JEAN DARLING, child filmstar of the silent movies and earner of a million dollars by the time she was seven, has moved to her dream home . . . on the South Circular Road. It is a dream because it is a home of her own.
Sandymount, where she lived before, is the poorer for her leaving, because she is a true cosmopolitan. She has done a host of things and known a host of peoople, and talks non-stop in her bubbling, inconsequential way - tearing from one episode in her life to another, with agile rapidity.
Her career began at a year old when her mother made a bundle of her and put her into a cot on the stage. "I didn't have much of a speaking part: my diction wasn't very good! I autographed my pictures in my own handwriting before I was three, and by asking my mother what the words meant on the back of buses and in ads, I learnt how to read."
In the thirties, she was the girl star - and a saucy little minx she was - in the immensely popular "Our Gang" films. The trouble was that this childhood image stayed with her. Although she had made her million by the age of seven, she was virtually out of work at nine.
"The older you get the more you become like a monument and people look on you as you were in the films - a child." As an adult, she was treated as if she had never grown up. Perhaps she hasn't - in one sense - for she still reads and loves fairy stories, so much so that she writes her own and has them published.
"The best thing which has happened to me was when I met the producer of Poporama." He talked to Jean and accepted her stories for the programme which is on the "Teeny Tiny Tots" spot on Saturday's Radio 2.
"I am thrilled: I read the stories myself and they called me 'Aunty Poppy'." In this way, she is in touch with a 'fairy tale' showbiz. "I've never been disillusioned. I have just not been illusioned."
She said it was difficult to be first-rate in modern showbiz. "I was in Vaudeville doing eight shows a night from coast to coast. I was a big star. I was it. Doing that for two years is a good school. You only learn by doing something over and over again. Take a one-off TV show: How can you ever be good?
"Then you have the pubs for one-man shows. People go there to talk, to woo, to get smashed - least of all to watch whoever is performing. I am honest enough to admit I could never learn to shut up an audience in a pub, but of course there are people who have enough of what it takes to keep the audience quiet or manage to shout loud enough to be heard."
Jean has been in Ireland eight years and has settled in all right. "When I am away, I always look for Irish accents, and although I am not chained, and do go away sometimes, I always get homesick. Now I can't say I hanker after the green grass here and the rain. When I go to the movies and see scorched brown grass, I long for the sunshine that goes with it.
"I know Seattle, Washington, well. It's mountainous and it rains for 321 days every year, but there is little sun. The Irish weatherman should visit there, because the Seattle man says when it rains cats and dogs: 'There is sunshine with low cloud cover.' Wouldn't it be great to hear on the Irish radio: 'Good morning, everyone: it's a lovely sunny day with low cloud cover.' When my American friends met me here, they said: 'Why do you stand talking in the rain?' I said to them: 'Where else can you talk in Ireland?'"
Jean left the States in 1964 and toured the world with her husband, Reuben, and his "Magicadabra." He was Kajar, the Magician, and Jean sang on his shows, which were put on in the Olympia in March 1967.
When only fourteen, Jean took parts in Lee Schubert's shows - "Blossom Time," "Student Prince," "May Time" and others. She looked into the distance and mused: "I do get sad when I am not working. I was well trained and there was always work for me when I was young."
Her mood soon changed when she talked of her new love - writing: "I often wonder how I can write fairy tales and murders." She sold a play to RTE, but The Barren Tree was scheduled to appear on September 29th last year, so of course "you know who" put paid to that, for the time being anyway. Maybe she can get it put on in Rome! She writes murder yarns for Ellery Queen and the South African Broadcasting Corporation.
Jean talked about her house: "This new home will be the very first for me. As a kid, I lived in nine houses in five years. Since then, I've been in hotels and apartments. Mother lifted the estate agents out of the doldrums. She was a marvelous business woman because she never failed to make a loss. She bought a house for £25,000 and managed to sell it for £10,000. This takes talent!
"For my new home, I have no furniture. But, we've got a cat: no bed: not even a poker, and no bathroom. The house was built in 1845 and you would think it's two storey, but it's tiny. It's little outside, but inside it is very big, but it would not look so big inside if it did not look so little outside! There is a three foot hall but you can get in your shoulders and everything!"
Jean's son and her cat are going to her new abode. Roy will have his own quarters. "Kitten-Kat strayed in one day, but she was not a wise little cat, and she fell by the wayside, and I couldn't say to her: 'Don't darken my door again.' I let her have her children and then we had her re-arranged, and now she doesn't have any nocturnal problems." Jean always signs herself: "Roy, Jean and Kitten-Kat."
Jean Darling may live in the clouds and fairyland a little, but she has plenty of what it takes to dwell on the ground. "I am all shapes, down to the bottom: makes me a very good seat on the motor cycle: I grip it with my bottom and I will never fall!"
So saying, she donned her helmet and sped off fearless on her Honda into the Ballsbridge traffic, no doubt to rush off and type out another murder story or tale for tiny tots, and turn them both into cash for her new furniture - and good luck to her!