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| Anna Held (1872-1918) |
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In Press and Literature |
(The Daily Northwestern, 6th October, 1896)
THE NEW FRENCH SINGER
ANNA HELD TALKS WITH AN INTERVIEWER IN NEW YORK
A Characteristic Conversation With the French Artist Who Sings Naughty Songs - She Says She Is Young, Charming and Affable
"Entrez, monsieur." says a little lisping voice within - trainante as that of Sarah Bernhardt when she is cajoling her Armand Duval, "Entrez donc et excusez moi, je vous en prie." The atmosphere is freighted with the scent of pink roses, and an enervating dedeur is distinctly fascinating. In an armchair, manicuring her fingers, sits Mlle. Anna Held - the Held of the lovely photographs, the lady who had her name on all the London busses. She is very much en neglige, and one eye is hidden by a huge white bandage - the other, however, being large enough and limpid enough to do duty for the two. Mlle. Held rises and surveys me carefully. Then she says "Ah, monsieur. You so strikingly resemble a monsieur I knew in Paris. His name is Caiumet. He adored me and I adored him. Heis married now." Do I like that? Well. What do you think? I begin to believe that I can't be so bad after all, and I pluck up courage to carefully scrutinize Mlle. Held. It would be absurd to call her attractive, because she is merely insinuating. Her large eye (I can see but one) dwells upon you with a singularly magnetic fervor. Her hands are soft, caress-inspiring and dainty, while her feet are Mendelsohn's songs without words. "I am a fright," she says "I regret so much that a bandage covers my eye. I have been bitten by a beast of an insect - a mosquito. My maid found its wings in my bed this morning. Is it not sad? I receive you quandmeme. You must be satisfied with one eye. Do not write that Mlle. Held is hideous and mosquito bitten. I am afraid of you journalists. They tell everything."
Saucy Anna. Perfectly convinced am I that she reads me like a book - that she sees my expression of placid admiration. "Of course," she goes on "you cannot tell what I am like, seeing me as I now am. I am really a very charming little woman - tout ce qu'ily a de plus gentle. I am soft and feline and gentle and oh! so amiable." She laughs at her own candor, and I like it immensely. Woman, as a rule, know what they are, but let you find it out for yourself. "I am very young," says Anna "I don't need any art to make myself so. I am - guess my age!" The questiuon overwhelms me. Afervent desire not to put my foot in it takes possession of me. I cannot insult her by suggestin eighteen and it would be sheer idiocy - blind idiocy - to verge upon the thirties. "Twenty-four" I said nobly. "No," - she can be very petulant when she likes - "I am not twenty-four. I am much less. You are a bad judge of age. My friend, whom you resemble, would never have made such a guess. Enfin! I am young but my songs are not. My songs are naughty - oh, so naughty - but everybody likes them. They have been successful everywhere." I am a trifle startled at this. Yvette Guilbert sang piggeries (which is my translation of cochoneries) but never admitted it. Decidedly, Anna Held is ingenuous.
"Mais oui." she resumes "Those who go to hear ditties don't want to imagine themselves at the grand mass. It would be senseless, n'est ce pas? I sing suggestively, and I tell you so. It is my object. I try to capture the men, and I succeed, though I also capture the women. I sing softly, cattily and languorously. I am persistently languorous. All my gestures are carefully studied, and they mean much. I do not wish men to remain chilly - ugh! I hate cold! - while I am singing. They must be all fervor, all enthusiasm, all warmth. That is my object. It is a good object - do you not think so? I have 200 songs and they are all my own creation. Some of them are comic - some of them are not. You ask me what my method is. I say it is suggestive. It is not coarse; it is not rude; it is not shocking - but it is an appeal that has never yet failed." I am charmed with her candor. It is so refreshing after the inane airs and frills of Yvette Guilbert. All Guilbert's songs - let her tell the story - are art pure and simple, character descriptious, vivid Paris pictures, everything that they really are not. This audacious little Held woman, whose ditties are not one jot worse than those of Yvette, sails under no false colors. Everybody who heard her on Londonknew that she was not telling stories about Mary and her little lamb or Good two shoes. "You have heard of Yvette Guilbert?" I ask timidly. "Bien sur," she answers readily. "I am very fond of Yvette. She is a good comrade, but - but, well remember" (with a look of menace in that one gleaming ord) "I do not say anything from jealousy - I do not admire her. She is an artist, yes, but she has no voice. She has diction, that is all. She speaks slowly and distinctly but she cannot sing. I am very fond of her though. She is a good fellow."
