheekbones, her hungry mouth. She is the French girl of fiction humanized and made natural beyond recognition. She is a Maupassant coquette making eyes at Thomas Edison; a Gallic version of Zimbule O’Grady playing Bernhardt; La Boheme with Gershwin interpolations; a wildflower in Thorley’s window.

What Adorée lacks in beauty she makes up for in magnetism. She is what a more Freudian analyst might term sex incarnate.

Being pointed out as that girl who was so wonderful in The Big Parade worries her. She has a dread of becoming self-conscious. When she came to the refuge of the delightful Pringle apartment she was disguised, as usual, swathed in a shapeless cape. A funny hat concealed her attractively bobbed hair; dark glasses covered half her face. She could have been Marie Dressler or Mae Murray or Sis Hopkins. Then the cape was tossed into a corner, the hat alighted on a convenient chandelier, and after much coaxing, Adorée removed the glasses.

She is a gay, mad creature, impetuous, pagan, irrepressible, irresponsible. Engagements are often forgotten, appointments occasionally overlooked. Acting is second nature. Life? Whatever comes along is life.

A young actor was introduced to Adorée shortly after her arrival in New York last spring. He was delighted to meet her, formally enough, then in precipitate fashion asked, “May I take you to dinner some evening?” and Adorée simply asked, “Why?” It was primitive in its naïveté, but quite characteristic. For although Renée has portrayed sophisticated ladies on the screen times without number, she is not truly a sophisticate.

It is difficult to talk seriously to her. Her mercurial temperament precludes deliberation.

Born of French-Spanish parents, Adorée was reared in the bohemian atmosphere of the circus. As a child she rode bareback. Later, she roved about with a road troupe, and eventually her path led to America. There was the stage, then pictures; marriage to Tom Moore, and divorce. Then, after so many years, recognition.

“If people only should know of the work in each picture — in every scene,” said Renée. “If they should hear of the retakes at two o’clock in the morning, the cutting that kills so much, the terrible disappointment so often after all is done. But they do not know of these things. These are not what they call good publicity!”

Renée should know something about disappointment. Those in the know tell me that her work in La Bohème was the high light of the entire picture, magnificent in conception, eloquent in detail. Most of it now graces the cutting-room floor. For La Boheme was a starring vehicle, remember, and Adorée was not the star.

To spend time asking her about her acting would be fruitless and a trifle ridiculous. If there is such a thing as a born actress, she is it. Living in California for years has not served to Anglicize her Gallic charm. She is vivacious, quick, natural, spontaneous in everything she does. Her gestures speak volumes, her eyes are exclamation points.

She could say nothing of how effects were obtained, as Nazimova or Gish [Lillian Gish] could. She has no set formula. She has no definite method. But a certain aid to her success is her emotional force. At all times her feelings lie near the surface, with little veneer to protect them. There is no pose and little poise. She is utterly natural.

“I am myself. That is all one can be,” she said. “I am a gypsy dancing through the woods, or I am a coquette, or I am a Red Cross nurse. That is all. How can one say how one does this thing?” She arched her brows and smiled helplessly.

Famous Players borrowed Adorée and the gleaming Pringle to supply the drama in the most recent Meighan picture, Tin Gods. The first day Renée appeared at the studio the directorial Mr. Dwan called her aside. “We’re starting with some love scenes,” he said. “Play them tropically. Let’s see this great Normandy technique.” The vibrant Adorée played the scene in fiery fashion. Mr. Meighan turned from an ardent caress with a baffled expression on his face. “How can I keep my make-up on?” he asked.

In New York for the first time in years, Renée indicated that she was enjoying the pleasures of Manhattan, from parties given by Lenore Ulric to quieter dinners in the Fifties, from the dim elegance of the dance clubs east of the Avenue to the riotous bedlams in Harlem. But an impending personal appearance at the Astor Theater seemed to worry her.

“What shall I do?” she asked. “What can I say? I will not say the same ol’ stuff.’ I hate that.” She turned to me questioningly. “Why should any one wish to see me? I am there on the screen to be seen. Is that not better?” She fluttered an artless hand. “It is ver’ silly, isn’t it?”

As you may have gathered, she speaks English with a wisp of French accent.

For the present Renée was under contract to Metro-Goldwyn, eager to return to Hollywood to start work on a picture that would give her a role similar to the one she played so perfectly in The Big Parade.

Whatever Adorée does will be interesting, because Adorée is interesting!

While in New York, Renée Adorée announced her engagement to Rudolf Friml, the composer. She was also interviewed by Malcolm Oettinger, who gives impressions of her in the story opposite.

Photo by: Clarence Sinclair Bull (1896–1979)

Collection: Picture Play Magazine, September 1926