WHISPERS OF EVE

NZ Truth, Issue 1194, 18 October 1928, Page 18

WHISPERS OF EVE

BUNTY ON HOLIDAY

"CVEN now, 1 get letters from *• American parents telling me thai they've christened children — or cats— or dogs, 'Bunty,' .m honor of me,'' laughingly said Molly Pearson, the original New York "Bunty" ' of the play, "Bunty Pulls The Strings," .winch took that gay city by storm. "I wanted- to play T3unty — I meant to play Bunty— and. l £ot the role partly because I. was a 'Scottie' and could get Bunty's accent right, partly because I had been kindly treated by the critics after playing a little slavey part m 'The Third Floor Back.' "Well, for a while every second child m America was 'Bunty' — and everyone expected me to live the part off-stage, ' My "husband, 1 by the way, was my 'feyther* m that piny — wniskers and all. We weren't married then of course, and it was quite amusing 1o have him scowling terribly at me, for the benefit of .the' audience, and whispering s\yeet nothings at the same time. "For eleven years, we've had an apartment . on; Broadwtiy, ten floors up, looking down into a. .sea of lights, and far 'across, the river Hudson. "I've been playing of late for; the; Ne.WYiJ.-k Th'ejiti-e -Guild— brave- folk who started -off m a shabby old theatre land hardly a penny, and did so well \that they never had to call on their kuarantee. ;, \"j.'hey were taken up by all 'the '^Highbrows" and now, wherever .we ga, expenses are guaranteed, say, ;for OTffi night, by -some college or Vclub, m wbjo^Be premises the play is given. We play a lot of Eugene O'Neill's stuff. "One 'high spot' m my life was When I was playing" rhe ingenue role m 'Carmen' and m Paris. The play was given m English ' and 'divine Sarah' was i there to '■ listen. When it was finished, on . a tearful scene, I , rushed 1 away,\still . really , and. truly crying^and Almost lan over Sarah". ,1 did wish sne'd spealr-r-und phe did.' She turned pack and said: 'You are charmeeng!' I just wish I coul^d gabble f)i French! ' "This Is our first holiday and we've .been halt round the world. England, Holland, Cairo m the hot summer, |vith the « Spmnx and the iinoonlierhraill to. ourselves. .By the.way* Port Said iV like a summer£resort now, and the Anzacs are supposed to have cleaned it \^p by burning half of i£ down. I don't know whether they did that by throwing their' cigarettes, about!" Here is a little romance. "At the old house m. Oriental Bay, Wellington, where VBunty" ,is now. resting, her husband,; Mr., Hales, was born: .It is still the same, from .its tall .trees and smooth 'fawn to its. great oldfashioned roon&s, as, it. was when' he left New Zealand. But this is ; the first time the. old house has seen s "Bunty," the , little. Scottish lass who mv.de New York speak with an ! Aberdeen accent. THE VANISHING RACE WHAT Miss Isobel Larsen will think "" of New Zenlarnd's treatment of — and relations with— her Maori population, should be interesting to hear, for this young New Y^orker is one of a band of forlorn-hapers, the Indian Protection Society. Legislation, legislation, and legislation again has driven the Jted Man on i from one reservation to another, until he is now. merely a shadow of one of the physically finest and mentally most poetic races produced by the Northern Hemisphere. Contact "with white races almost always means disease ,'.and degeneration for the' dankrskihned, but the splendid recuperative 'bowers of the Maori have made him an exception. Maori legislators, ■ Maori doctors and scholars of this country 3hould interest Miss Larsen.