Early 20th Century Love Story

While rummaging through my box of 'found photos' of theatre life in the early 1900s, I came across two portraits. As I researched the identities of the people portrayed, I discovered how their lives intermingled long ago in the 1920s.

The first portrait was of a woman named Eunice Tietjens. I discovered she was a Chicago gal born in the late 1800s with a propensity for writing poetry. She eventually became the editor for the acclaimed POETRY magazine. But, prior to that, she had worked for the Chicago Daily News as a war correspondent during World War I. As it turns out, Eunice liked to travel, and over the years lived in such far away places as Japan, China, Italy, Tunisia, and on the South Pacific Island of Moorea.

Eunice Tietjens


But, let's return to her world of poetry. I chased down some of her writings, and found her poetry quite interesting. Here is one, by way of example.

Presence of Eternity

The stones grow old.
Eternity is not for stones.
But, I shall go down from this airy space,
This swift white peace,
This stinging exultation;
And time will close about me,
And my soul stir
To the rhythm of the daily round.
Yet, having known,
Life will not press so close,
And always I shall feel time ravel thin about me.
For, once I stood
In the windy presence of eternity.

In further study, I discovered that this poem had once been embedded in a longer poem she had written. A poem entitled, The Most Sacred Mountain. It was a reference to Mt.Tai Shan in China. Mt. Tai Shan is one of the five sacred Taoist mountains there, and undoubtedly Eunice took that trek while living in China.

Further perusing of Eunice Tietjen's poetry reveals that a number of her poems were written to, or about, someone by the name of Cloyd Head. This brings us to the other portrait in the box of photos.

Cloyd Head




So, who was Cloyd Head? Well, he too, grew up in Chicago in the early 1900s. He began writing plays, and became a notable playwright. Later, he became the theatrical director, and business manager of Chicago's acclaimed Goodman Theatre. During this time, The Little Theatre Movement was beginning to emerge in a number of cities, and Chicago was one of the foremost of these. In a way, The Little Theatre Movement was a counterpoint to the emergence of the new medium of cinema, and also to the fact that American Theatre was increasingly centered on commercial themes. Little Theatre attempted to focus on new and often experimental plays that centered on issues around more social and artistic concerns than mainstream theatre.

So, Cloyd Head wrote a play called 'The Grotesques'. It was quite innovative, and written in verse. Little Theatre was its ideal venue. Furthermore, because it was written in verse, it caught the attention of POETRY magazine's editor, Eunice Tietjens, who published it in the magazine. And this is how Eunice Tietjens and Cloyd Head crossed paths. They married in 1920, and went away for a year to live in Tunisia. While there, their keen observations of that atmosphere, and the customs and ideals, led to a collaboration on a play called Arabesque. Upon returning to the states, Arabesque soon opened (1925) on Broadway starring Bela Lugosi, as the Sheik of Hammam.

So, there you have it, a little story I discovered in a box of photos this morning. If I may add a tangential observation here, it would be about Bela Lugosi. This Hungarian actor was quite revered in his native country as a serious theatrical actor. Unfortunately, once American cinema swept him up he was forever typecast in roles of melodramatic villainy, mad scientists, and of course, Dracula. Later his life disintegrated, and he lived in near abject poverty and drug addiction. Sadly, (as far as I am concerned) he died, and was buried in his Dracula cape. People said it was his final wish. I call it his final resignation.