Miss Banky from Budapest
By Faith Service – From Movie Weekly, April 18, 1925

Miss Vilma Banky from Budapest speaks no word of English. And it was natural that all the motion picture interviewers in New York were anxious to interview her when she arrived, and it was learned that she was to be given an opportunity of making a place for herself in American studios. So an interpreter was engaged. That was wise. It might have been all right for Miss Banky the other way. She knows the art of pantomime. But the interviewers, poor things, would have had to register perfect types of low-class morons.

She stopped at the Hotel St. Regis and when you went there to see her you were shown forthwith and without any ceremony to her suite. There the interpreter greeted you and introduced you, in words half English, half German, to Miss Banky.

Two cunning dolls occupied the large divan. They were Miss Banky’s “Good Luck” dolls. And Miss Banky confided, through her interpreter, that they were fine screen types. However, these bits of information might have been gleaned without benefit of interpretation, merely by w atching Miss Banky cradle the pair within the lovely circlet of her arms.

By this time everyone knows that Samuel Goldwyn “discovered” Miss Banky in Budapest upon his recent trip abroad. There have been newspaper tidings of her beauty, ability and charm. And now she is scheduled to play opposite Ronald Colman in his next picture, story as yet unannounced. And under the direction of George Fitzmaurice. Naturally everyone is curious…

Further, it is known that Miss Banky has been billed abroad as “The Mary Pickford of Budapest.” She had also been announced as a countess. To my way of thinking, she is NOT the former. And to her own knowledge she is not the latter. I was, via the interpreter, especially requested to say that Miss Banky is not a countess, she has never been married, she is, in her own words, said with a charming little grin and a mischievous glint in her turquoise eyes…“just…Miss Banky from Budapest.”

To those with a passion for statistics, it may be well to say that Miss Banky’s birthplace was but a few miles from Budapest and that she was brought up, educated, etc., in Budapest itself. Her family are not in any wise connected with the stage. “Just private people.”

She is quite marvelously lovely to look at. A fairy-tale princess come to life. And this despite the fact that she does not remind me of Our Mary. No, nor of Lillian Gish, nor of any other stellar beauty mine eyes have yet beheld. She is taller and altogether larger that Our Mary. She has lovely, corn-silk hair, simply parted in the middle and rolled in the nape of her neck. She has milk-white skin and wide, sweetly-expressioned blue eyes. Perfect teeth, a charmingly warm, not-too-small mouth. She doesn’t look like any stereotyped conception of an actress. She looks as though she came from “just a private family.” Her previous stage and screen experiences have left no slightest trace. She is as fresh as May, as ethereal as Mab and as wholesome, withal, as roses and cream. She is sweet with simplicity and delicious with lack of pose. She has a gentle, tender sort of voice. A pity it cannot be heard. Even if I didn’t understand her, I liked the tender pitch of her voice. The words ceased to matter.

Via the interpreter, I learned that Mr. Goldwyn had seen Miss BankyÂ’s pictures, both motion and still. He had immediately tried to get in touch with her and had as immediately found himself up against a barricade. It seems to be impossible for him to see Miss Banky, or even to reach her by 'phone. The company in Budapest, for which she was completing her second picture, had a contract all drawn up ready and waiting for her to sign. Miss Banky says that she doesnÂ’t know what prevented her from signing it, unless it may have been her very good angelÂ…but the fact remains that she didnÂ’t sign itÂ…she kept holding offÂ…instinctivelyÂ…waitingÂ…for Mr. Goldwyn, though she didnÂ’t know it.

But the company in Budapest knew it. They knew about Mr. Goldwyn – knew what he was in Budapest for – knew very well what he wanted with Miss Banky, and only too well knew why.

They kept her working day and night so that a meeting with Mr. Goldwyn was impossible. Then, just as he was about to leave, having given up hope for the time, Miss Banky heard about it, heard that he was leaving and when and where, and, with her studio make-up still on she rushed from the studio, willy-nilly, drove furiously to the station and caught him by the coat-tails – inelegant but true – just as he was going through the gate…even so did Dick Barthelmess catch D. W. Griffith by the coat-tails as he was embarking for California one day years ago…“Broken Blossoms” was the most notable and immediate result. Thus and in such haphazard manner are many careers precipitated. Fate takes a hand.

Mr. Goldwyn stepper ‘tother side of the gate forthwith. He cancelled his reservations and remained another day and night. On that night he and Miss Banky had dinner together and that same night, too, the contract was signed which has brought Miss Banky from Budapest.

She is thrilled, is Miss Banky. There are dreams in her eyes. Oh, very lovely dreamsÂ…and New York has not robbed her of one of themÂ…it has not only come up to expectations, it has exceeded them. It is beautiful, she says, even more beautiful that she had visioned it. The sky-scrapersÂ…the sizeÂ…Fifth AvenueÂ…the shopsÂ…the Capitol TheatreÂ…the Ziegfeld FolliesÂ…the Lido VeniceÂ…the hotelsÂ…her hands spread like wings of small white birds in curves of lovely admiration as she enumerated these first impressions of herÂ…and the American peopleÂ…their hospitalityÂ…their generosityÂ…and the way they have taken her to their heartsÂ…

The New York business men, she saidÂ…oooh, she had thought they would be only businessÂ…businessÂ…businessÂ…businessÂ…the white hands spread again and I deduced the fact that there had been, recently, a considerable sloughing off of businessÂ…who knows how many bankers, brokers, dry-good merchants and oil magnates have turned poetsÂ…turned romancersÂ…since Vilma Banky came from Budapest?

Hollywood, whither Miss Banky was bound that very week, was still another dream. She had lovely visions of a green and golden city on the blue PacificÂ…a dream city with the added glories of the American stars who have long been her admirations and favorites.

Gloria SwansonÂ…ahhhÂ…Lillian GishÂ…so lovelyÂ…Mary Pickford, of course, of courseÂ…Norma TalmadgeÂ…Pola, tooÂ…And for the men, Ronald Colman, whom she had not yet met in personÂ…and Milton Sills and Lewis StoneÂ…

For herself, she doesnÂ’t know as yet just what her work is to be. She likes, she said, parts with a touch of comedy. She was careful to explain that she did not mean slapstick. She neednÂ’t have made the differentiation. One could not conceive of the poetic Vilma in juxtaposition to a custard pie. No, delicate comedyÂ…nuancesÂ…

American studios, American methods, she imagines to be somewhat similar to German, or vice versa. Faster…that was the difference she noted. Everything seemed faster…Thus far she had had very little to go by, having only had a few screen test made at the old Biograph studios ‘way up town.

She is, evidently, not going to demand the luxuries that some of her predecessors have considered their just due and need. Take the matter of dressing-room, for instance. Some of the stars have small houses de luxe given over exclusively to the rites of grease-paint and mascara. Miss Banky needs only, she told me, a good mirror and two good strong lightsÂ…sufficientÂ…

We parted, with the assurance on Miss Banky’s part that our next verbal encounter would be “in the English,” which same rhetoric she is learning rapidly. And with the assurance on mine that America is just that much more the beautiful, pictorially, and that the fans are about to have the so-called desirable thing, “a new sensation.”

For it seems that imported models are the vogue today, from women’s gowns, which come from Paris, to the last word in motors, which hail from Italy. We find that even in motion picture stars “the new sensation” is apt to be an imported one. And this, in spite of the fact that our own country probably leads the world in the production of artistry and pulchritude. Witness the lovely Negri’s vogue…and now…enter Miss Banky from Budapest.

Both photographs by PACH