The San Francisco Examiner from San Francisco, California • 44

it yy i VIM VI 1 3ti 1 t.v: A yA L1 Trom Convent to Leading Ladyship in Musical Comedij In Three Years-Belle Adair An wasn't assumed, either. "I have never done anything very much. Just a little while in vaudeville, and then this part with Mr. Eltinge. This Is my very first part In a play, you know, or didn't you know? Perhaps you thought I had done a great many things.

But I have only beeu on the stage rather less than three years, and before that I was in a convent oh! She stopped for a second in real confusion and her face flushed prettily. "Perhaps I shouldn't have said that about the convent. They say nearly every girl on the stage says she came from a convent. You might think I'm fibbing. But it's real truth.

It was a convent up at Locust Gap in Pennsylvania, a very little place, It Isn't on the map at all. It is so small. I only left there a little more than three years ago "I know your entire history," I chirped, "from cover to cover." "It isn't much, Is it?" she laughed. "But if you do, why do you want to Interview me?" "There are three reasons; your name, Belie Adair, half Scotch and half beautiful, appeals to me. Then you come from San Jose, and some day, I haven't the least doubt you'll arrive." "Arrive? Oh, be a star, you mean.

"I should love that, but I don't dream of it yet. I can only do simple little things. And my name She leaned back and filled the room with a peal of girlish laughter. Yes, that's right Girlish laughter is a' scarce commodity, br.t-Belle Adair clings still to the portion she was allotted. I am strictly accurate In saying it was a peal of girlish laughter that took wing out of the open window and lost Itself in tho rattle of the cars "My name, Belle Adair? Why, that isn't my real name.

Mr. Casey, my manager, gave me that I'm so sorry to disappoint you. And you know, though, I was born lu San Jose, I left there when I was 4 years old. But still I really can claim to be a Californian, can't I'm so proud of that. I really am.

So many people on the stage nowadays say they are Californians when they are not you know. But it's become very popular in the East to say you are from California I wonder why?" Now, I ask you, what is one to do with a girl like this. Perhaps you suspect this frankness and simplicity, ingenuousness if you like, was a mask covering profound subtlety and stage-worldly wisdom. It was nothing of the sort. Belle Adair is just as charming and simple and unprofound as she is beautiful.

"They must pester you with mash notes?" I suggested. "When I was In vaudeville I got ever so many, but now," a little sigh, "I do not get so many." "And, of course, they made you very angry?" "Angry? Why? I liked them. Generally they were very nice. I think really every girl on the stage gets mash notes, and I know they like them. I don't see why they should say they don't.

They don't really mean that They do like them." I Then swiftly and a bit maliciously: "I should think Eltinge gets lots of mash notes?" "How should I know?" and her eyes opened in wonder. "Sometimes foolish people send him flowers. I.inow, and that makes him awfully angry. He's awfully nice, Mr. Eltinge; I wisli With that I left her, and I hope that some day I will have the pleasure of Interviewing her as a tar.

BY J. LAWRENCE TOOLE. ELLE ADIAK a Block little namo, Isn't it Is perhaps the most vivid little bit of feminine Iridescence aiding and abetting In the present conspiracy between the chnnieloon-ic Julian Eltinge and your spare or Is It sparse theatre money. Moreover, not to speak of nevertheless and notwithstanding, she hails from unobstreperous San Jose. Thus she merits attention and an interview.

Trepidation approached the Interview with me. Perhaps if I were given one short thousand years at the game I might manage to inflict foolish questions on a luminous leading lady without trepidation. I5ut two Infinitesimal years arc woefully insufficient to make one an Intrepid chatterer. So trepidation and I sullied forth unblithely to the lair of lle Adair. lair was as hard to discover as Taft money at Mynherr orbett's.

It is buried away in oue of those apart- ni lintels where uoltody knows anybody and where anyone could hide forever without risk of detection. An air of dolorous respectability pervades this place. A lynx-eyed clerk was the sole inhabitant of the ground floor. He, when I had waved aside profers of an apartment with all the comforts of home, lost Interest in me and shooed me to the elevator, oue of the kind that scorns human aid. Odors of variegated cooking pursued each other through the grillwork of that elevator until by the time it reached the third floor I felt ready for dessert.

All this was comforting to my soul. Right away it was plain I fbould not have to talk art or the classics to Belle Adair. Art and the classics and the fragrance of turnips do not gibe. Sneaketrily I cherish actresses who evade the upholstery of tapestried hotels. It Is when a suave and smug minion leads me ostentatiously over the deep pile of expensive carpets to an actress imbedded in a setting of Louis Quatorze furniture that chill gloom settles at the heart of your chatterer.

If you've ever tried to make your conversation roar to the rarifled level of gilded chairs and rococo molding you'll understand. There were two easy chairs at the wide window and betwixt these, between the soothing rattle of McAllister street cars, the chatter volleyed and thundered. -Where's mother?" I asked, having heard rumors of a protecting mother. "There," replied, pointing to a door which hid one of tho Inner penetralia of the apartment from the casual eye. "Wait till this ear goes by and you will hear her." Sure enough, in a moment the clang of a falling pan announced the propinquity of mother and dinner.

"Not afraid to trust oyu undefended to an Interviewer, 1 "No," she laughed. "Mother has an impression you are old. Besides she daren't leave the kitchen. Something might happen to my dinner." "Mothers I have met" I ventured, thinking of Mrs. Janis.

"would preside at the Interview whether or no." I could never hope to be a great actress until I had been in love. I never had, you know, and I told her I didn't think I could hope to be an emotional actress, yet because I had never been in love. She said that was fine and rushed away and had it printed. I never thought she would, and I felt so silly the next day when I saw it in the paper. It really is very hard for a girl to know just what to say in an interview, isn't it?" "Very," I admitted "but, to take up the thread where the lady Interviewer dropped it, do you feel qualified for emotional work now?" She looked across at me inquiringly, and then, collapsing in her chair, she blushed; I'll swear she did.

"Oh, you're mean. That's Just another way of asking mc if I have fallen In Of course I haven't I have not had time and but please do not put that in the paper to-morrow. Oh "No. not to-morrow; you see "Surely surely this can't be for that Sunday page with, the pictures Oh, no', it can't. You are going to Interview Mr.

Eltinge for that, are you not? He is awfully interesting and not a bit, you know Oh, I mean that he is splendid." "Well, you've been sentenced to that page, Miss Adair, and there's no reprieve." whv Her distress was quite touching and it "But mine," she smiled, "is a regular mother, who knows what her girl likes for dinner and just how she likes it and who doesn't know very much about this business of mine nd who won't learn because she is too busy taking care of me. And I love her for it, too." Some benign influence, possibly mother's, has kert Belle Adair unspoiled. Hear her say, 'I'm a big baby," and you would Instantly be willing to sign affidavits to that effect. A wondering look in her nice clear eyes while she talked of her mother took speech after the next car passed. "I was just wondering," she said, "why on earth you have come to see me and what In the world I shall say if you want an interview." "I'm here," I said, "for that fell purpose." "Oh, please don't.

Once a lady Interviewer they are so nice, don't you think? ame to see me. I was in vaudeville then; it was soon after 1 left the convent and everything was so strange to me. I tried so hard to answer her questions, but we were not getting along very well, I'm afraid. Then she asked me whether I did not hope to become an emotional actress. I didn't, you know, but I wasn't quite sure what to say.

Then I remembered that a little while before some one had told me.