Los Angeles herald. [microfilm reel] (Los Angeles [Calif.]) 1900-1911, 1909-05-23
II am obscrving-Lam observing all the time. "

Copyright 1909 By the New York N Few 9oK f saurdy
is little room, that in which l waited for Mr.
4 Belasco-not a comfortable little room, but an an
D tiquey little ROOM with old prints and play bills
curious clocks and gded, antique furniture with
red upholstery There grotesque masks hang
ing from walls of old blue old books and old me-
mentos In glass cases, and little dark antique rugs
upon the parqnet floor
1t is a little room near the stage this, all its
strange air Of monastic secusion and presently come
rustic of silk and the patter of two very high heeled
Shoes and then Miss Frances Starr in full advance to
her dressing room-Miss Starr arrayed III the full
panopy of performance with very long tIaln ana
her maid bearing it aloft
The pictures of old dead actors from
their thin black frames, and one may become very
philosophical and cease to envy even that little ele-
CANT dress futtering silky-swishing lady who has
just passed with her maid and her high high shoes
and her applause; and one may think of the few
years which will reegate her to little black frame,
too to look just dried and musty the others.
Thus the obscure phllosophze while waiting for
Mr. Belasco.
The door opens and you clasp ii hand of uncertain
pressure, which out to dr Relascos, to BIZ
particularly, and you a little, plump with
chubby, pinky face and mass of tousled. silvery
hair, and thick black eyebrows, and young, young
eyes, deep and brown and liquid and vevety; sensi-
tive emotional eyes, never seen before In any human
being above seventeen Quite heshy he
and the smiling mouth of some smooth hammered,
jolly little prest-and clothes like one. too you
only narrow rim of straight white collar be-
tween the pink of the face and the sheer black Of the
clothes beneath.
He smiles and hesitates and talks lowly, softly
and unobtrusively and with smiling, embarrassed
little deprecatory pauses. You wonder if anything
may have gone wrong. You are unaccustomed to this
from the interviewed, for they are usually ordly
creatures and their press agents keep you wait
Ing in passages and gaze with conscious superiority
from their illlmitable heights down at your lowly
station.
You tell him that You would like him to speak about
the making of a play of how he conceives and
constructs one and while you speaking you
watching him-how he regards you with that pc
culiar smile which seems strangely unobtrusve
and how he rests his hand upon his cheek and how
his fingers twiddle about his silver And then
the eyes half close and he twddles and he twddles
for perhaps few minutes and then you know your
self to be very privileged person. He is longer
regarding you His eyes are half closed-a master il
speaking of his art
1.-The great chest to which all dramatists must CO."
says he, in of low, soft, retrospective tone,
broken frequently by pauses for reflection, lis Nature
1t is the bigger drama from which you pick your
smaller pieces of life. So you watch 1t all the time
Mr. Belasco deserts the particular lock upon which.
up to that moment he has devoted his attention. and
permits his fingers to stray through second one.
"You mean that you are always observing" COM
menced after another modest silence of about min
ute during which Mr. Beasco still continues regard
that space upon the wall and rues further his silver
opulence of hair | wondering If have another
uncommuncative Croker upon my hands when he
moves his eyes from his favored point and looks di-
rscty at he says
II am observing-I am observing all the tme-I
cannot help it. man or woman, style Of dictton