Figura De La Semana (Figure of the Week): Musidora

Nuevo Mundo, November 25, 1921 (enlarge)

This Spanish article from November of 1921 by Nuevo Mundo features three photographs of Musidora that I've never seen before. Which is great except that I don't know Spanish and will have to translate it to see just how interesting the written content is. Sadly, it does seem that some of the text may have been lost from page one in the sloppy scanning process.

* *

"Despite the fact that the morning, under the steel-colored sky, is too harsh, at the first 'point' we take an open car: a pitiful and dilapidated 'simon' that looks, restored, like a horse-drawn carriage from Pepe-Hillo's time.

"I adopt this precautionary measure, exposing myself to sudden bronchopneumonia, because people in the street are paying too much attention to us, because of Pepe Zamora's clothing, who accompanies me and Campúa (the photographer).

"Zamora looks truly amazing, with mid-calf gray suede boots, a Breton collar, a silk scarf, a black oilskin trench coat and organ grinder cap from a sainte.

"As, fortunately or unfortunately, Madrid is not 'Cosmopolitan enough', as Antonio de Hoyos would say, passers-by stop to look at the great cartoonist, who, enchanted by the expectation he arouses, walks with the languid and rhythmic steps of a Russian trunk(?)...

"'To the Theater of Comedy!' - I order the charioteer.

"And by a miracle of balance, the 'simon' begins to roll, between a squeak of complaining ironwork and a tremble of old wood.

"When entering the theater, I comment: 

"- Really, it disturbs me a little this to do an interview with the most beautiful artist in France.

"- "Bah!' - Zamora opines - 'by saying later that her lips are a nest of roses and that Love is asleep in the hole of her chin, you get out of the way and you'll look very good.'

"In darkness, the Comedy room. On the stage, without decoration, among some carpenters who work assembling skeleton frames, two girls in street clothes rehearse a dance to the beat of the piano.

"I am introduced to Musidora, who resembles a fortune teller sitting in an armchair. In the dim light I can only make out a shriveled black lump and the bright spots of the eyes, which reflect the scant light from above. I hear the voice of the artist, a little twangy, giving advice to the dancing girls:

"- 'That's good!'... 'Faster!'...

"- 'We should get out of here' - I propose -. 'We can't see each other, and the conversation, without looking at each other, loses half of its interest. Besides, Campua has to take some photographs.'

"- 'Well' - approves Musidora -. 'Shall we go to my room in the Palace?'

"We went out into the street. At last I saw Musidora! The most beautiful artist in France? Good.

"For now, the livid light of Mariana does not favor her. In the crude morning reflection, the skin of her face, despite the rouge, is striated, with that withered opacity of women who abuse the resources of the boudoir. She has a slightly turned-up nose, 'very French', and large, white teeth, somewhat protruding, her brown eyes and mascara give off a wet shine similar to a gazelle...

* *

(Musidora's room, on the fourth floor of the Palace Hotel. Through the window, you can openly see an interior patio in the center of which a large glass cap, covered with canvas, looks like the armor of a traveling circus. In the room, the characteristic disorder of transit accommodation. Trunks and suitcases in every corner. On a small table, several albums covered with leather, portraits and three wonderful chrysanthemums.)

MUSIDORA - "Who brought these flowers?" 

THE WAITRESS - "I don't know, madam. A 'bellboy' delivered them to me with this card..."

MUSIDORA - (takes the card, which has no name on it, and reads). "-To Musidora: Mes levres sur vos pieds: 'My lips on your feet...' Who would send me these flowers? The signature is unintelligible..."

ZAMORA - "They must be from someone in love..." 

MUSIDORA - "Oh! What a nuisance!" 

ME - "However, you must be used to it by now. You will receive many love letters."

MUSIDORA - "Very many. Believe me: being a beautiful woman is very boring. Everyone falls in love with one..." 

ME - "And does that bother you?"

MUSIDORA - "Yes. Because one feels obligated to correspond to everyone. And this is not possible. First, out of respect for oneself, and... because I wouldn't have time!"

