Anna Q. Nilsson

The Sixth in a Series of Twelve Interviews with Motion Picture Personages

JIM TULLY

SHE is the Cinderella of fact and—the heroine of a stranger yarn than any she has ever portrayed in the films. She arrived in New York a penniless Swedish girl of fourteen.

A beet picker in Sweden, and later a working girl in New York, she became in time the "Penrhyn Stanlaws Girl", and one of the most beautiful models in the world.

She has no illusions about her career, and says frankly, "It was handed to me on a silver platter." And as she talks, you wonder. There is much to be said for those who survive. They have the same weaknesses of those who fail.

Strawberry lips, a lithe form, a piquant air and a complexion as lovely as dappled sunlight, will take a girl either one way or the other. All in all she must travel carefully and wear heavy nails in her shoes. The pavements were ever slippery for beautiful maidens.

Much might have been handed to Anna Q. Nilsson on a silver platter, but much more, in character, was handed to her out of the centuries. No doubt some old Viking ancestor had learned endurance in the freezing fjords. It was merely a part of his destiny at the time, but all unconsciously he prepared the soil for a flower which he was never to sec.

Anna Q. Nilsson has survived fourteen years in motion pictures. The names of many him stars have been heralded across the nations in that time and are heard of no more.

Born in a remote village of Sweden, she early dreamed of America. When she was eleven years old two young neighbours had left for the promised land. The blonde girl decided that she also wanted to go to America.

It was far distant. She was very young. Her parents were poor. Even if wealthy, they would not let her travel alone to such a far country.

With the aim of saving money for the journey, she worked at odd tasks . . . weeding gardens, and doing neighbourhood chores.

AT the age of twelve she contracted to take care of an acre of sugar beets for a year. She received for this labour the equivalent oi eighty dollars. The ground had to be prepared, the beets planted and picked, then brought safely to market before the money was paid. The little girl whose face and figure were to adorn the pages of so many magazines, now worked from early dawn until late at night to achieve new purpose.

Working in the beet fields was none too easy for a young girl in warm weather. But the work made her hands blood-raw and numb in the freezing weather. She did her task well enough to be given another contract lor the next year at a slight increase in salary.

When she was fourteen the young neighbours returned from America, for a visit. The little field labourer secured their permission to allow her to accompany them back to the United States. Her parents, of strong metal, gave their consent, providing that the young couple would send her home in six months. She had saved enough to travel, not luxuriously, but with the high heart of youth and without boredom.

Before the six months were up the future film beauty had decided to defer her return to Sweden. Her friends were afraid of her parents' wrath, and told her firmly that she would have to return to Sweden. So she ran away from the Swedish colony, where her friends were living.

Menial service had always been frowned on by her people, but she could not speak English and so was forced to become a servant girl for a German family here. She worked for her board and clothing.

Once, while she was riding on a street car in Brooklyn, she lost her car-fare, and started to get off. Flic conductor, with a detachable necktie at a right angle on his rubber collar, bade her remain seated and dropped a nickel in the fare box. He was blond and short and talked English none to well. "I bane from ol' countree, too," he said, and carried the girl to her destination. When she leit the car he handed her an envelope in which there was a note with his name and address at the end of it.

The girl returned the money to the man afterwards. He knows that she later became Anna Q. Nilsson. He was not a White Slaver in disguise. She still writes to him. With the irony of fate, this man, with the streak of kindness in his heart, is now a New York subway guard.

Anna Q. Nilsson is one of the few women on the screen who sees life clearly. She has none of the smaller vanities of women, and is today not too proud to remember the lean days of her girlhood.

New York was none too kindly to one who had but a smattering of English and the years and wonder of a child. She did—as many would under like circumstances—the best she could. She tried one job after another, working in basement stores at five dollars a week.

