MEMORIES

An unaffected recall of a long life in theater, this overcomes a ""formidable reticence"" that was a heritage from her dominating ""Mummum"", the grandmother that ruled the lives of her brothers and herself. The romantic glamor of her parents, the family theater on Arch Street in Philadelphia, the household quotations and wheezes, the tour with Madame Modjeska all came before convent schooling; there was the trip to Santa Barbara with her sick mother and the crisis of her death when Ethel was 13; her return was to acting, with dreams of a concert career quickly lost. There was London, and New York, and London again, with romantic engagement -- which were broken; New York and pawnshops in the fall; stardom in Captain Jinks and on to the parts that continued her fame. Marriage to Russell Colt, their three children, and the thin, lean, busy years; the wonderful Twelve Pound Look which was a permanent money-maker; there were moving pictures and the demands of health that led her to California. And now, at seventy, the backward look -- to be shared with the public that has known her on the other side of the footlights, for so long. A gentle, autumnal book for an appreciative audience.