The Charleston Daily Mail from Charleston, West Virginia • Page 76

The Daily Mail Sunday Magazine EI WOMAN it Pays to Be One, Says Gladys George, Stage and Screen You Can't Say "Yes" You Can Be Diplomatic And Get Along Splendidly Yon can go far bj hting "yes-nnman," but TOU also ran get nrnrlr evcrythinc you want in life by being diplomatic when say "no," declares Gladyi George By Alice L. Tildesley Hollywood. -WOMHI," announrei JuJla with emphasig, "are the curse of Bollywood. And that holds throughout business, the professions and the home. Women are too humble.

They Uke the attitude: It waa pretty darned nice of men to give me a chance; I ought to show them bow grateful I "Thafs all right. But women are so eager to make good that they work double time and take less money than men. "We ahouldn't allow ourselves to be Imposed on and take it as our natural due. We should learn our jobs until we do them as well as or better than men. and then demand the same treatment.

Then we should say 'yes' when we mean and not be afraid of Gladys George, in a pair of sky-blue alacks that harmonized with her blue- dressing room, a blue Jockey cap on her platinum curls, li-stened to Julie's views with interest. "But she's verj' young, isn't she?" she observed, thoughtfully. "Walt til! she's ten years older and ask her again. 'Yes' Is so much nicer to say than and only one letter longer. "I don't believe in being a yes-woman all the time, you know, but, oh, never be a no-woman! Just be reasonable, be willing to be shown, be able to be persuaded, and never be unpleasant.

That doesnt mean that a woman need ever do anything she thinks wTong for her to do, but she can do the right thing so pleasantly that no one realizes it Isnt exactly what she was asked to do. "Try to get along with people. Friends more important than your rlghU. All the rights there are cant keep you from being lonely. After all, life Isnt worth while if you're always llshting for something.

Nothing you cui gain for yourself is worth losing your temper and wrecking your peace Of mind with ugly thoughts. "It's a scientific I've demonstrated It enough times to know I've proved getting all WTought up poLsons the system. Lo.sing my temper makes me and I'd ten times rather do without whatever it is." Her ej'cs were wide and brown under the short platinum curls. She looked barely 25. But she went on, seriously: "1 believe only very young people think you can get anywhere by battling.

Being nice to if you are nice from the heart and not from political you further. I advise 'yes' whenever you can say the word believing you can carry out the request. If you can 't, don't exactly say Get around it. Compromise. "POT example: I never say; 'No, I won't play that parti' Not since I was 19 and knew everi-thing.

You fhould have seen me at 19, my dear! N'obotiy could touch me. I was better th.iR good and I was sure of it. I didn't say 'yes' to any one, about anj-thing. I was above this." She drew herself up, with mock dignity, her chin raised so that she had to look down her nose in order to see anything. Her beautiful mouth took on a haug.hty curve.

"Now, if I don't like the part offered me, I say as nicely as I know how: 'I don't think this is a good part for me. Won't you tell me why you She descended from the exaggerated pose to her own debonair person. "There Is a chance that the other person is right about it, so I listen to him with an open mind. I've been wrong before. Sometimes he convinces that I'm right.

If not, I usually give in. I learned In stock days ih.it nobody can expect to play only the best parts. Just as nobfKly can hope to be born with all the talents. You must do what you can with what you have, fimal! have often given me one opportunity when I had sense enough to lake advantage of it." AYING "yes" Is Just as Important In private life, according to the blonde star. "I've been married year," she confided, smiling In that way she as If an April sim had come out in full force.

"It's been a happy year. I have the grandest husband on this earth, no foolln'. Part of the secret of our happiness from the fact that he's a sweet that we never argue. "We could get Into great arguments about religion, for Instance, becau.se I a naturally religious creature, and he feels very strongly about what he can 't believe. But I won't argue.

I let it go. I fiRurc that Its like the Golden Gate in San the railways and street cars and boats and automobiles get there over diHerent routes. It really rioe 't matter which way they come so long as they arrive. I know there never wa a nner man than his name is Leonard admire him. the things he does and the way he thinks, so he's so am II But we don't argue about It." She had been eurled up Informally on t.he blue couch, but now she sat up and leaned forward earnestly.

"Here Is one of the worst things that can happen to a she said, pushing back the Jockey cap. "Well say she marries a man she loves. The first thing she does Is to set out to change him. That's a fatal mistake. Either she finds In the end that she's her beloved by constantly aaylng tlo' Gladys George declares that independence en the part of woman grratly overrated.

