The Philadelphia Inquirer from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania • Page 108

PAGE SIX Kei clioo! and the THE PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER MAGAZINE SECTION SEPTEMBER 27, 193 1 How the U. S. Star's Chloroform Sneeze Climaxed a Plot to Rifle Her Paris Flat Front Pages Shouted Kershaw! I i i if A I ''AM "1 1 II III I ,1 I II ITT III I. I Mm 'to jliiiBliiiiSiiif ill I j-vrri fit "-SfssJ V'V fi 1 fj I 1 ii 1 I h-Mt i i IS S5 7 HI rd years ago when she X. I 1 speared in the play, "AartWngX I Through Ceorgia" I I with Arthur Morrison, an actor.

They lis I I '-ere married but the union was 11 uissolvcd in 1909. ff Then Willette fell in love with ii. David Sturgis, well-known New York TJ i the stage, met and fell in love with Arthur Morrison, an actor. They vere married but the union was ilissolved in 1909. Then Willette fell in love with David Sturgis, well-known New York I 1 newspaperman and playwright.

The newspaperman and playwright. The A Riccardo ani Lady Teodora, It 1 a little rn'lftf I ho mirtahin nt 1W a little The of I I Sturgis, son of a Boston clergyman, Mf Sturgis, son of a Boston clergyman, nounced to the press that "I will share the gifts an episode in tht drama, "Decameron Nights," produced at Druru Lane. London, a IS Willette the other day in this city, where she is ap Jew years ago the leading role of the gods bestowed upon me when and where I please." She didn't bestow said gifts, however, in one famous instance while in pearing in "The Well of Loneliness." She was found chloroformed in her apartment. It was believed she had been unconscious for hours. Besides, police and reporters found the rooms had been rifled.

And the first thing Wil Margaret Bannerman, who adopted a Lady Godiva costume in "Dccqmeron Nights," lcr Miss Kershaw had refused the rolctbc-cause they wouldn't let her wear tights. That Was in 1922 I9y a Staff Correspondent London a few years ago. It seems Willette was offered the most important role in road to the altar in that case was rocky. courtship came into prominence in 1923, when he followed Willette to London, where she was appearing in "The Bird of Paradise." He wanted to bring about a reconciliation, following a long quarrel. But Willette refused to see him.

He gained entrance to her apartment, it was said, and remained there until she was forced to call the police. About that time Willette decided to return to America, for it was beginning to be unkindly said that she had deserted it for the European stage. In New York she and Sturgis became reconciled. But when they tried to get married in New Rochelle, N. various ministers refused to perform the ceremony because of Miss Kershaw's previous divorce.

So they finally resorted to a civil ceremony. But a year later the curtain dropped noisily upon that romance. Willette let it be known, in accents loud enough for the reporters to hear, that "marriage for me has been a nightmare a frightful chapter of life." Sturgis was equally certain that he had been through no sinecure of married life. Willette countered that her idea in marriage had been a "wedding of minds," but it didn't work out. However, it made a good front-page story.

As in her romances, so in her art did Willette crash the newspapers frequently. There was the time in 1913 when she let it be known that she was suffering from a nervous breakdown, brought on by a too close devotion to This hap py couple. on the sands of Palm Beach, are which Willette refused because of modesty name of the play was "Decsmeron Nights," not "Decameron Tights." To that Willette's answer was: "If I can wear tights, at least I can quit." So she did. Whereupon the role was taken over by Margaret Bannerman, an English beauty and stage star, who retained the long wig but discarded the tights. The critics applauded Miss Banner-man and denounced Willette as a prude with the narrow prejudices of a provincial American school teacher.

Life went along quietly for Willette after that until a year ago, when she was accused by its English author, Rad-clyffe Hall, of pirating "The Well of Loneliness." Willette denied it after calling in the police to evict four stenographers who were busily taking shorthand notes during a performance of the play "as evidence." But things again became peaceful until the other day when Willette was found chloroformed. And the newspapers came out with the story not lonif after Willette came out of her stup'r. Kerchoo! sneezed Miss Kershaw. an elaborate spectacle called "Decameron Nights." The play was a very free adaptation' of the story in the Decameron called "The Sultan of Babylon." The plot involved a beautiful princess, who is cast up without benefit of garments on the rocks after a shipwreck, and a sultan's son, who falls in love with her. The role of the princess, Perdita, was originally given to Miss Kershaw.

