 | How Frenchmen Make Love |  |
As to Kissing Hands
“They are great hand-kissers,” I observed.
“No, that is a mistake. I have seen more foreigners— Americans and Englishmen in Paris—who kiss the hand than the French. That is a custom only upon formal occasion—or maybe in some high society. To me it seems like affectation—artificial.”
“But Menjou does it.”
“Ah! Menjou. But he is a movie Frenchman. Pardon! I mean that in the movie picture perhaps he makes the kiss on the hand. I very much admire Menjou. He is an amiable and charming gentleman and a talented actor.”
He changed the subject and began to talk of Hollywood. Like everyone else when he first comes here, he had heard the tales of the wild parties and sex escapades. For his part Chevalier had not seen that side of Hollywood, but then, quoth he, he was a man of simple, even bourgeois, tastes. He was not very fast, he admitted almost apologetically. Money, so he thinks, is not important. It comes—it goes. We should not make a fetish of it. The most desirable things in life are security, tranquility, peace of mind—love, love of wife and dear ones—love of friends. Like most foreign stars, he referred to Douglas Fairbanks and Mary, his wife, as the ideal pair. They had set a standard of living that those less famous might well emulate.
“Assuredly, Madame,” he added, “it is finer to make an art of living rather than merely succeed upon the screen or stage.”
Didn't he think, I hinted, that American girls are the most beautiful in the world?
| How Frenchmen Make Love | |