She also that independent women usually are unhappy and "Don't' and 'Stop that' and 'Now or suddenly discovers that she lias at last made over the man she married Into the inevitable model resulting from so many directions, now he Lsn't the man she fell in love with, and she doesn't even like him I "I admit that, If you're not so lucky as I am, you might conceivably discover that the man you married wasn't per- Miss George is here a with Charlene AVyatt and Jackie Moran In one of her recent screen successes feet. But I think the 'Yes-woman" much more IJcely to get along s.T.oothly with iilm than the Lite is, more or less, a matter getting along and seeing how well It can be done. "The more I sec of the most of us, the more sure I am that the main trou'ole with us all Is Intoler.ince. We don't try to see the other fellow's side. We seldom start out thinking: "Maybe I'm wrongi' and nine times out of ten we are! "Everj- one has heard that Hollj-wood is full of I haven't noticed it yet.

Tlie chief thing I've observed about this town Is that it's a good place to watch your tongue, because anything you will be repeated everywhere before you get through saying it. "I'm the sort of person who must be particularly careful or 111 find myself saying exactly what I Uilnk, which doesnt do in Hollywood or anjf.here Second thoughta on most subjects are best. If you hold in your your you've had a chance to see several sides, you are likely to find out that you misunderstood, it wasn't so bad. Lots of feelings are saved." I NT3EPENDENCE Is overrated. Is Miss George's sage conclusion, and she proceeded to tell why she has reached that conclusion.

"Meet of us are unpleasant when we are too Independent," she smiled, looking up from under long lashes in a mock-ingenue fashion. "We all need to depend on some one, and It's nice when we depend on each other. Men like to be depended on for strength, and women like to be depended on for love. We all like to think the rest of the world needs us." Gladys George's views are not ba.sed on a life Uved on a figurative bed of roses. She h.i.s worked since she was 3 years old.

Her father. Sir Clare, knighted by King Edward VII for services as an officer In India, had turned actor and married the daughter of a Boston watchmaker. Gladys was bom In a little town In Mis.souri, where the troupe her parents belonged to happened to be stranded at the time. When she was 3, a stock company In which both parents were working needed a small boy actor. There was no money to pay one, so Gladys became the small actor.

She took to the footlights so well that long before she was 10 she was a child star. "What stage name would you like?" her father inquired, as he pored over that first star billing. "Gladys George W. Hazen," replied the youngster. Georse W.

Hazen her mother's father, the person she most admired. "Rather too long," laughed Sir Arthur, and shortened It to "Gladys George." The child knew tme-night stands la drafty theatres, performances la farmers' bams, on Improvised platforms in stations, in lodge halls, in one tank town after another. They were stranded again and again. Gladys made beds; swept rooms, washed windows and di between engagements. Gladys needed clothes and sold candy while waiting for a Broadway show to open.

That show, when It opened, was a torture to the youngster, for there. other very young girls in It, Who, laughed at her cotton stockings and ttaa way she plawd her first love scenes. She wasn't used to other youngsters; she'd Ere her life with grown people. She got through it somehow and went on the road. In Los Angeles, the lata Thomas Ince saw her and signed her for silent pictures.

She was doing very well on the screen when disaster struck. She was making doughirats In her apartment one night, when the pan caugiit fire. Knowing nothing about cooking, 6hs doused the flaming pan with water and her face and arms were sprayed with boiling grease. Horribly burned, she was taken to the hospital. When she was permitted to remove the bandages, her face was a ma of scars and she was dropped from the contract list at the studio.

a time the future looked black. She could not bear to look Into a mirror; she did not dare think of her career. She told herself that she had washed windows before, she could wash them again. In the meantime she went to the best surgeon she could find. Her face healed, completely smoothly, but It was a slow and painful process, and when at last the mirror i fleeted immarred beauty once more, sha had lost contact with the theatre and had no mtmey.

Passing the Alcazar Theatre In Saa Francisco one day. when she was weary from Job-hunting, she saw a friend's name on the cast sheet and stopped to call on her. She wasn't in, but the man In the box-offlce, seeing Glad.vs, called out: lady! You're an actress, aren't you?" "Sure, I'm an actress, and a dam good one," replied Gladys. "Then you've got a Job," he replied. -Wait here." It developed that the company desperately need of a successor to Belle Bennett, leading woman, who had Just left.

So Gladys walked into tha job. Her life, which had been a series of ups and downs, continued after the same fashion. She secured stock engagements one after another, only to hava the companies fold up a few weeks later. Being a yes-woman seems to pay la the case of Gladys George. "I know you can't always say she Snished.

"If you're dealing with child who wants something he shouldnt have, you needn't be mean about denying him, need you? You merely divert hLs attention, explain why he can't hava whatever it Is, if he doesn't already know most of them then get him Interested In something else." "That's not a bad rule with older people. Only with them you needn 't go into explanations. If a thing Is Impossible, they know It. All you have to do Is to change the subject, subtly, and be as sweetly as you can. fight.

Never argue. That motto of good troupers, 'Always teavo them laughing when you say is still of the best.".