Evening star., 1941-08-12


Command to Love-" out of the
period before love became subtle in
the eyes of dramatistS, was one play
on his agenda. "Tovarich" was the
other. Novarro like the latter bet
ter, which could be sign that he
has grown up or at least has tend
encies in that direction.
From a distance, not too great a
distance. his old following would
find small justification for observ-
ing MY, how he has changed" If
his hair is thinner, it is impercep-
tible to the naked eye. His figure
still is trim and there is more than
a remnant of the nervous energy
which made him such an exciting
Rupert in The Prisoner Of zenda"
back in 1921. The face is little
heavier around the chin and the
complexion seems to have been
damaged by those long, strong doses
of makeup.
1t probably is significant that
Novarro makes emphatic point of
the fact that he quit the movies
voluntarily.
MY two happiest days" he says,
"in all of my career were my first
and last"
He adds then that the last was
the more happy. Because he does,
it somehow makes you think it was
an emotion achieved in retrospect
and not without some sturdy mental
effort. So does lot of the other
Novarro philosophy which comes out
in the course of hasty dinner be-
fore the evening performance.
Novarro, who still speaks English
with vague flavor of Mexican
(after all these years, tooD, is proud
of the canniness which made him
save enough of his old $500, ,00O-a-
picture salary to live comfortably
now. 1t sets him apart from so
many members of his set whose pic
lures also have been removed from
the collections of the impressionable
young-and old.
Even with enough to live on,
however, he does not want to be in
active. That is his explanation OF
his presence in the wee barns on
the hills of New England. He wants
to be doing something.
In his house in HollyWood-"on
the only street where people have
lived long enough to pay the last
installment on the mortgage"-he
has meditated to the conclusion that
he would rather be a writer now
than anything else. You would have
thought, or would you be that kind
of cad, too, that he would have had
time to have embarked upon that
career since he quit the movies,
really back in 1885 although there
were one or two half-hearted come
back attempts thereafter.
When you ask what he has writ
ten. he modestly admits only to a
little effort which R-K-O kept in
the files for long time and then
turned back to him. That, and a
few sketchy dramatic items which
he has had fun producing in the
Novarro Theater Intime in his Hol-
lywood home. 1t is not much. He
doesn't pretend that it is. Or maybe
he is pretending not to pretend.
Actors are such confusing people,
especially when they are agreeable.
Novarro says he does not want
to start a new career, if it is not
writing. But in the next breath he
mentions that the revival of his
picture "Mata Hari" has awakened
old memories, not of Greta Garbo
who was Mata and his leading lady
in that distant heyday, but of fam
dom. His old fans, who are also
little older, have started writing
again. 1t sets him to remembering.
And thinking too. He thinks how
loyal people are. He is so grateful
that he now tries to answer every
letter personally-through Sec
retary. of cOurse-Which was some