Indiana daily times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1914-1922, 1922-06-15
Spring Had the Theatrical Itch
When She Vas in the High School
BY SPRING BYINGTON,
OF The Stuart Walker Company


Like many other actresses in repertory,
have received scores of letters from
young girls who desire to make the stage
their career. When the time permits
try to answer all of these, and occasional
~, I have the youthful yearners' par
mnts come to the theater for an interview.
KY advice, except in the rare instances
where extraordinary ability is apparent,
is the same.
"Are you willing to work fourteen
hours a day, seven days a week, from
September until June?"
''Are you ready to withstand long hours
OF loneliness, cut of from family and
friends, living often in strange hotels,
to give up every vestige of the home
environment?
Have you the qualities of personality,
voice, imagination and fancy and, above
all, perseverance
If you have all these qualities and
still feel the urge to aspire to a career
on the stage, and if in addition you have
the visular appeal, the vocal equipment
and the health, the stage offers some
glowing rewards.
Most of these young aspirants haven't
any honest desire to be an actress; their
fancy is intrigued by the glamOr and
lights of the stage, as they see it from
their comfortable seats out front. In
their imagination the theater offers
striking contrast of ease. fine clothes and
romance, when compared with the daily
round of the classroom, shop or office.
1t is true most girls would rather be
a Juliet than a Cinderella before the
prince came. Besides, the stage simply
carries on the fascinating game of make
believe" in which most young girls live
in their day-dreams.
Ny own life, while not entirely typical
of a career in the theater, offers many
cases in point. l made my first public
appearance when II. The itch to be an
actress had been growing through my
high school years. 1t was the crystali-
cation of long. lonely hours passed with
e old romances. Scott was my favorite.
7 longed nightly to be a figure in a
story such as he told, and frankly l
yearned also to be a picturesque per-
sonality. I wanted to stand out above
the other girls I knew; to be in the
public eye in some compelling, romantic.
lovely way. I also knew, as one does
know these things in her innermost
heart, that had a talent for interpreta-
tion.
We moved to Denver, father and
mother and my younger sister and my
self when was very little girl. Father
had a professOrship in English in the
University of Colorado. Ny mother was
a doctor of medicine in general practice.
Both were exceedingly busy people, but
in a home such as ours there was, oil
necessity, a great many books browsed
through these literary pastures without
restriction.
SHE WAS JUST
LIKE OTHER GIRLS.
As look back upon my early girlhood
the picture that most frequently comes
to mind is OF myself. q spindly legged,
frightened little kid with 4 mop of tow.
colOred hair and big blue eyes. curled
in my dads leather chair, a book in my
lap. or lying fiat on the floor, my chin
in my two hands, devOuring the story
in front of me, Scott was first, and then
came Stevenson and Dickens, Thackeray,
Wilkie Collins, Marie Corelli-nO one ever
said my taste wasn't catholic-tha Ouch.
ess. Dumas, Macauley's historical ard
literary essays. And TO this day 1 love
and can sometimes weep over Ouida.
There was a time when I thought that
''Cnder Two Flags" was the most poig-
nant romance ever written.
n And then during these early days, ia
her suddenly died. The burden of the
family was thrown upon mothers shout
ders. She had a splendid practice and
specialized somewhat in the diseases OF
the nervous system and mind. I alb
sorbed in these younger years much of
the knowledge of applied psychology
which I turned to good account in my
life in the theater. Fathers death and
mothers devotion to her profession
brought responsibility to my sister and
myself at ages when most girls are con-
tent to be simply family fractions. We
ordered the affairs OF the household, and
I can recall more than one hasty trip in
the night carrying my mothers instru-
ments to the bedside of a patient on an
emergency summons. In this regime the
timidity OF the pre-adolescent years left