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    The Rise and Fall of the Silent Film Era, Vol II: The Silent Film Actresses
    The Rise and Fall of the Silent Film Era, Vol II: The Silent Film Actresses
    The Rise and Fall of the Silent Film Era, Vol II: The Silent Film Actresses
    Ebook166 pages3 hours

    The Rise and Fall of the Silent Film Era, Vol II: The Silent Film Actresses

    By James R Ashley

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    The motion picture industry started out ridiculed and despised at the end of the 19th Century and beginning of the 20th Century. The first movies in the 1890s were shown in vaudeville; then in penny arcades; then in nickelodeons. In the penny arcade one deposited a penny in a small machine and saw though an eye-piece a number of flip cards go by in rapid succession simulating movement. Later the machines would accommodate a small filmstrip spooling by. The penny arcades were usually located in poor neighbors and appealed to immigrant men who had little command of the English language. The suggestive pictures played on the machines gave the penny arcades a bad name and made respectable men and all women & children reluctant to patronize them.

    Nickelodeons were a step forward in some cases and a step backwards in others. Patrons could see a 16-minute moving picture displayed on a sheet or on a white wall for 5 cents. That was the good part. The bad parts were that there were virtually no coherent storylines and the venues these films played in were in no way inferior to the black hole of Calcutta. They were frequently converted buildings with no widows; no ventilation; and frequently smelling of sweat, perspiration, and urine. Pickpockets and prostitutes regularly plied their trade in those sweatboxes to good effect, adding additional unpleasant smells.

    With the lengthening of films from 1-reelers to feature films of 3- to 4- reelers improved storylines were developed that allowed theater owners to charge a higher price for the ticket. This, in turn, allowed theater owners to upgrade their viewing premises and were thus able to constantly increase their ticket prices and upgrade their viewing venues in a continuing cycle. By the end of the silent film era high-end movie theaters were being designed after opulent European opera houses, complete with enormous rooms where wealthy women could change their attire and jewelry during each of the 3 to 4 intermissions.

    In two decades the silent film era actress had developed the art of pantomime to its highest level. But as night follows day, the era ended almost quickly as it had begun. In 1927 the Jazz Singer was released and people became hooked on sound. Dialogue made most of the silent actresses passé. Their exaggerated facial expressions and body pantomime were replaced with spoken dialogue. Actresses now had to express those qualities with their voices and this doomed a number of the silent actresses to extinction: the “New York honk” doomed Clara Bow, and Constance & Norma Talmadge, and a heavy foreign accent did the same for Pola Negri. The onset of the Great Depression also changed the complexion of movies, with the light-hearted comedies, sob-sister romances, and period spectaculars being replaced by message films, gangster films, westerns, science fiction, and horror films. This switch took out Theda Bara, Louise Brooks, Florence Lawrence, and Mary Pickford.

    They are all gone now but what a trail they blazed across the sky. They had entered a new and exciting industry and single-handedly elevated it into an art form. The way they dressed, the way they acted, the way they lived became the object of the greatest interested to their millions of fans who sought to emulate them in every way they could. For better or worse they set standards of behavior and expectations of that era. We cannot understand ourselves without understanding how we got here and this book is written to shed some light on days long gone when our grandparents had their lives forever altered by the great silent film actresses and they became part of what we have become today.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherJames R Ashley
    Release dateJul 22, 2013
    ISBN9781301739721
    The Rise and Fall of the Silent Film Era, Vol II: The Silent Film Actresses

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      Book preview

      The Rise and Fall of the Silent Film Era, Vol II - James R Ashley

      The Rise and Fall of the Silent Film Era

      Vol II: The Actresses

      by James R Ashley

      Copyright 2015 James R Ashley

      Smashwords Edition

      Table of Contents

      Introduction

      Theda Bara

      Bevery Bayne

      Clara Bow

      Louise Brooks

      Marion Davies

      Jeanne Eagles

      Peg Entwistle

      Greta Garbo

      Dorothy Gish

      Lillian Gish

      Barbara La Marr

      Florence Lawrence

      Mae Marsh

      Mary Minter Miles

      Mae Murray

      Alla Nazimova

      Pola Negri

      Mabel Normand

      Lottie Pickford

      Mary Pickford

      Edna Purviance

      Virginia Rappe

      Gloria Swanson

      Constance Talmadge

      Natalie Talmadge

      Norma Talmadge

      Olive Thomas

      Anna May Wong

      Bibliography

      Introduction

      The motion picture industry started out ridiculed and despised at the end of the 19th Century and beginning of the 20th Century. The 1st movies in the 1890s were shown in vaudeville, then in penny arcades, then in nickelodeons. In the penny arcade one deposited a penny in a small machine and saw though an eye-piece a number of flip cards go by in rapid succession, simulating movement. Later, the machines would accommodate a small filmstrip spooling by. The penny arcades were usually located in poor neighbors and appealed to immigrant men who had little command of the English language. The suggestive pictures played on the machines gave the penny arcades a bad name and made respectable men and all women & children reluctant to patronize them.

