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Show Surprising Romance of the "Blue Grass" K Beauty Who Thought She Didn't hCt:t11rdk1 I Want Any Husband at All, and ryFE "Blue Grass" heauty who w-as Crt&inlV Not fit . ; Elise Bartlctt Porter was one of r a type of which the world, and 1 f I particularly America, has many. PI "Tl Ifi Q 0 1TTI 1 v She was of a rich and aristocratic ICAlIUOWlll V-fllC x Mty Kentucky family. i ?r She was beautiful. TV T ".T f I She was more than well educated. She llOj llCVCl was rarely accomplished, of a high order ... - . ;! cf intelligence. f I "HE "Blue Grass" beauty who was H Elise Bartlctt Porter was one of H A a type of which the world, and particularly America, has many. ! She was of a rich and aristocratic 1 Kentucky family. She was beautiful. H She was more than well educated. She w:as rarely accomplished, of a high order V, cf intelligence. But more than any of these, she was ambitious. Other girls there may have been as beautiful, wealthy and talented as Elise Porter, but Hj surely none who was j She can travel I as far as she likes. His busi- I ncss micrht easily take him around the world." aw But it waa not of such travel the girl with the . H repular features, the I marvclously well cut H' lips, and the beautiful brow, dreamed. Even B while she was finishing her education at a ' ! convent in Paris her thoughts were of a B s land as exotic as India, A Wk a land of make-believe J i H the stage. Her parents listened H with indulgent smiles ;' H to the recital of her hopes and plans. J "When she goes back j to Louisville and New H York and takes her H, place in society she will forget the H stage," they agreed. "She is still a H child. It is the glamour of life she H wants. She expects to find it in the footlights. We will humor her. She will H get over this. If only we can keep Tom H away, that will help matters " H "Tom" wa3 the successful young j , actor, Tom Powers. He was her foster I brother. His example as a rising acfror might, they feared, fan the flame of her I ambition They would cable Tom not to talk about his success when they met in London. Mr. Powers promised He ij kept his word. But when the pretty j young American girl saw her brother by adoption winning the applause, of audiences and the praise of the press her ambition did not diminish Instead I it increased. The Porter family, on board an ocean liner bound for America, talked often to Elise about her old friends at home. "Isn't it nice, that Maude has asked ij you to her bridesmaid?" her mother J queried. "Wht would you like to wear, j my dear?" H Miss Porter answered indifferently: H "It doesn't matter, mother. Maude will probably suggest the colors herself." H j "Think of Billy having been admitted to the bar," the mother would suppest. I "I would not be surprised to see him i1 Governor some da." Elise Porter's eyes, turned in the direction of the approaching shoreline, held no spark of interest for Billy's jl gubernatorial prospects. I "Mother," she said, "an hour after we land I shall be going to the offices I of agents and managers. I must go on the stage." j It is the privilege of the writer of I this to record something of Elise Bart- H lett Porter's father and mother that seldom can be written with truth. They I did not rage and forbid and' threat. I Seeing the handwriting on the wall they said: "If your happiness depends de-pends upon this, we will not stand in 'j your way." j, Miss Porter kissed both her parents II fervidly and cried a little. "I expected I battle," she said. Her smile made a if rainbow through her tears. I Elise Bartlett Porter had no weary Hi. road to travel to secure an encaeemrnt Her beautiful face, her graceful figure, and her vivacious manner were better I than cards of introduction from a E potentate, Oliver Morosco engaged her on sight for "Please Get Harried." ho The former fVIiss Elise BarileU Porter, Por-ter, now Mrs. Joseph Schildkraut was the chatty, meddling girl in that farce in which Ernest Truex and Edith Taliafefro were tvin stars. She appeared successively in "Oh, Oh, Delphine," in "Kisses" with Arnold Daly, in "Blind Youth" with Lou Tellengen and in "Live Ghosts" and "Scrambled Wives." In each of these plays she displayed the same beauty and vivacity and dramatic dra-matic propulsivencss. After each performance per-formance she went home to her mother and said, or wrote her while on tour, "I am happier with each play. I am coming com-ing nearer to my goal. I shall be a star. You will see." Enter Joseph Schildkraut. Miss Porter, Por-ter, who was playing