ME - "Are you secure in your beauty?" 

MUSIDORA - "No. I swear I'm not at all happy with myself."

ME - "So, were you surprised to be proclaimed in the Eve magazine contest as the most beautiful artist in France?" 

MUSIDORA - "No, not at all. I don't think I'm the most beautiful in my country. Now, because I've worked for the cinematographer, the public knows me better."

ME - "What do you like more, the cinema or the theater?" 

MUSIDORA - "The theater. Being in contact with the public is more fun. Success in the cinema is something cold and soulless. I prefer a little applause in a cuplé, to the admiration from seeing me dressed in tights in Les Vampires."

ME - "Is your body what you are most proud of?" 

MUSIDORA - "I don't know. Men will say that, or art critics. Let's see: what do you like more about me?"

ME (to myself) - "Stir up! As I tell Musidora that I haven't seen her in the 'cinema' or in the theater, nor that now, with her fur coat that weighs her down a bit, she doesn't really seem anything extraordinary?"

MUSIDORA (as if she understood my predicament) - "Don't answer me right away. I'm going to put on my pajamas to take more pictures, and when I get out we'll talk."

("A little while later, Musidora returns with a 'pajama' of iridescent silk, mauve and orange, embroidered in blue. Her hair, tousled and extremely black, floats like a plume over her neck and over her very white neckline. Musidora has the shoulders of a bottle of champagne. Is this what makes her a bit hunched over on her back?")

MUSIDORA - "Do I look fine?" 

ZAMORA (as if dazzled, doing pirouettes around the artist, like a boy before a nice toy) - "Charming! I love your pajamas!"

MUSIDORA - "Wait a minute. I'm going to put on a little makeup for the photo."

("She goes to the dressing table. She powders herself profusely, paints her eyebrows, widens the line of her eyes, brightens the lipstick on her lips and turns to the full light that pours in through the window. Now this is the beautiful Musidora! Her brown pupils between the purple shadow of the dark circles under her eyes, sparkle, sparkle, like two tiny mirrors in which the light breaks magnificently. In front of the wardrobe window, she poses with the habit of her profession as a cinematographic artist who knows the demands of the Mientras Campúa operation, we continue the dialogue.")

ME - "Do you live comfortably, Musidora?" 

MUSIDORA - "Why not? It's all a matter of resigning oneself and knowing how to conform. I'm already a bit discouraged." 

ME - "By life or with love?"

MUSIDORA - "I shouldn't complain about life. It has made me an artist. I'm young... Right now I would be delighted, if it weren't for the fact that I have rheumatic pain in one shoulder, which makes all movement difficult... I'm in Madrid, it squeezes me more..."

ME - "You don't like Madrid?" 

MUSIDORA - "Very much so. Above all, the surroundings; for the cinema, this sun and this landscape are magnificent... Now that I live at ease everywhere."

ME - "Do you have money?" 

MUSIDORA - I've saved not a penny. I spend my entire salary on everything I like: suits, furs, flowers. One thing that I love is having many suitcases and very good ones. On the other hand, I don't like jewelry... Deep down, I'm very bourgeois, with the only defect being that I'm somewhat capricious: I like things that are a bit strange."

ME - "In men, for example, what quality do you value most?" 

MUSIDORA - "Don't let them be liars. But, in general, I don't think much of them." 

ME - "Why? Have you been disillusioned so much?"

MUSIDORA - "Yes. Quite a lot... I have been too loving; I was always the one who put more into love, and, naturally, I have lost out... Now, no. I have convinced myself that it is not good to be so sentimental... when passion can be controlled. In short: I trust that at sixty years old I'll be calm!"

ME - "What do you like most in life?" 

MUSIDORA - "Everything beautiful, whatever it is: whether a flower, a suit, or a piece of furniture, or a beautiful dog or a beautiful woman..."

ME - "Ah! (I say no more, a little alarmed by these phrases by Musidora, which turns out to commune with the aesthetic creed of Wilde: 'Everything that...') [marred text..]"

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