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THE CHINA MAIL, SATURDAY, AUGUST 24, 1987.
Sylvia Ashley story... the Fairbanks chapter ends.
WHAT SYLVIA SAID to MARY PICKFORD
THEN Mary Pickford walked into the dining-room to moet Sylvin Ashley at that Hollywood party she was the focal point of all eyes. Not even their closest friends coat speculate on the outcome of the meeting hetween these two purposeful women.
And so, with Douglas Fairbanks fidgeting nervously in the background, they came face to face: the girl born Gladys Smith, who grew up to become the World's Sweetheart, Mary Pickfort, and marry Fairbanks-and Sylvia Ashley, the girl born Louie Hawkes, who grew up to steal Fairbanks from her.
It was a dramatic moment Fairbanks introduced them: on his thet a mask-like smile to cloak the uneasiness in his heart. "How du you do?" sald Sylvia. "I'm so happy to meet you' Mid Mary
"Alay get you something?" Sylvia askoË.
A sandwich and a cop
102
01
would be delightful,“ ezid Mary.
NERVOUS
WHILE Sylvia went away lo
fetch them,, Mary tuned su Fairbanks.
"You see, Douglas,, it wasn't 30 Serriste
Fairbanks.
his hands in his coat porkets, the caat pulled Bghtly around his small and
nodded muscular hips, ably. He was very nervous,
BNT-
When Sylvia returned the
half-knell on a chair to be near-
e Mary's height.
I hear Piekfair is for sale," she said. "What a pity.... Mary froze imperceptibly the mention of the fabulous dream hotze he rnd Firbanks basi bulit,
"Pickfair has served ils' put
ՌԱԿԸ, ** shr sukel. "Sumchow material things do nož
mean
so much to me as once they did.
Sylvia was in London with Fairbanks when war broke out. Her sister Vera and the two
children. Tim and Laureta,
RODERICK MANN
No Hollywood star over played a mòro difficult role than that under- taken by Sylvia Ashioy when the became Mrs. Douglas Fairbanks, wife of the fabulous, swashbuckling character who was the world's most successful film actor.
→ Sylvia corried off tho part triumphantly. Hollywood was
FRA DARCOCOIN JALLEREDE MEDA 3930231; MALADE (STEINGRAM
He was in binets despair. The outbreak of wor in Europe had not only shocked : it had niso ercuted a per- sonal problem. It meant he would
longer be able to travel. And travel for him had breeme
a necessary means of
110
escape.
He didn't know it then, but he would be doing ng more travelling.
NOT TOLD
ON
N the morning of December 11 he woke with a feeling of tension in his chest, Ile was also having trouble with breathing.
he
his
"Just a touch of indigestion," said. I've been over- indulging myself."
But a doctor was summoned. and as a result of this examina- tion . Fairbanks, protesting
That night
:tv
Fairbanks there in his huge bed, his bulldog Marco Polo out on the floor, Buzzling his stretched outstretched hand.
Outside, In the ball, a nurse was on duty. Towards midnight Fairbanks naked, for, one of the windows to be opened so that he might fear the sea. The beach-house
wns wrapped
fog.
in
be
There was no sourd to heard, save for the rumble of the ocean on the beach and the occasional sound of fear nosing its way along the coast road.
At a quarter to one, while ali save one slept, the dog howled agonisingly; an eerie, terrifying sound.
The nurse hurried into the om and bent over Fairbanks'
the crowds back. Sylvia-weep ing-ovas escorted by Douglas Fairbanks Jun.
It was all over.
HIS FORTUNE
LOT of people thought that Sylvin would never get over Fairbanks' death-but with that natural buoyancy at spirit which had saved her so often she was soon taking an nellve part In things again.
captivated by her wit, her charm, hor. graciousness.
But her most critical test was yot to come. Thero could be no ovading it. Inovitably there came the day whon sho was face to face with the woman from whom she had won Fairbanks. The woman's namo was Mary Pickford.
husband no legal
he joined up under all-three... in, arrangement innde in the no Lord Stanicy in the Navy, ordinary COUISE of domestic Lord Sheffield in the Army, and relationship between Lord Eddisbury in the RAF. and wife, and carried The Senior Service called him obligation. first.
Before the war he had gain nd a reputation young Liberal prer.
a un active
f
Sylvia lost her claimexcept for items toteillag £107 109.
Then back to the gúcial round she wen!,
the
In 1938 he had sold Alderley
The wor
was over: people Fork, his 4,000-acre
were family everywhere
celebrating, ustatc. The land had belonged spending money, having a good to his family for 500 years, but tline. Sylvia plunged In at the the deaths of two heads of the deep end and swam with Nobody knew how Fairbanks had left. In his hey- Sheffield, in 1925 and his father.
much family-his grandfather, Lord strongest.
worth between dey he had undoubtedly £4,000,000.
been in 1931-rought demands in OLD TIMES...
