Evening star., 1925-03-10
NEW BOOKS
AT RANDOM
/. G.. M.
THE LIFE STORY OF AN UGLY
DUCkLING. Marie Dressier. Rob-
NJ Mrnr;da e. w.

DUCkAING. Marie DreSsier. Rob-
ert NJ. Mcbride & Co.
Fate cast me to play the role of
an ugly duckling with no promise OF
swanning. Therefore sat down when
a mere child-fully realizing just how
utterly mere I was-and figured out
my life early. Most people do 1t, bat
they do 1t too late. At any rate, from
the beginning I have played my life
as comedy rather than the tragedy
many would have made of It, Some
derive enjoyment from the martyr
feeling, but even as an infant I would
rather be laughed at than pitied. My
instinct has always been to turn
draw wbacks into drawing cards
1t was tripping over a rug as a fat,
clumsy 3-year-old that really set
tied my career I discovered that
people laughed when I acted awk-
wardly, so 1 began to fall deliberately
from a desire to make my friends
enjoy themselves. / wanted those
about me to be happy. ! wanted
everybody to like me-" Marie Dress
Ter, talking.
Hardly anybody nowadays owns up
to memory % years long. Nor under
modern circumstances can SO great a
strain upon the recollective powers
be expected. Grandmothers tripping
blithely about, precisely like those
three little maids from school,;
dfathers-rheumy- eyed, it's true,
but incorrigibly gallant nevertheless
-ogling misses of II; these certainly
cannot be called upon to make the
herculean reach into the antiquity
that a quarter of a century connotes.
II, just possible, however there should
be one here and there of an older
fashion Of thought and behavior, that
one might be able to recall the dim
past when this ugly ducklingI' COM
pletely smashed the shell of general
prejudice against the homely woman
and feathered out luxuriantly under
the sSell cast by the magic of her
own infectious laughter. Such an one
Will be glad to go along here, par
takingly, with Marie Dressler from
the very beginning of a career whose
zo-year span appears not to have di-
minished appreciably the powers of
a. truly uncomfortable spirit.
Marie Dressler romps through this
story Of her life just about as she
has romped on, and off, innumerable
stages TO the riotous delight OF hosts
OF on lockers. A oomedienne of the
drama. she, and q humorist Of life
and letters. In each, too, touched
with the unconscious pathos in which
true comedy and humor are both so
deeply rooted. The pathos of cour-
age is here, of the high heart Of the
gallant warrior. In her own way
which is always the way of laughter
Marie Dressler goes back to those
early days of her first engagement as
leading lady" That was with a road
company. She was then only IA
years old. Many times since she has
been leading lady under circum-
stances of stability and profit and
popularity. All Of this is dashed off
here with remarkable gusto and OBJ
vlous enjoyment. And when the
story is ended the reader finds himself
in a mood of high elation. Not alone
over the successes set down in this
inspiriting record, though one does
not withhold from the artist her full
due for the happiness that she has
bestowed, for the professional sue
cess that she has gathered in, for the
honors that have been conferred upon
her. But, after all, the great story,
under all these other stories. Is the
one that in It's essence may be every
body's story-that of unfaltering
courage and Of the dauntless heart.
X < x
The book is a sermon and a. mes
sage-wholly free, however, from the
hackneyed utilities with which the
pulpit and the clergy have, unwit-
tingly, endowed these terms 1t is
addressed to about the biggest audi
ence that can be mustered within
the human family. This is a sermon
90
homely women. Nobody is strictly
beautiful, either man or woman.
though the concern here is directly
with women. Few are even compara-
lively beautiful. The great majority
are, clearly, plain and palmer. Set off
against this fact and in clear aggra-
walton of its effects Is implanted the
instinct for admiration, homage, love.
In the animal world it is the male
that must bestir himself to take on
beauty and adornment, for it is the
female that chooses or rejects. But
alas and alack!-in the human fam
known as their proper vocation. And
what with the excess in numbers of
women over men, the homeliest of
the wemen are very likely to miss.
through no initial fault of their own
what is traditionally and piously
known as their proper vacation. And
what does this army of ugly women
-unpursued and unsolicited-do about
the tragic business? Many things,
But not one in a million of them ever
sits down honestly in front of her
own face for any solution of her
tremendous problem. No, in the first
place she lies about herself to her
self. Not Intentionally, of course.
But we are fatally lenient toward
our own faces. If now and then one
does own up to the truth she usually
gets mad about 1t, mad at life and
the better looking folks around her
Mad at the men, too. And this done,
at once those fatefuI gravers of the
features-anger, jealousy, resent
ment-get busy, and the actual trag-
edy OF the homely woman sets in for
good and ALL A million years, vet.
the admiration of men will be the
secret and sole object of women's
existence. The only sign that it will
ever be different lies in the rarely
occasional woman who nowadays
demonstrates the fact that she can
live, if she must, and live usefully
and happily outside the domain OF
personal male homage. And the trou-
bic with these few is that they make
their choice of life too late-after
they have been compelled to give up
their original desire for marriage and
nome and babies and purely femi-
nine troubles. The whole point of
Marie Dressler's story is that she
so early saw that she would never
do-never in the world. So, like the
clever child she must have been, she
hunted for the one thing she could
do. She could make people laugh
and she has been doing it every day
since this original discovery. Ugly?
Not a doubt in the world about 1t.
LOOK at the pictures in this book.
All the heroines from Joan of Arc
down cannot surpass the courage of
this display. But listen to her. You
know Won envy her q and z-o.s 80