Marriage
"Tell me," said my companion, "what kind of man will you eventually marry?" I looked at him. We were walking on the sands at Santa Monica, where I live. It was sunset, all fire and gold. The sea smelt good, and there was the little, cool breeze that I love. I did not want to think of marriage and men and love just then, so I said: "How should I know? I am very young, although sometimes I feel older than the rocks and I am never sure of my own thoughts from one day to the next."


She feels like Mona Lisa
It is so stupid to say in a moment what kind of man one will marry. I only know that I would like my man to be like a Viking of my own country, strong and big and handsome. I would prefer to be the wife of a man with a look of the sea about him, gusty and surging, but calm and enduring, too. I do not like fluttery men, lady-killing men, emotional men, men who remind me of jazz dance places and hotel lounges.

When I say I am young, I mean in years. Sometimes, inside, I feel like Mona Lisa; I feel that I have done everything, known everything, seen everything, and that life has no secrets left.


Mauritz Stiller
Mauritz Stiller, who understands me, says that this is temperament. Mauritz Stiller is like a harbor in rough weather-just like that. He discovered me. I worked my heart out for him, and it was he who brought me to Hollywood. So far as I know, not one of my people, who are very old-they came up the valleys of Sweden long, long ago-ever trod the boards of any stage. If they could see me today, undoubtedly they would be astonished.

They were seafaring men, high in colour and high in courage, and they liked, I am sure, as I do, the feel of the wind in their hair. I like the wind of the sea in my hair better than anything else in the world. I love the sea; that is why I live out at Santa Monica all the time. I am always rather homesick for my own land, and I can get breaths of her now and then in the sea breezes.


Stockholm
In Stockholm, where I was born, I went to the dramatic school. We put on an Ibsen play. I was cast for a very small role. I was waiting in the wings for my cue, when I saw a strange shadow on the wall at the back of the boxes. It looked like the shadow of a giant. A girl crept up to me and breathed in my ear: "See, there is Mauritz Stiller!" I peered out, and saw a tall man with a very grave, strong face, standing in the door of the box.

But I was thinking so much about my little part that I was not awed by the sight of third great man. I forgot him, and played my little part. Next day he called me to his office.

He looked long at me with his deep eyes and said nothing. I looked at him, and felt very, very young, and I just smiled. And presently he smiled, too, and said, just as if he were talking to himself:

"You will go far my child. You are half a woman and half a child and you don't understand yourself yet. I am going to try you in the ingénue lead in ‘Gosta Berling's Saga'."

The school was electrified. But, somehow, I was not thrilled, only very interested in Mauritz Stiller and in myself, and what I would make of this part.

Evidently I made something that pleased my friend, Stiller, for when he began to make pictures, he took me into his studio to work for him. We made our pictures in a little studio, not so big as one of the sets I play on in Hollywood. Its top was open. Sometimes it rained or snowed-and we have a lot of snow in Sweden; I love snow-and then we could not work.

We never hurried; sometimes we took six months to finish a picture. Hollywood would have been worried to death at our slowness, our deliberation. But we were very happy.


John Gilbert
I told John Gilbert this one day. I remember when he was taking me out in a boat to fish. He is full of a terrific vitality. In the days of old, in my country, he would undoubtedly have been a sea adventurer, and a great one, and sagas would have been sung about him.

We made many love scenes together in Flesh and the Devil, and he would never have anyone on the set when we were doing the big scenes.

Everyone was shooed off. He makes a wonderful screen lover; there is an element force in him which is like a song in the wind. Our director said he had never seen such love scenes, and I was very pleased about that; for I do not want to be thought of as a vamp. A vamp does not love' or inspire love. Infatuation is not love. I am not a siren.


Adventures in Hollywood
I have has some adventures since I came to Hollywood. It was an adventure to me to go to the Montmartre Cafe with a man who scarcely understood my English, and I had listen hard to understand his English. It was an adventure to learn the Charleston, and to go to those gay beach clubs a Santa monica. I like solitude. I go to dances now and then, but I do not care to cut what they call a figure in social life.

Most of my leisure time I spend at my home in Santa Monica, where we have a little colony of Scandinavians. We have tall Lars Hansen here. He is like me. He does not talk much, and has eyes like the sea.

And Stiller and Seastrom live out here, and we talk and walk on the silver sands. I like storms, the sweep of rain, water dripping from my lashes.


I like the sea: we understand one another. It is always yearning, sighing for something it cannot have; and so am I. I give my life to pictures here. I want my pictures to be good. I have no energy for anything else. People tire me when I am working so hard on the set, and so do parties.

I like to come right out to sea, and feel the wind from the sea in my face. I like to walk in the rain, alone. I like to swim-alone. I dream and I rest.


Love
Love? Yes one day I shall love. I am not cold. But I am very young, only just past twenty. I cannot manage, like these wonderful American girls, to do so many things at once-pictures, society, love. If I make pictures, I make pictures. If I make love emotions for camera, I have none over for real life. Someday I shall leave the pictures and give all myself to love. This is how I see life.

One cannot divide one's soul and heart and mind. Pictures or love; one cannot divide one's allegiance. This is what I think. But, as I say, I am very young. Life is a great adventure, and one can never tell. But I do know when I love, I shall not waste my love in dancing haunts, in the Ambassador and the Montmartre. I shall fly to a little cabin high up in the mountains.

It will have big trees about it, and there will be no other houses near. The sea will toss and sing below, and we shall be happy-as free and happy as my Viking ancestors.


Source: ‘Picture Show’ magazine