£3,000,000 and death duties which the But towards the could not carry. close of his life the vatue of his holdings disastrously,
estate
had depreciated But, the sale of the estate still did not make him a rich (702
the
to
LITTLE MONEY
his
TN America he had only
£540 a year as an officer of the Royal Naval Volunteer Re- serve and owing to the cur- rency restrictions couldn't #el any more,
FEBRUARY 1946 saw the en- tre Stork CIUU In New York
being taken over by Lerelle and William Randolph Hearst jun, for a party in Sylvia's honour, Everyone said how adorable she looked; how amazingly young for a AVOMEN
42.
It was just like old times.
Old timer.
Just how much Was not evident until details estate were published...
They caused some surprise. Fairbanks fortune amounted only half a million pounds.
Under the terms half of this
of his will went to Sylvio. The rest sas split up among Doug. Jun. and other relations.
It was a complicated estate. which was obviously going to take a long time to settle.
She also told him that if he Pending settlement, Sylvia nerded a car to assist him in went to Los Angeles Superior the discharge of his oficial Court in February 1940 and duties, she would be glad to lend rang
He painted this out to Syivin, She told him not to worry.
Sitting there amid the plush and swank of ihat exclusive think club, did she-one "Wonders
back over the years, assessing her nehlevements in the light of what they had cost her?
By now the girl who once at her father's working
with a wrangle in the courts over money
vigorously, was put to bed. The examination had shown that he was suffering from a coronary thrombosis, Neither hc пог Sylvia was told of this.
* Her wartime marriage
were with then.
Fantanks immediately pack-
ed them all of 10 California. "You must rest" he was
and followed himself in a couple est weeks.
warned. "No, radio: no news-. papers. Nothing."
I'M NOT FIT FOR
THE JOB'
said the American President
THE CRISIS OF THE OLD ORDER, 1919-33. By Arthur
M. Schlesinger, jun. Heinemann, 42s. 569 pages. HOW fascinating are the studies by Americans of their corresponding efforts in Britain. Here there still prevails a gentlemanly convention (possibly the result of our public school system that politicians only accept office reluctantly from pense of duty, and that such motives as ambition, greg/emulation, revenge or love of power play no part at all in public life.
This convention has affected the attitude of historians, so much so that any attempt to describe in sober and straight- forwardt language the eurious mixture of altruism and self- interest, idealism and shrewd- which ira faci actunte politicians, is apt to brand the author as a cynle or scandal- ninger.
ness,
Not in America, There political life is-and always has been--the life of the Jungle. Politicians have seldom pre- tunded otherwise even at the lime, and necordingly historians feel under no obligation to saften in retrospect the rigours of the battle or to conceal the general skullduggery which goca on. Hence the, interest of their books.
None spared
Professor Arthur M. Schle-
tion
by
Robert Blake
Think of the leading poli- ticlans: President Herding criminally weak if not actually corrupt, who admitted onpe:
1 am not fit for this office and thould never have been here President Coolidge, of whom the White House usher wrote: *No other President in my time ever slept so much,”
to a handsome peer
ends within a year
dog had seen him die. bed. He was dead. And only his They went to waken Sylvia, who was sleeping in the next room, and told her what had happened.
"It's impossible," she said, while-faced. "I
was Only Th little plain, Doug can't be dead. He's the strongest man in Hollywood,"
Hollywood was stunned. Only
asked for an allowance to one to him. She had two fuld men's club was famous, Or support her in the manner lo up she told him-a Ford and a notorious, depending upon one's which she was accustomed. She Rolls.
outlook on marriage, said she had no other means
She Was of support.
tremendously He chose the Rolls. She wealthy; she sas witly, laxed and Insured The court allowed her £750 From the way
it for him. bright and beautiful; she wes she was behav- persona grate everywhere. a month,
ingatter all one did not lend a Rolls 10 just anyone-Sylvia's friends could see she wis considered
love again.
and
Douglas Fairbanks Jun other beneficiarica this too much, and wanted the allowance cut to £250 a month
Then, sobbing uncontrollably, A long legal wrangle followed. she collapsed.
This resulted in a temporary cool off in relations between a tew days before Fairbanks had Sylvia and Douglas jun. been to a football match-and vaulted over a barrier with the
same old agilliy he used to show WASHER-UP in his carly pictures.
never seemed fitter,
He had
The day after his death, while Fairbanks lay in his huge, carved bed, they came to pay last tribute to him... Norma Shearer. Ronald Colman,
Her bert Marshall, Myrna Loyal the Hollywood greats,
K try
to
прод forget Fairbanks
"death, Sylvia plunged Jato wor relief and charity work.
