Aileen Pringle

Aileen Pringle's favorite film was a mid-1920s silent based on a book by Elinor Glyn: Three Weeks (1924), sort of a "Lady Chatterly's Lover". She recalled in a 1980 telephone conversation: "The film was in good taste; some people thought the book was trashy". Anita Loos wrote in "A Girl Like I", the first volume of her autobiography, vaudeville comic Joe Frisco telling Glynn: "Leave me get this straight. You want to find some tramp that don't look like a tramp, to play that English tramp in your picture. But take it from me, that kind of tramp don't hang out in Hollywood". Aileen had spent her 20s married to Charles McKenzie Pringle, the son of Sir John Pringle, a Jamaica landowner and a member of the Privy and Legislative Councils of Jamaica. Aileen lived in Jamaica until she went on stage with George Arliss. When she began divorce proceedings against Pringle in 1926, Hollywood gossip columnists speculated she would marry H.L. Mencken. She did not remarry until 1944 when she became the bride of James M. Cain, author of "The Postman Always Rings Twice". I opened my 1980 telephone conversation with Aileen by mentioning that the day before I had been reading her correspondence with Mencken at the New York Public Library. "But all the letters were destroyed", she said. I knew that Mencken had asked for all of his letters to her back at the time he became engaged to Sara Haardt. Aileen was the only woman who received such a request from Mencken at that time. "It was your letters from the late '30s and '40s I was reading", I told Aileen. "In one of them Mencken was urging you to write a book. Did you ever finish it?" "No. I got married instead." In a 1946 letter she wrote to Mencken. "If I had remained married to that psychotic Cain, I would be wearing a straitjacket instead of the New Look." Date of Death 16 December 1989, New York City, New York

Cast

A Single Man

(Mary Hazeltine)

The Phantom of Crestwood

(Mrs. Walcott)

Subway Express

(Dale Tracy)

Convicted

(Claire Norville)

The Wife of the Centaur

(Inez Martin)

A Kiss in the Dark

(Janet Livingstone)

Love Past Thirty

(Caroline Burt)

The Night of Nights

(Dress Saleslady (uncredited))

Criminal Lawyer

(Mrs. Manning (uncredited))

Murder at Midnight

(Esme Kennedy)

The Age of Consent

(Barbara)

Piccadilly Jim

(Paducah Pomeroy)

By Appointment Only

(Diane Manners)

Jane Eyre

(Lady Blanche Ingram)

The Unguarded Hour

(Diana Roggers)

Don't Marry for Money

(Edith Martin)

Thanks for Listening

(Lulu)

John Meade's Woman

(Mrs. Melton)

Name the Man

(Isabelle)

Soldiers and Women

(Brenda Ritchie)

Sons of Steel

(Enid Chadburne)

She's No Lady

(Mrs. Douglas)

The Christian

(Lady Robert Ure)

Three Weeks

(The Queen)

True As Steel

(Mrs. Eva Boutelle)

A Thief in Paradise

(Rosa Carmino)

Dream of Love

(The Duchess)

Night Parade

(Paula Vernoff)

Souls for Sale

(Lady Jane)

The Strangers' Banquet

(Mrs. Schuyler-Peabody)

Stolen Moments

(Inez Salles)

Wanted: Jane Turner

(Norris' Secretary (uncredited))

Earthbound

The Hardys Ride High

(Miss Booth)

Calling Dr. Kildare

(Mrs. Thatcher (uncredited))

The Women

(Miss Carter the Saleslady (uncredited))

One Year to Live

(Elsie Duchanier)

Body and Soul

(Hilda)

Should a Girl Marry?

(Mrs. White)

The Mystic

(Zara)

Laura

(Woman (uncredited))

Puttin' on the Ritz

(Mrs. Teddy Van Rennsler)

The Great Deception

(Lois)

Police Court

(Diana McCormick)

Happy Land

(Mrs. Prentiss (uncredited))

Since You Went Away

(Woman at Cocktail Lounge (uncredited))

Between Us Girls

(Nightclub Patron (uncredited))

Wife vs. Secretary

(Mrs. Anne Barker (uncredited))

Vanessa: Her Love Story

(Herries Servant)

Nothing Sacred

(Mrs. Bullock (uncredited))

They Died with Their Boots On

(Mrs. Sharp (uncredited))

Appointment for Love

(Nurse Gibbons (uncredited))

Tin Gods

(Janet Stone)

Life in Hollywood No. 7

(Herself)

My American Wife

(Hortensia deVereta)

Wall Street

(Ann Tabor)

Prince of Diamonds

(Eve Marley)

Dr. Gillespie's Criminal Case

(Chaperon (uncredited))

The Baby Cyclone

(Lydia)

Camille: The Fate of a Coquette

(Estelle)

1925 Studio Tour

(Self)

Adam and Evil

His Hour

(Tamara Loraine)

The Tiger's Claw

(Chameli Brentwood)

The Last of Mrs. Cheyney

(Lady Maria Frinton)