Ars Gratia Artis, 2017, watercolor, gouache, and ink on paper.
Then I could hear the lion breathing near me. They put a piece of canvas on my back to keep the lion’s manicured claws from making the slightest scratch. Then they brought the lion up to me and put his paw on the canvas. Ever so slowly they pulled the canvas aside until I could feel his paw on my skin. Every hair on my head was standing on end. I could hear the camera grinding and then the crack of the trainer’s whip. Every cell in my body quivered when the animal roared. His hot breath seemed to go up and down my spine. For an instant I opened my eyes a slit. Without raising my head, I saw lines of people ringing the set, motionless absolutely silent. Among them, in his uniform, his eyes popping almost out
of his head, was Daddy. His mouth hung open with horror at the sight of his one and only child with a man holding a gun beside her and a roaring lion standing over her. It was our first glimpse of each other in five years. When the scene was over, I could tell that Mr. De Mille was ecstatic. He said we would not reshoot it. He could tell it was perfect. He said if I had any energy left, he would like me to get into the moleskin evening gown so that he could redo one or two close-ups. Then the shooting would be finished. From 1920s film star Gloria Swanson’s autobiography SWANSON ON SWANSON, Pocket Books, 1981. 63