Once after she had lost a bad job but one which was her only means of earning a livelihood, she bought a newspaper and asked a passing girl to help her decipher an advertisement. The girl was an artist's model, and had jut left a building in which many leading American artists had studios. As they talked, the late Carroll Beckwith, the portrait painter, passed. He spoke to the model, and then looked carefully at Anna Q. Nilsson. It was her clothing which struck his fancy. He asked her if she would like to pose for him. She did not understand, but finally agreed when he and the model had carefully explained things to her. For some time she posed for Beckwith, and later for such artists as Charles Dana Gibson, Harrison Grey Fisher, Clarence Underwood, James Montgomery Flagg, and, finally, Penrhyn Stanlaws.

IN her early career as a model Miss Nilsson often posed for advertising photographs to eke out her existence. She had a friend who was also a model, and who became, and still remains, one of the loveliest personalities on the screen. Her name is Alice Joyce.

An advertising photographer became a motion picture camera-man and persuaded Mi s Joyce to try acting. She soon became successful in two-reel pictures, and in turn persuaded Miss Nils.; n to try the same career. Thus an unknown photographer started two girls on a silver highway.

Within a short time Anna Q. Nilsson scored a success as Molly Vtidier, the Revolutionary war heroine. She has played many widely different roles, her best known characterization being that of Desmond in Cynthia Stocklev's South African story, Ponjola. She also played (with splendid verve) the most lifelike of Rex Beach's characters, Cherry Mallotte in The Spoilers.

Her work ranges from the seductive Viennese lady of easy virtue in 'The Viennese Medic;, to the male disguise in Ponjola. Her work in both these pictures was of extraordinary merit. In all she has played nearly two hundred roles.

Artists have declared that she has the most captivating profile in the world. She is the first statuesque blonde to hold her place on the screen, for in spite of everything said to the contrary, decided blondes are not as popular on the screen as brunettes. Many people say that as a rule they register coldly.

Kathryn MacDonald, a decided blonde, was widely publicized and was soon a memory. Miss Du Pont had a similar fate.

It is true that Mac Murray holds her place, after fifteen years of acting, but she is a distinctly different type. She is the heroine of the jazz morons.

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Claire Windsor, a beautiful blonde, is used on the screen more for decorative purposes than for anything else.

Mary Miles Minter is another fairhaired actress of memory. Producers gave her a million dollar contract for five years with the hope of making her another Mary Pickford. She failed dismally as a "box-office attraction". It was, perhaps, the one contract the producers could not break. Mary drew her thousands each week and became wealthy and fat. For months at a time she did not work. She has long since passed to the limbo of forgotten things, and is only remembered by the Judean gentlemen who signed the checks.

Mary Pickford remains one of the very few petite blondes to make a world wide success on the screen.

But Anna Q. Nilsson has long been a screen favourite. In an international voting contest held by cinema critics, exhibitors, and the public, she was chosen as one of the five most popular players in the world. It is interesting to note that Lewis Stone, who has been so many times co-featurcd with Miss Nilsson, was also among the five.

Victor Seastrom, Anna Q. Nilsson's fellow countryman, is her favourite director. He directed Andreyev's He Who Gets Slapped and Selma Lagerlof's Stroke of Midnight, and other notable pictures. He is a man of genuine talent and compassion.

The volatile Chaplin once called Seastrom "the greatest director in the world". It is likely that some of his earlier pictures will remain landmarks long after most American films are forgotten. He, and Lubitsch, and Emil Tannings and Pola Negri have made the foremost European contributions to the screen. But, like Lubitsch and Negri, his work has suffered the taint which usually follows in the wake of too many American dollars.

Miss Nilsson returned to her native country, several years ago, for a visit. Reporters travelled from Stockholm to interview her in the village of her birth. The wandering daughter presented her parents with the largest house in the village. She has not informed them how much money she earns in the new country. She knows that people used to frugal ways of living would not comprehend how a child of theirs could earn far more than the President of the United States. They still wish her to return and settle among them.

A strange destiny indeed for a tired little labourer in a beet field ... or even for the daughter of a queen.