Valeska Suratt, “A Siren at Home” (1916) 🇺🇸
There are various types of sirens and vampires, but Valeska Suratt is, seemingly, the wickedest of them all.
by Lillian May
She was strangely fascinating in The Immigrant — her characteristic and peculiar style of hair-dressing seemed to fit the character, and the character fitted her. But in The Soul of Broadway she is daring, charming, alluring and repelling all at once. As one follows the beautiful and soul-wrecking siren thru the scenes of this play, it seems impossible that she could be a regular person, or any real person at all. And upon being invited to visit her at her home, I must confess that I was equally curious and fearful, being afraid I did not know the secret of making friends with a vampire lady.
I was met at the door of the apartment by a maid. “Yes’m, Miss Suratt she expects you, but she is not home yet; you are to come in and wait, miss,” she said.
Upon being shown into the living-room, I fairly gasped with astonishment — I was standing in one of the famous black-and-white rooms depicted on the screen in The Soul of Broadway.
It was startling, enchanting, charming, yes — and restful. In the first place, the room was very large — the size of four ordinary apartment rooms. The walls were a creamy white with black figures. The floor was covered with thick, black carpet, relieved here and there with rugs of black-and-white check.
The small-paned windows opened in — letting in the cool, evening air and, incidentally, the dim roar of Broadway from the street far below — and had dainty curtains of black-and-white stripes. The portières were of the same material. The furniture must have been made to order — the couches, divans and chairs being of quaint and artistic design, upholstered with black with pipings of white and with black and white cushions. Under one window stood a marble bench, or window-seat, upheld by pieces of statuary. On either side of the door were pieces of statuary; also two mirrors, reaching from floor to ceiling, reflecting a life-size and very lovely painting of Miss Suratt on the opposite side of the room.
Across one corner of the room was a grand piano with cover of black-and-white, and near it a wonderful lamp; but here I was aroused from my trance of admiration and observation, and became aware that Miss Suratt had entered and was coming toward me with outstretched hand and friendly, welcoming smile.
A wicked siren? A home-wrecking vampire? Not a bit of it. The Valeska Suratt who has been called “a riot of clothes,” competent to give points to any clothes-wearing creature in the world? It couldn’t be. And yet it was. But now, coming in from work, she wore a simple little gown of rose-color; a silk sweater of the same color hung carelessly over one arm. She removed her black sailor-hat, and revealed the wonderful dark hair with auburn tints, drawn back from her face in that strangely becoming fashion. Her manner was calm, quiet, and her voice low as she talked in friendly fashion. It gave me courage to ask the question which heretofore would have seemed incongruous.
“Are you interested in things pertaining to the home?” Her face brightened.
“Indeed I am! I dont mean I can cook, because I cant very much. But, if I married a poor man, I could learn, and I would cook something besides bacon and eggs, too! I have my French cook whom I have had eleven years (speaks pretty well for my disposition, doesn’t it?). That’s what I have her for — to do the cooking. But I love my home and everything about it. Mother and I had our home together as long as she lived. I am alone now, but I could not live without a place to really relax and rest in. My home is the biggest comfort in life to me. Do you like my living-room, and isn’t it refreshing?”
“That’s just it!” I said, “and I couldn’t think of the word. But that expresses it. It is refreshing, and different, and quite wonderful.”
“It was the first black-and-white room in New York,” she said. “I designed it all, and made most of the cushions and draperies. I also design all my own clothes. In fact, I can sew to some advantage, too, and I can trim my own hats. I keep two women busy with my clothes, but that belongs to my work; and aside from my work I have very little time for anything else. My life is just work, and then home.
“Screen work is hard work, but most interesting. There will be no more song and dance for me,” confided Miss Suratt, referring to past vaudeville days, “tho I might go into spoken drama.”
“You look and act dreadfully wicked on the screen, Miss Suratt,” I said at parting. “And I’m glad you let me come to see you, for now I shall always think of you as just a regular person.”
And she smiled in sympathetic understanding.
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Valeska Suratt as the vampire in The Soul of Broadway
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Photo: © Hixon Connelly (Orval Hixon | James Hargis Connelly)
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Valeska Suratt in The Soul of Broadway (Fox)
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Abou Ben Film Star
(Apologies to Leigh Hunt)
by E. W. Teitzel
Abou Ben Film Star (five thou’ his weekly dole)
Awoke one night, after a trying rôle,
And saw within his cozy bungalow,
Lighting it with a Cooper-Hewitt glow,
The Great Director writing in a book of gold.
His thrilling stunts had made Ben Film Star bold,
And to the Presence in the room he said,
“Scenario?” The vision shook its head
And, with Director’s voice that carried far,
Replied: “I write the name of each sincere screen star.”
“Of course I’m down,” said Abou. “Nay, not so,”
Replied the Great Director. Abou answered low,
“I’ve never shirked, however poor my part,
Nor let a ‘double’ take a risky part.”
The vision did a fade-out. The next night
He came again in his fierce C.-H. light,
And showed his list of stars, and — well, I’m blessed,
Abou Ben Film Star’s name led all the rest.
Collection: Motion Picture Magazine, December 1916