in "Live Ghosts," had entertained some prejudice against Mr. Schildkraut. He had been heralded in this country as "the handsomest man in ih world." Max Bernhardt, the producer, had tagged him with the title while the young actor was playing in Berlin. It mattered not to Eli-e Porter that Joseph Schildkraut had resented the title and manfully, tried to live it down by saying: "If I am good looking and I don't know that I am I am sorry." She knew that he was very handsome and she suspected that he knew it "Men have no business to be beautiful," she said. "They should leave that to the women and accomplish something." But that was before the American actress met the Rumanian actor. The meeting came about at a small after-theater after-theater supper at the house of a friend of each in New York When the dark, -lender younj? man bowed low before her she instantly forgave him his extreme ex-treme handsomeness for his charm. The subtle essence of homage was in that bow. They fell instantly to chatting. They danced and then chatted some more through the early morning hours. The supper was neglected while they told e tch other, after the manner of youth, their life stories. "I always wanted to go on the stage ever since I was a baby," announced Miss Porter. "I, too. But it must have been in my blood, the acting germ," said Mr. Schildkraut, Schild-kraut, modestly making no allusion to his illustrious actor-father, Rudolph Schildkraut. A 7 ; I 1 1 j M m.jm ! 1 I "You are an .-..' American?" he asked. "Yes. Why?" "Somethin -'st-ed to me that you might be French." "Something that re-mains re-mains of the dear nuns of the convent where I went to school in Paris, perhaps." "At all events it is delightful." "Thank you. And you are not an American?" "I was born in Rumania. My father was a Rumanian, my mother a Hungarian, Hun-garian, my grandfather a Turk and my grandmother a Spanish woman. But I intend to become an American. I have taken out my first papers." "Really he is delightfully simple and unspoiled," said Elise Porter to her father and mother at the dinner table that evening, "even though he has made such a tremendous hit in 'Liliom.' I have invited him to call on Sunday." "Is it possible you are tolerating a handsome man?" Miss Porter frowned down the inquiring in-quiring member of her family. Joseph Schildkraut called the next Sunday. They discovered that each was greatly interested in music. The actress ac-tress sang some French songs for her caller. "Don't you play?" she asked. "The violin, a little," he responded with boyish diffidence. "I should like to hear you play." "May I brine it and play for you tomorrow?" Thereafter, from the week before Christmas, there were almost daily concerts con-certs at the Porter home in New York's aristocratic Gramercy Square. Miss Porter, who used for the statre only her first names, Elise Bartlett, sang and sane;. And Mr. Schildkraut played and played. The family noticed that their callerY favorite violin selection was the "Meditation from Thais." The daily calls outgrew the concert stage. The music persisted, but it was interrupted often by dialogue of a tinctly personal nature. Mr. Schildkraut arrived one day in a disconsolate mood. "We are proinp: to Philadelphia next week," he said. "How shall I ever get on without our daily musicales and chats?" When "Liliom" departed for Philadelphia Phila-delphia its str.r had one joy drop in the cup of his bitterness. He had Miss Porter's Por-ter's promise to marry him and go to Europe with him on their wedding tour when "Liliom" closed. But the Dlav cave no sign of closing. The young man paid frequent visits ' to New York. He spend Sunday and part of Monday in the metro- r polis. Finally his trips from Phila- r delphia became daily ones, save on I the days when there were matinees. Rudolph Schildkraut, the distin- I euished actor, sought Elise Port' i ' '( father, M. Madison Russell Porter. It 'This is too hard on the boy," he G said "ei'ht performances a week I and four visits to New York. It is undermining his health. It is destroying de-stroying his artistry. I propose that they do hot weit for the play to close. Let them be married and live in Phila-dephia." Phila-dephia." The question of difference of race and creed was never broached between the elders. "We knew it would be of no use," say members of Miss Porter's family. And so in Philadelphia the other day they were married, with the parents of the bride and bridegroom there to witness wit-ness the ceremonv in the City Hall. "' FT" J Kv sC'' rfrv Joseph Schildkraut, "cap of hi |