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In the early 930s, as her third marriage continued to fall apart, Irene began looking about for something more to do than shill for Cutex nail polish and Corticelli Silk. Even her animal rights crusades didn’t seem to fill her life, and certainly she was a hands-off mother. Irene began looking wistfully back at her career. “She did not accept graciously making those lifetime adjustments that must come when you come off the pinnacle,”says her son. “The ultimate cruelty is that she had so much life ahead of her [after Vernon’s death]. I mean, really, what do you do for an encore to what they had?” Combining her show business drive with her interest in black history and civil rights, Irene helped put together “a Negro Pageant”called O, Sing a New Song, which was performed in August 934 at Soldier’s Field. A cast of five thousand singers, dancers, and musicians performed the three-act musical anthology, which presented black music from Africa, “Plantation Days,” and modern America. One reminder of Irene’s illustrious past came in 933, when her discoverer and early champion Elisabeth Marbury died in her New York home. Friends had been shocked when her longtime companion, Elsie de Wolfe, had left her to marry Sir Charles Mendl in 926. Marbury’s funeral at St. Patrick’s was the social event of the season, which would have delighted her. Irene was cast in the play Return to Folly, a comedy/drama by Harland Ware, to be performed four times in the spring of 933 at the Workshop Theatre in Lake Forest, Illinois, where the McLaughlins had moved. The Chicago American approved: “The whole cast was grand, the lines excellent, Irene McLaughlin wearing one ravishing costume after another,looking as dazzling as she did in the days when she was Irene Castle.” Encouraged, Irene put out feelers to her Hollywood friends. In 933 and 934, she made “WHAT DO YOU DO FOR AN ENCORE TO WHAT THEY HAD?” CHAPTER FORTY  238 VERNON AND IRENE CASTLE’S RAGTIME REVOLUTION a concerted effort to revive her film career. Costume designer Orry-Kelly proclaimed her one of the day’s best-dressed actresses, along with Bette Davis and Kay Francis. Alan Crosland, who had directed Irene in Slim Shoulders, arranged for a Warner Brothers screen test, which he judged “a great success. Though the test has not yet been shown to Mr. Warner, I think there is a distinct place for her on the screen. I think she wears clothes better than any woman on the screen.As an actress and a personality I think she’s improved over 2 years ago.” But nothing came of this. Certainly Irene at forty was as lovely as she’d ever been: slim, chic, up-todate , and with her “camera bones” still catching the light. She did get offers,says her son—but not for starring parts.In late 935, she and Clifton Webb were cast in a proposed Joan Crawford film to be called Elegance: “You can imagine how much I long to do it,” said Irene, “when dancing with Clifton is the greatest fun on earth.” All that came of this was a stunning photo session of Irene and Webb dancing together, which was published in Vogue. Had she wished, Irene might have become a character actress in the mode of Billie Burke, Alice Brady, Margaret Dumont (though she was perhaps not quite as talented an actress as those ladies). There was a call for chic, elegant middle-aged women to play the mothers and aunts of Joan Crawford, Claudette Colbert, and other young stars. But Irene “didn’t want to be a character actress,” says her son. “She over-valued her status.” She’d field an offer and “get fairly excited about it, ‘I’m going to Hollywood!’or,‘I’m going to New York!’After the first blush of excitement, she’d come to realize that she was not the center core—she felt that they were getting more out of the use of her name than she was getting.” The thrill of being wanted again often degenerated into broken contracts and lawyers’ consultations. Irene had plenty to say about Hollywood fashions, not much of it positive.“There was little individuality, and smartness was rare,”she said in 934, though she added that “their laxness is excusable, for when they’re working, they have to spend endless hours with makeup artists, modistes...

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