Yola d’Avril — In The Springtime (1930) 🇺🇸

Yola d’Avril is an unfolding sensation. Her talents are still in the bud. Like her name — April — they are in the spring of her career. Should this sound too poetic, please excuse. If you knew Yola, you'd say the same.

by William H. McKegg

Soon she ought to appear in roles big enough that more of her work might he seen. So far she has only played small parts. Yet they are growing all the time. In "The Love Parade" Yola does an effective piece of work. It is only an episode, but Yola's presence can make an episode very telling! She also plays the young French girl opposite Lew Ayres, in All Quiet on the Western Front.

Lewis Milestone, the director of this film, was Yola's fiancé not long ago.

"People said to him. 'Why give Yola work in your picture when the engagement is broken off?' Lewis said. 'Why not? Can't we he friends still?'"

Yola expressed this bit of continental philosophy over a cup of tea and a slice of bread, in my bungalow. She had dropped in several days before but, being in a rush, as she generally is, we had little chance to talk.

Yola came from Paris five years ago. She, her mother, and Eddy, her brother, went to Canada. A dancing school materialized, because Yola could dance well. But somehow the Canadians were not in a dancing mood, for the school soon went up in smoke.

"Every one said to me. 'You should go to Hollywood and try the movies.' So I came and started as an extra."

Yola has a slight accent, but she does not harp on it. She has a mellow, persuasive voice which is rather disturbing to young bloods romantically inclined. For them to hear her throb Mon gros chéri is to come near swooning.

Perhaps her persuasive voice gained Yola entrance to the casting offices. Paramount gave her her first work, and even publicized her as Gloria Swanson's protégée. Gloria had just returned from Paris, where she had made "Madame Sans-Gene."

Nevertheless, Yola searched about for work. She was placed under contract in Christie comedies, and later by First National. But with the coming of talkies, they let most of their contract players go.

Yola dispenses with all the sob stories.

"No one wants to hear your sorrows," she declares. "Every one comes to me with their troubles. But if I am worried, I get in my car and drive to the beach.

"The sea," she confesses, "consoles me. I like to hear the happy, exultant song in the waves as they roll in, and the sad, baffled cry in them as they go out. I return to Hollywood feeling fine, and ready for more movie attacks."

There is rapture on the lonely shore,
There is society, where none intrudes,
By the deep sea, and music in its roar.

This explains the tinge of mystery in la d’Avril.

"I have always found, when we think we are in a bad plight, that something helps us from an unseen source.

 "My first theatrical was a dancer in a revue. We left Paris for Portugal. Playing in Lisbon we went broke. We were left stranded in a strange city, in a foreign country, without a sou to get us back to France.

"One afternoon, after scraping together as much as we could, we went to a cafe for a bite to eat. At a nearby table I noticed a handsome young man staring constantly at me. He was with a lady, too. I was a kid then: my friends used to make jokes at my expense.

"This young man was handsome — handsomer than Valentino was on the screen. Finally he came over to our table and placed an envelope before me.

"'Pardon me, mademoiselle,' he said, 'do not feel offended. I am leaving this envelope with you. Do not open it, until I am out of sight.'

"As soon as he was gone, I opened it and" — here Yola's eyes lighted up with fond recollection — "there was a sum of money equal to five hundred dollars! Also a note, which said, 'I know you and the company want to get back to Paris. Take this and may good fortune follow you always in your career.'"

Yola breathed deeply.

"That made me cry. It was such a wonderful thing for a complete stranger to do. He did not even leave his name."

A retrospective look spread over Yola's face as she said, "I should like that young man to see me on the screen in a big role and to know that I have always remembered his kind act."

If this young Portuguese knight is a fan, he may soon see Yola, for she is gradually coming to the fore.

She is keenly intelligent. She wants to write. In fact she does, for her own amusement. She loves Russian music and caviar, swimming, horseback riding and, of course, dancing.

There is something somber and profound in her which might explain her fondness for things Muscovite. She is, at present, even engaged to a young Russian actor, Gregory Gay, who plays in Gloria Swanson's new picture.

One moment she is deeply sophisticated: then she becomes naive, like a child.

She roundly denounced me for reading a voluminous work by the great Eliphas Levi, the French magician.

"The church forbids any dabbling in magic," Yola warned. "I'll come again and see you floating in the air, chairs and tables jumping about."

Even when I assured her that Levi's work taught no such thing, she hardly believed me. All the same I promised to give up any study that would enable me to float with the furniture in the air.

Yet, after drinking her tea, Yola inverted the cup and asked me to tell her fortune.

Occult knowledge gleaned from Eliphas Levi came to my aid. The tea leaves foretold splendid things.

My friend, Fifi Dorsay, is well termed an unfolded revelation. I do not exaggerate when I say that Yola d’Avril is an unfolding sensation.

Yola is likely to burst forth into bloom at any moment now, so keep a sharp lookout.

She tells her sob stories to the sea and is all gayety and romance when talking of herself and her work.

Photo by: Roman Freulich (1898–1974)

Susanne, in All Quiet on the Western Front, is Yola's most recent role, and that smile makes a soldier swim a canal.

Photo by: Ray Jones (1892–1967)

Collection: Picture Play Magazine, July 1930