I smile at the artless femininity of this. I love her - but she cannot sing. Could anything be more archly characteristic of muliebrity. I thought I would try her further. "Do you imitate Yvette Guilbert?" Anna Held burst into laughter. "I imitate Yvette Guilbert? c'est trop fort! Our genres are very different, and I prefer my own merci. Yvette is ugly, with nothing but a je ne sais quoi to recommend her. I - well you should see me on the stage. I have youth. When I left Paris I was a bud just beginning to blossom. They wanted me badly. They are furious at my departure. Paris was like a child to whom you have offered an bonbon and snatched it away. I do not sing Yvette Guilbert's songs. She dare not sing mine. She is going to imitate me in Paris this year at one of the revues. I couldn't imitate her if I would. I am too small and gentle. Yvette's vogue is passing in France but I like her very much. She is such a good fellow. Chere Yvette!" Mlle. Held manicures her fingers complacently. She has never lost her equanimity. She is perfectly sure of herself, and there is not a ripple of excitement in the languor of her voice. "I have been so busy since I arrived that I have had very little time for myself." she vouchsafes. "I had a funny experience in your Bois de Boulogne yesterday. I call that the Bois" she says pointing to the green stretch of park that leaves the rattle and turmoil of Fifty-ninth street. "I was driving with Mr. Ziegfeld when I caught sight of two Parisians whom I have seen countless times in Paris. Ah que c'etair droite! They almost fell from their carriage. They tried to speak to me but - although I am amiable (coquettishly) I draw the lines occasionally. I drew it at them. I whipped up the horses and away we flew. They followed, and we had a race through the Bois, and right down to Herald Square theater, where I alighted. Were they chagrined? Well, I should think they were. Their names I do not know, but it was the oddest thing in the world for me to encounter two of my old Frenchmen en plein New York."
Mlle. Held permits me to inspect the glowing gowns that her nymph-like form is to grace. Pink satins and black satins and blue satins, short to the knees, hang in limp inertia in a little cubby leading from her boudoir. "I get them at reduced prices" she tells me still sweetly ingenuous, "because the dressmakers like me to wear them. Still, I pay as much as 1500 francs for a dress, which is quite enough n'est ce pas? I wear very little underneath. I can show you no lingerie, although I own splendid linen that I wear chez moi. My dresses are all short. Why shouldn't they be? If a woman possesses a neat leg, I can see no reason why she should be afraid to show it. Do not say that I am shock-eeng. I am most natural. I do not believe in affectation. Figurez vous that one day I donned my Paris bicycle costume, a short jupon with pantaloons, and started for a ride. I am fond of bicycling as I am of all sports. I was hooted, the gamlas ran after me. Vivement I cycled back to my hotel and no more did I venture out in my Parisian costume. Yet there was nothing outre about it. In London I saw dresses that were far worse, but prejudices had set them down as proper. C'est bete, n'est ce pas?.
I relapse into a series of affirmations, I say "oui" to every "n'est ve pas" that she suggests. I am really surprised at myself. If she had declared that Zola should be used for primer reading in all the public schools I should have said "oui." I have come to the conclusion that I am the very worst person to understand sirens. I should be shocked, frenzied with virtuous indignation, but there I sit laughing in keenest enjoymentat Anna Held's audacities and enjoying them all. Where are the loved ones at home? "You must promise me one thing," she remarks as I began to think of tearing myself away, "and that is that you will applaud me ferociously Monday night. Let me look at your hand." I gave her a flabby paw, and she takes it in her fingers and examines it. "You are all right," she asserts. "You have strength. You can applaud. I am nervous you see. Perhaps Americans will not like me. In that case I shall be utterly broken hearted. I shall go back weary of life and of everything. I say to myself 'I have never failed.' I read my 'notices' for confidence and hope - but still I am afraid. Everybody here has been very gentil to me so far. I amuse myself immensely. I have been to the theatres and to the Bois. Nothing could be more agreeable. Please say that I am a quiet domesticated little woman - very kind and very affable."
As a picture of domesticity I cannot help thinking that Anna Held is a gigantic fiasco. Perhaps if I had not taken her by surprise she would have greeted me crocheting or tatting. I hardly think so though. Mlle. Held is not anxious to be considered what she isn't. "What French actress has met with the greatest success in America?" she asked abruptly. I tell her that the most successful compatriot has been Sarah Bernhardt. "Ah yes," she sighs, "Sarah is great, she is an artist for she knows how to conceal her age so cleverly. She is vielle - vielle - but she looks young and lovely. I admire Sarah very keenly." I ask her if she is married, but she laughs. "I am not married," she says, "but I am a marrier. Perhaps I shall meet some rich American to whom I can take a fancy. I am told that rich Americans exist. Why should I marry, though? I have all I want - a lovely house in Paris, carriages and horses - everything a woman can desire." I see Mr. Mann and Mr. Ziegfeld looking a trifle uneasy. I have been listening to Anna Held for a long time. Perhaps they realise my danger - perhaps they want a little of it themselves. At any rate I give her a parting hand and lifting her bandage she allows both her eyes to rest upon me. Thank goodness for that disabled eye!. With both of them let loose upon me I should never have lived to tell the tale.
Allan Dale in New York Journal.