"Wild Wooing Tactics of a Temperamental Adonis"
Bogus Whiskers, Fake Phone Calls, Groans, Tears and Mad Love on a Busstop — Thus Does Pretty Ilona Describe Her Heartsick Husband's Attentions to Herself
The Hamilton Evening Journal, Dec. 27, 1924
Ever since crude but caressing cavemen socked their sweethearts with clubs and bounced boulders off their heads to prove that love is real, man has been trying to find some, utterly novel sort of wooing. Leave it to handsome Bela Lugosi to solve tho puzzle- with high honors!
Born in romantic Buda-Pesth, like moat Continentals, dark, dashing and debonair, young Lugosi, says his wife, has invented more heart-tactics, than highballs have created headaches. Among his affectionate strategies—Mrs. Lugosi, known on the stage as the beautiful Ilona von Montagh, firmly asserts— are the following:
- One dog-kidnaping, to an obbligate of wifely tears;
- One overworked telephone, through which filtered sobs and pleas for a reconciliation (and the funny part of this was that not Bela, but mysterious deputies of his, always called up);
- Innumerable personal appearances of alleged "newspaper reporters," who didn't know a "stick" from an agate-rule — also deputies;
- One bogus set of whiskers, which startlingly enabled Hubby to masquerade as his own spokesman;
- Two dainty ankles and ditto wrists, firmly tied on top of a Fifth avenue bus;
- Two ribs, belonging to the loveliest English actress making her home in "the States," cracked either by Bela's excessive talent as a footlight lover, or by his private and pulsing emotions.
Miss Estella Winwood, the British star and victim of the crushing biceps, says that the first-mentioned theory is "just a bally lot of tosh, you know," with her best Mayfair accent. What Bela thinks is nobody's business. At least, he refuses to be Interviewed on the subject. Meanwhile, the sad side of the story is that, besides Miss Winwood's ribs, something else has been fractured. That is a heart, and it belongs to the magnetic Ilona. So deep proved the dent which Bela inflicted on the core of her affections that she demanded a divorce. Even now as she sits before the hearth in her dainty home on Riversidc Drive, New York.City, the only objects she can I see in the flames arc phony moustaches and maddening manacles, reflected from memory. But she cheers up when she thinks that very soon she will get her final decree—maybe.
How different all this is from the beginning of Ilona's and Beta's romance! Theirs was a spontaneous, fiery match, in which love of their mutual nrt and for each other vied, Tho details of their meeting, interest and infatuation were enough to furnish half a dozen novels, Frauicin von Montagh, born into one of the most aristocratic families in Buda-Pesth, had yearnedsince childhood for a stage career. Her relatives, tins' to form the world over, antagonized the idea.
But Ilona persisted, at the expense of kin's cold shoulder. She drudged around for a while in "hits" and then suddenly flashed into stardom in a spectacular flight over night. The vehicle which carried the dark-eyed beauty into heavens of applause, flowers and adulation was the "Florodora" of Central Europe, "The Girl from the Black Forest." This show ran and ran, no rival ever getting within shooting distance of its record.
Fraulein von Montagh played it in Buda-Pesth, Dresden, Hanover. Vienna and Berlin, where her personal hit was such that she captured the town. Even the provinces resounded with her name, her charm and her good looks. But the longest engagement must end some time, so what more natural than that she should seek fresh laurels in that moat up-and-coming of countries, America? To New York she sailed, and then bad luck began to decorate her with all sorts of jinx-insignia.
She, of course, made her bid for native favor in a revival of "The Girl from the Black Forest." But where Germanic audiences had been cooing, rapturous and manifold, those in the United States proved coy, chilly and scanty.
But there was one sliver of silver lining her dark cloud of despair. In the company playing "opposite" her was a dark and dashing leading man. Bela (for it was none other) cast one blazing eye upon tho Hungarian Venus, and fell for her with a thud which made the very chandeliers shake.
"Will you? Won't you?" was his flaming plea. Ilona could and would. Rapid fire engagement. Church. Marriage. Honeymoon. A prospect of bliss which seemed too good to be true. It was. Bela wanted her to retire, she declares. They stuck it out together, however, for two months. And then Bela agreed, with a tear or two, that he would live elsewhere if his darling would only come home.
With Ilona reinstated and Bela a selfwilled outcast, the real drama began. It started zippily enough. Mrs. Bela had a pet dog, to which she was as deeply devoted as to her art. One awful day Fieurette disappeared. Where had it gone? Its grieving owner taxed her husband with kidnapping the terrified animal.
No sooner had Ilona recovered from Fieurette's vanishing than she began to act as an unwilling shock-absorber for other strange attentions. Weird voices informed her over the 'phone at unearthly hours that she had better hurry up and mend her absent husband's heart as soon as possible or else ---!
Ilona was even more perturbed when the New York press began to develop a strange interest in her private life. Not once but half a dozen times reporters pled for interviews, and she politely admitted them. But they threw off all pretense of being news-gatherers, and candidly told her that they were emissaries from her desolate mate.
Shortly after this Ilona embarked for the theatre — alone. At the corner a strange man sprang out at her, uttering incoherent words and making peculiar gesticulations. The gist of his mumbled discourse was that Madame should, must would lake back Bela Lugosi. Scared out of her senses, Ilona (who had not then seen Molnar's "The Guardsman") ,was about to yell for tho police, when, to her astonishment, the stranger accomplished the equivalent of a quick nocturnal shave by feverishly snatching off his facial decorations.
Bela—for it was he, she avers—renewed his demand. But Ilona departed in a huff and a Taxi.
The end was not yet. A week later, while riding atop a bus, Ilona became awara that her ankles were chilly. Putting her hand down to find out why (the weather was clement) she was staggered to discover that they had been cunningly shackled. At that moment a set of grasping fingers threw another cord about her wrists and tied it, she says. One doesn't scream on buses, so Ilona sat quiet while theo owner of the fingers seated himself beside her and began the same old story Would she come back to him? Would she have mercy? But she wouldn't. This time she was too much for her friendly enemy. With a wriggle of rage, she managed to do a Houdini and disappeared in the dark.
And Miss Winwood? Well, that was another story. It all occurred while she was starring in "The Red Poppy." Bela was the man in the play who was supposed to grab the fair Estelle and playfull throttle her. Such a realist was the temperamental Adonis that one night he verged on roughness and pop! went two of Miss Winwood's ribs
But no hard feelings. "It was the sort of thing that might happen to anyone," explains Miss Winwood.
Miss Winwood went on tour in "Spring Cleaning." Mrs. Lugosi went on tour with "Little Miss Bliebeard." As for Bela Lugosi, HE went on tour in "The Werewolf." He was cast as the butler, who jumped out at every girl he liked the looks of, and they DO say he gives a performance which would make Edwin Booth writhe in his grave with jealousy.