With America in the war, she volunteered to work in any way she could, and claims to have washed up more cups in service canteens than any other woman,
Morally more reputable than Handing, Coolidge had the same insensale respect for business, "The man who builds a fac- tory," he said, "bullds a temple." In front of the bed, refusing
Throughout these years the food and water, lay Marco Polo, bright, amusing self, and more Secretary of the Treasury, was The dog was inconsolable. Andrew Mellon,
than onc young American a man
sokiler lost his heart to her. enormous wealth who brought
bedroom great
The
...
Was
She continued to be ber
and
1943
singer, Jun., of Harvard ad- the art of personal tax evasion banked with flowers sent by But Sylvia was not Interested. intrably exemplifies this tradi- to its highest pilch, and whose every famous ector and actress Not interested, that is, until
in his excellent first principal worry was the exces in the United Stutes
... when a dorkly hand- volume of series entitled alve rate of federal tax on those some not so famous.
some young. RNVR oflcer The Age of Roosevelt.
whose incomes exccoded 1,000,000 It is clear, cogent, well- dollars.
Outside the house guards kept came into her life. back a huge crowd which had He was
lieutenant-com. written, Duthoritativo and
But the most tragle fallure driven out from Los Angeles. mander stationed in America. spares nobody. His pielame of
carrying. He was charming. And he had of all was President Hoover, He A group of teenagers the 12 years of Republican was the very arch-type of the black posters bearing the words. a tille... rule which form the theme of American business man, success- "Robin Hood is Dead."
"The
a
of
And she was.
In
What was she thinking while the champagne flowed and the music played? Of Wherncliffe Gardens where she had grown up? Of the Great Central At the end of the year they Station where she had worked decided to get married. And in as a young clerk? Of her days Boston, in January 14, Sylvių s manicurist? 01 her becunc Ludy Alderley.
Stanley
of father?
was A TIRED MAN
The problem of money still a very real one. 10 Lord ob- Stanley-for it was quite vious that Sylvia would hardly be content to live on his £10- a-week pay.
Indeed she was not.
P
RTHUR HAWKES was still Uving in Wharncliffe Gardens tired. sick man whose sight was foding and who wore a hearing-atd. Apart from what Sylvla sent him, he had only his small pension.
BAY
A few days after the wedding Sylvia opened a account with him, on which she joint banking authorised Stanley to draw for zadir: "No, I haven't seen my
When asked. he would the expenses of them both.
. However, the marriage was disaster from the start.. just did not get along,
daughter recently. But I'mu supposed to look like her, you They know. That makes me hand-
some, doesn't it?"
Hawkes had worked doorman at a London restaurant from 1942-45. For 10 years be- fore that he had been a porter Into the in a Regent's Park block of flats
earning £2 a week. Ister-after
In May 1944 Stanley return- ed to England. Sylvia followed In September.
"They both checked Ritz Hotel.
Two months healed ATKUMSAL
walked out of the hotel. did not go back.
Stanley
When had he last heard from He Sylvia? He couldn't remember. But he always knew how was getting along—beccuse the newspapers.
sho of
book is a brillant and
To Sylvia, louicly and 2017- The author is ful, honest, public-spirited. "No Thief of Bagdad is Dead," and
Lord terrifying one,
And that, indeed, might have Stanley writes America,
essor "Artagnan is Dead," paraded attached, Professor In well-known Liberal, and an
Alderily looked very good,
been the end of that. But admirer of Roosevelt, but his Schlesinger, could have pro-before the gates of the house.
She could not know that this Sylvia, determined that Stanley
The last item he remembered vided a
fairer test of the
was to prove the most disastrous should repay what she had lerit was the report of a burglary at unflattering portrait of the Re-
Sylvia, Bill suffering from
him in the United States, tooit her London flat in August 1945. publican regime cannot be re- capacity of the business shock and under medical super-attachment of all.
unduly
Bilm to count in 1940-cħidming partisan. munity garded as
to govern a great vision, gave Instructions that the
which Thirty-six years old, Stanley' £3,683 17%. Id.,
she She'd been robbed of jewel- For, what historian of honesty nation."
funeral rites were to be private wan's great lover of the ser. alleged sho lent to him or paid try worth
£50,000... and simple.
He possessed three tilles, and on his behalf.
wish," said Hawkes sadly, In court Sinnicy, insisted that wish 1 had it was said that the beginning of the war found him so keen the joint banking account was pennier,
could fail to be unflattering
.
"My husband wished it that
Yet when the crisis came he about that Ureadful epoch? was as bankrupt of ideas as Those year saw one of the the banks were of money, most disastrous experiments of He remained to the end the way," she said. modern democracy the un- prisoner of his own rid checked rule of business men, orthodoxy. He ruled his party which ended in the greatest for 20 years. clump of all time.
--(London Express Service).
Two days later, at the Kirk the Heather in Forest Lawn Memorial Park, Fairbanks was Jald to rest. The guards kept
marina
NEXT WEEK Clark Gable is Sylvia's fourth...and then. The Prince
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