The latter, however, insisted on playing the role in tights and with a long flowing wig. That was 1922. London critics said most emphatically and unanimously -that princesses who were cast up nude by the sea did not wear tights. The management of the theatre thought the criticism sound. Miss Kershaw did not.

"The Decameron may be a classic," she is reported to have said, "but, classic or not, I refuse lette did, upon regaining consciousness, was to sneeze violently which is the experience of all persons who have been chloroformed. Thus, for the hundredth time, Willette's name was dragged into the front pages of the daily press. Perhaps a hundred is an exaggeration; it more likely is two hundred and may be more. Her escapades and troubles, which have attracted the attention of newspapers throughout the world, come under the heading of "too numerous to mention." There was the time she divorced her first husband. Willette, by the way, is a native of St.

Louis, the daughter of the late Harry Kershaw, a former newspaperman and associate of liu-gene Field. Until his death in 1923, Kershaw was financial manager for his son-in-law, the late Thomas H. lnce, motion picture producer. Willette, by this time making considerable headway PARIS. IT CERTAINLY is distressing, the unexpected and sudden ways Willette Kershaw is forced into the limelight of publicity.

Just when everything seems quiet and peaceful and people are forgetting to talk about the famous American actress, something astonishing happens and her name is thrust mA more into the newspapers. Certainly it is not Willette's fault. She prefers the seclusion of her home and abhors publicity as much as any 'actress in Paris. Can she help it, for instance, if the is chloroformed by Borne unidentified ruffian who rifles her apartment and escapes, leaving Her to the mercy of a deadly anesthetic, the police and the reporters? That's exactly what happened tc David Sturgis, poet and newspaperman and his then wife, Willette Kershaw. The photo was taken in 1923 during their honeymoon, which ended in divorce a year later her art.

She complained she was so conscientious that if a stage part assigned her was one abounding in local color she would set out at once to acquire a knowledge of that "color," no matter whether it was ebony or mauve She was, indeed, a very colorful actress. Once, when it was reported she was through with America, she came back fuming to New York. She an to make it an excuse for showing my- self bare 10 mgntiy audiences in London." The managers answered that the Mexico's Strange Ape boy, Latest 'Human Freak to Be Hailed as the Missing Link LA-H A making a Sl X. 1 sSjS tV- -V f4 guardian. John rJ tr JS.

A NaT VT crated as Si yhL- if I This native of Bombay, India, at- Vf i 0 li pfy i I 14 mcd he was the missmg Imk I Reared with beast, in a barn I I TT1 i peasants, this iM I I 1 I I i I Tp1IKRE hBVe been Bevera' in" 11 N- hoy was exhibited as a "hu- I I I II in recent 'fis in 1 II A an freak." Because of ape- THERE have been several instances in recent years in whiih frk of Jinmnn tinnro I 7 were put forth by their exploiters as i were put forth by their exploiters as pounded i theory of evo-1 i n. The boy's appear Two studies of the so-called "ape-boy" of Mexico, whose appear once and actions are said to be decidedly simian the missing link. But one of most extraordinary cases concerns a so-called ape-boy in Mexico. A promoter not long ago discovered him somewhere in the country and convinced the ignorant peasant father that money could be made by placing the boy on exhibition in Mexico City. There the ape-boy did, indeed, attract wide attention until the know how to talk, emitting only guttural sounds.

Science, however, is skeptical about all claims of a true connection between ape and man. In the past, when confronted with such cases as the monkey-boy of Hawaii, the ape-man of Bombay or the ape-man of Hungary, scientists have insisted they are, like the Mexican boy, simply unfortunate freaks of human nature. mm police rescued him and placed him in a public institution. Some people insist that the boy is the real missing link that science has been seeking ever since Darwin ex- The "monkey-boy" of Hawaii. Among his many simian characteristics is ance and actions convey the impression of an ape.

He walks with hanging arms, which are longer than normal, moving his head in the manner of a simian. He stares at everything 'in surprise. He does not in i.