The World of the Cinema — How Did She Win the Heart of a Prince and Become His Wife?

"Once upon a time there was a beautiful girl; a prince loved her and married her, and they lived a happy life..." — and so on to the end of the tale to which every growing girl clings with all the sweet dreams seething in her heart!.. But our story today is not spun of fancy — it is true! And here is its heroine, the well-known English actress Dawn Addams, who married the Italian prince Vittorio Massimo, confiding for the first time the secrets of this adventure in love. Dawn Addams is now playing the heroine of Charlie Chaplin's film "A King in New York"...

And so she begins the story of her love, saying:

Luck must serve you from the very start and grant you the meeting with the prince of your dreams! Then your own task begins: how to make him look upon you with that high regard and become attached to you... I, for instance, always knew how to leave the great evening parties at the height of their brilliance and the very peak of their glitter, so as to stir up around me an air of questioning: Where is "Dawn"? Where can she have fled? Perhaps she has another engagement she prefers to this party! — And so I would kindle the fire, when in fact I had fled nowhere but to my own bed!

This is a rule I have followed at every stage of my life... and it has always succeeded! But it must be practiced in a natural way, with no trace of affectation, or it is bound to fail — I met Vittorio in Rome, and there is nothing like the sky of Italy to inspire love! And when I felt that love had taken possession of his heart, and he declared his feeling to me and asked for my hand.. on that very day — that is, at the height of our happiness — I left him and flew to Paris, and from there to Hollywood to take part in a film! Or so ran my excuse to him; the truth is that it was my old, tried method. Was it not just like my leaving the party at the peak of its brilliance

and gaiety?!

I cannot claim that it was all a calculated plan! But its result was astonishing! For while I enjoyed the best of times in Paris and Hollywood, Vittorio (like the guests at the party) felt his jealousy stir, and his love and attachment to me grew... He wrote to me saying: "Because of you, my little one, I have conquered myself! I had guarded my bachelorhood, and with it my liberty and my absolute happiness, driving from my head every thought of marriage and its responsibilities.. until you appeared upon my stage and turned my illusions into truth!! Because of you I have come to believe that marriage is the natural foundation of a person's happiness! Without it, every happiness is fleeting and passing!"

After a letter so gentle and affectionate, a girl must come down from the throne of her pride and answer with a warm smile, and with a letter no less warm and no less responsive in feeling than his... And so I hastened to meet him again in Rome, and we announced our engagement officially!

But our troubles did not end there... There was his family, and the traditions surrounding it — no one of its members had ever married an actress! This was a situation I had to face with courage, wisdom, and patience, without causing a split in the family, which I could not have borne... And when his family consented to make my acquaintance and to receive me among its members, I understood for the first time that we are living in the twentieth century! Perhaps what served me in this pass was that I made no pretensions and no attempt to work any change in Vittorio's life. He was called "the Prince in Blue Jeans," and I was happy to wear blue jeans and remain "Dawn Addams".. behind the camera!.

... And so I won my prince and we lived happily.. Yet our happiness did not come without effort, especially on my side, for I had to strike a balance between our two lives; and perhaps it was luck again that made each of us the complement of the other! We discovered that after the wedding! For I possess a practical, managing mind, which Vittorio — generous to the point of extravagance — lacks... I discovered that he had a farm and estates on the brink of bankruptcy through his bad management; I laid my hand on them, and before long their income rose and improved to an extraordinary degree...

Vittorio, for his part, has a philosophy of life all his own, which enables him to banish cares and drive them away and to keep his gaiety and cheer. If I surprise him, say, with a request for a trip to Haiti, he is up at once packing the bags and getting ready for the journey, whistling his favorite tunes!!! And I believe that living with him I have learned this philosophy of his, for by nature I carry worries... above all where my ambitions as an actress and as a star are concerned... And I believe our son Stefano will profit from us both, and will have a managing mind... and a merry nature that carries no care.

And finally... I counsel the girl who wins her prince and wishes to keep him not to let him multiply his promises, to spare herself the wound caused by her prince's breaking of a promise! Let his gifts be surprises that renew your love and build up the foundations of your happiness... only do not hold him to promises... they may come true — but more often they go with the wind!