“Don’t make faces unless they’re pretty ones.” — Bebe Daniels
Source: Antoinette Donnelly (1925)
“I’m so glad I am a star I can hardly tell you about it. I love it. I either love or hate things, you know. I love acting.” – Bebe Daniels in 1921.
At the time, she was being promoted as “the good little bad girl.”
Studio Beauty Is a Lover of Animals
Bebe Daniels Belongs to Los Angeles Humane Society and Has Her Home Filled With Pets
Black-eyed Bebe Daniels has a hobby that is worth while. The pet hobbies and aversions of every star and near-star of the screen has been told and retold, with unvarying monotony, but Bebe the beauteous has one that is all her own, as far as motion pictures folk are concerned.
Miss Daniels gives her mother all the credit for this hobby, and Mrs. Daniels promptly hands the honor back to Bebe. Both claim the other was interested in the particular hobby first; but, whoever was responsible, the hobby is none the lens praiseworthy.
The hobby in question is this:
Bebe Daniels is an active member of the Los Angeles Humane Society. More than that, she is an officer. And she takes her duties very seriously. Any time a man mistreats a horse or other dumb animal, and Bebe is anywhere about, that man is due for some official trouble.
Her love of animals is reflected in her home, for it is literally filled with pets. She has three blooded cats, two pedigreed dogs, two parrot and various other birds, beasts ad fish too numerous to mention.
Here she is following an angora cat up a fig tree.
“Cecil B. DeMille once informed me that I was of the oriental type. Now, I believe in being true to type, and am adjusting my habits accordingly. I have had my own particular room at home decorated in oriental fashion and I intend to have my dressing room at the Lasky studio made into an oriental room. I went so far as to advertise for a Chinese maid; but everyone thought the ad was a joke, and I received no seriously favorable answers.” — Bebe Daniels
Ad for Why Change Your Wife (1920), directed by DeMille.
“Come to Los Angeles and you can drive my car all summer and we’ll have a wonderful time!” — Bebe Daniels, shortly before ending her PR tour through Texas, her native state.
Source: Ft. Worth Star-Telegram, January 2, 1921
On the cover of Photoplay Magazine, July 1922.
From Ducks and Drapes (1921).
“It was only the hardest work that advanced me. Several years ago when I had a rather humble place in films, I was told I would get a try-out someday with a great concern. I lay away many a night trying to evolve plans to progress more rapidly. Then one night it came to me like a flash – I’d be my own critic and a might harsh one at that. So I hung around the projecting rooms and haunted ‘movie’ theaters whenever I was to be shown on the screen. I watched every move I made and resolved to improve my acting. Oh, sweet cookie! but how I did ‘pan’ my own efforts. Well, the scene worked. My directors said I was doing better with every picture. Then one day there came the big day – my day. I was given the try-out with the large producers and I had so much confidence in myself I just cinched the opportunity and, management said, made good so rapidly they gave me a contract. There are lots and lots of girls who probably have made as good a showing as I did if they had been given the chance. But they were in Yonkers, New York, or Savannah, Georgia, or Grand Rapids, Michigan, or some other center, and I was out in Hollywood and wasn’t wasting any efforts in letting that golden opportunity get by me.” — Bebe Daniels
Here is an extremely obscure celebrity recipe that I don’t think has ever been posted online (until now). It originally appeared in a an October 26, 1921, newspaper article.
Bebe Daniels’ Spanish Rice (I’m basically reformatting it without changing any ingredients or cooking instructions).
Ingredients:
2 cupfuls of rice
1 small onion, chopped fine
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup chopped ripe tomatoes
2 tablespoons butter
2 teaspoons of California chili pepper, chopped fine.
Black pepper
3 tablespoons of sugar.
Directions:
Wash the two cupfuls of rice and place in skillet of hot grease. (Do not boil or steam rice.) Stir in teaspoon of salt and finely chopped onion. In a separate dish, prepare tomatoes, butter, chili pepper, a dash of black pepper, and sugar. Pour mixture into hot rice and cook slowly until well done.
Nice People (1922). A lost film. With Julia Faye.
“Oh, please see the publicity director. I don’t like to talk about myself.” — Bebe Daniels
Source: 1925
“What I have is mostly tied up in real estate. Probably I could live comfortably on it if other income stopped, but only by selling. And selling would mean a loss, not a profit.” — Bebe Daniels
Source: Hubbard Keavy (1931)
Photo: 1931
Bebe Daniels and Ben Lyon inside their Santa Monica home.
“The laborer puts all his energy into his work, doesn’t he? So does the motion picture player. The distinction between them is that, the laborer drives his own car to work; the star employs a chauffeur. The laborer dines out of his lunch pail; the star dines in her dressing room or the studio cafe. The laborer works eight hours a day, then goes home around five in the afternoon; the star works from ten to eighteen hours daily…then goes home to memorize lines for the next day’s job.” – Bebe Daniels
While this comparison applied to working motion picture players, most people don’t realize that production crews worked six day weeks back then.
Source: Valentine Lyon (1932)
Photo: Elmer Dyer (1932)
