2002-05-24 - 3:40 p.m.

Myopia Darjeel (1889 - 1936)

Though many have tried, Myopia Darjeel remains one of the few mute people ever to get within spitting distance of Hollywood. Indeed, the enigmatic actress, socialite and bandy-drawered strumpet came close to becoming a movie legend.

She was born in Lower Manhattan to bizarrely mismatched parents (her father was a high ranking Naval Official and her mother sculpted cheese). Robin and Robyn Darjeel initially mistook her silent nature for extreme dullness, and they considered trading her in for a chirpy working-class orphan, who they imagined could at least keep them entertained with streams of dirty jokes. This possibility mortified Myopia, and she earned a last minute reprieve by learning to juggle the family pets and demonstrate a wide range of offensive hand gestures.

By her late teens she was the consummate entertainer, excelling in mime, finger puppetry and suggestive contortion. She performed on the circuit of parlour parties around Manhattan society, and revelled in the new-found respect and sexual advances that her skills invited. So much did she enjoy her chatless showing off that she bravely headed for Hollywood. Sadly, in 1906 there was little else there besides orange groves and shady migrant workers, but five years later, the town was a-slither with independent movie producers.

Her big break came when she was spotted serving coffee in a provocative petticoat by visionary film-maker Trondheim Szlong. She was immediately awarded a supporting role, playing a promiscuous, aspiring, young mute actress in his seminal flickery work, �Pornocracy�, a dystopian nightmare set in a future where everyone is forced to work in the public relations departments of major record companies.

The era suited her talents perfectly, eventually teaming up with pioneering silent comedy double-act Godfrey Squiff and Fatty �Tubbs� Lardy. Thanks to the bewildering success of their tedious brand of crude, ideologically questionable films (eg. the 1923 hit �Eek! It�s a Blackie!�) she became incredibly wealthy, allowing her any number of annoyingly eccentric hedonistic indulgences. She married and divorced thirteen of her leading men in one year with no overlaps and routinely flew to Switzerland to have her blood replaced with some sanguine derivative of pink champagne.

Her new-found wealth and relaxed moral attitudes made her a popular mainstay of the Hollywood party circuit, and, some would say, bigger than the industry itself. Her behaviour became increasingly erratic, and she once turned up thirteen weeks late for a shoot. It transpired she couldn�t leave the house as she imagined alien insects were trying to lay eggs in her hemlines. There were theories her paranoia may have stemmed from her dysfunctional childhood, though most people put it down to her having two bottles of neat Blue Bols for breakfast.

Sadly for Myopia, the dawning of �talkies� came as a devastating development. The studios were keen to keep trading on her tarty appeal, but the public would soon grow weary of her playing a mute in every film. Early attempts to sidestep the problem ended in embarrassment � the idea was to place someone beneath her billowing dresses to say Darjeel�s lines for her, but the only person small enough was abnormally stunted Irish jockey-turned stuntman Keith O�Keefe, and after test screening ended in twenty-three arrests for aggravated assault, the idea was ditched.

Darjeel never worked in Hollywood again, though she emigrated to New Zealand, where she enjoyed a healthy career for many years, silent films only arriving there some years later, and being considered state of the art until the early sixties. She died of degenerative hiccups, and her last words, given in sign language on her deathbed, have variously been interpreted as �I am at peace�, �Close the curtains�, or something nonsensical about rancid marmalade.

� pablo 2002