Crazy Artiste
ON the last day of the holidays I was sitting alone in the cinema in Maidenhead. Queen Christina had marched into the room, thrown off her great feathered hat and was about to share a bunch of grapes with John Gilbert. I remember being overcome with a great sadness caused by going back to school and by the knowledge that I would never cat grapes in bed with such a regal, arro- gant and unapproachable figure,, while the snow lay deep outside the window and the Austro- Hungarian Empire, or whatever the hell it was, crumbled slowly to pieces. Subsequent events have not proved me wrong. While the chances of everyday life can, with luck, provide a Bardot substitute, or a joky little Monroe image, while you may even find a Loren figure scowling marvellously at you round the corner of the next espresso machine, Garbo remains remote and unattainable upon the screen. In Mr. Billquist's quite extraordinarily unrevealing book there is a photograph of Queen Christina. The marvellous eyebrows are arched, the gaze sad and weary with contempt and pity for those small subjects who sat worshipping in the darkness, eating pop- corn. And Francois Mauriac. no less, came out of the Cathedral and into the Odeon to write :
Your face hides a gap . . . For the poor human flock sitting there motionless in front of the screen with its thirst for beauty you are a
surrogate. . . .
Metro's dress designer, Gilbert Adam, was more practical and less Pateresque: The Garbo girl should begin her day in pyjamas of bright colours and over them a wrapper of black silk with heavy Chinese em-
rn-
broidery: that is, she should be rather exotic in the morning.
Small wonder that John Gilbert, his friendship with Garbo over, found solace in the company of Miss Beatrice Lillie.
What happened, after the Queen and the mystery, was that, for the first time since the Restoration, sex became funny. And leading the guffaws with elegant laughter was none other than the great Remote Surrogate herself. When Garbo called on Lubitsch after seeing Love Parade, and threw him a bunch of roses and the words, '011 Ernst, was ffir ein grain- here I', the revolution had begun. She laughed marvellously at herself in Ninotchka and the way was open for Marilyn Monroe to be overcome by the comedy of her own powerful attractions and for Sophia Loren to take the micky out of the most beautiful body in the world. The Odalisque of this book's early chapters had become what is finally called, by Mr. Billquist, 'The Crazy Artiste.' It may show a sad flight from maturity, but when it comes to the choice I'm with the crazy artistes all the way.
Seeing Queen Christina recently I wondered at my emotions in Maidenhead. But seeing Camille I had no doubt that, in spite of Francois Mauriac and the dress designer at Metro, the world's press and Mr. Billquist, Garbo was a very great actress who should be seen at all available opportunities—and hardly read about at all.
JOHN MORTIMER
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