      Nickelodeons were a step forward in some cases and a step backwards in others. Patrons could see a 16-minute moving picture displayed on a sheet or on a white wall for 5 cents. That was the good part. The bad parts were that there were virtually no coherent storylines and the venues these films played in were in no way inferior to the black hole of Calcutta. They were frequently converted buildings with no widows; no ventilation; and frequently smelling of sweat, perspiration, and urine. Pickpockets and prostitutes regularly plied their trade in those sweatboxes to good effect, adding additional unpleasant smells.

      With the lengthening of films from 1-reelers to feature films of 3- to 4- reelers, improved storylines were developed that allowed theater owners to charge a higher price for the ticket. This, in turn, allowed theater owners to upgrade their viewing premises and were thus able to constantly increase their ticket prices and upgrade their viewing venues in a continuing cycle. By the end of the silent film era high-end movie theaters were being designed after opulent European opera houses, complete with enormous rooms where wealthy women could change their attire and jewelry during each of the 3 to 4 intermissions.

      Comedic scripts were virtually non-existent, with the comedians frequently going on location and just making up a skit as they went along. Continuous non-stop action was what counted and if the scenes were nonsensical and disconnected, that really didn’t matter. Max Sennett, who ran the most successful comedic studio of his time, said that if the action slowed down and the viewing audience had time to think about it, they would find nothing funny about what they were seeing. Comedy chaos in the 1-reeler shorts in time led to longer feature films and more carefully developed plots and gags. Witt and cleverness now replaced mindless action and the extra film time allowed for the development of character personas. Ridiculously execrated and bizarre characters and non-stop action soon gave way to believable and sympathetic characters viewers could identify with and realistic situations viewers were familiar with.

      The only significant female comedians out of the silent era that are remembered were Dorothy Gish and Mabel Normand, They both grew up in poverty and both became girls gone wild in the Jazz Age. Mabel, however, like Irving Thalberg, was destined to live but a short time. However, during those few years Mabel’s natural comedic talent raised her up to extraordinary heights and she was one of the most popular actresses of her time, and it was only her failing health and short life that ended her attempts to make serious comedy. Dorothy’s career, although much less spectacular, was ended by the advent of the talkies.

      In the early 1920s the Jazz Age had sounded the death knell of the Victorian Era. Women were no longer beautiful alabaster statues to be admired by afar, but hot-blooded, sexy predators, who went after men for a night’s fun and then broke their hearts on a whim. The shy, giggling, prim little girls of yesterday had turned into Jazz Age babies who were out to have all the fun they could get and the proper decorum be damned.

      Romantic actresses were right out of the Victorian Era at the beginning, and the idea of romance then was for Victorian women to be seen and admired but not heard from on any matter of importance. The ideal woman was to be virginal; obedient; and innocent, completely unfamiliar with the evil ways of the world. They were frequently taken advantage of by evildoers but had a spunkiness that allowed them to fight back and refuse to be beaten, no matter what the odds against them. Romance did not consist of any sexual innuendos but only giggling, eye fluttering, and a quick peck on the cheek. A woman’s virginal status in the silent era was largely determined by the color of her hair; blonds were virginal and dark-haired girls were not. This allowed views to tell who-was-who as soon as the woman entered the screen.

      All this, of course, changed during the advent of the Roaring Twenties. Women became sexually liberated during the Jazz Age and began to throw off 1 social convention after another. The Jazz Age babies were no longer obedient to their men but played with them like toys for their own amusement. They did what they wanted and accepted back-talk from no man. If he gave her any, it was on to the next man. Skirts became higher, dancing became lewder, sexual innuendo’s in speech became more common, and hit-and-run sex preferable. These were women who wanted sex but not the obligations of marriage that went with it.

      The Victorian Era actresses like Theda Bara, Beverly Bayne, Dorothy & Lillian Gish, and Mary Pickford, soon gave way to the Roaring Twenties Jazz babies of Clara Bow, Marion Davies, Gloria Swanson, and Olive Thomas, whose real life antics paralleled that of their screen personas. The spectrum ranged from Clara Bow’s trashy nymphomania to Gloria Swanson’s clique elegance, but they all had one thing in common, they wanted to enjoy their new-found freedom, and they blazed a trail that set the standards for the modern women of today.

      In two decades the silent film era actress had developed the art of pantomime to its highest level. But as night follows day, the era ended almost quickly as it had begun. In 1927 the Jazz Singer was released and people became hooked on sound. Dialogue made most of the silent actresses passé. Their exaggerated facial expressions and body pantomime were replaced with spoken dialogue. Actresses now had to express those qualities with their voices and this doomed a number of the silent actresses to extinction: the New York honk doomed Clara Bow, and Constance & Norma Talmadge, and a heavy foreign accent did the same for Pola Negri and Vilma Blankey. The onset of the Great Depression also changed the complexion of movies, with the light-hearted comedies, sob-sister romances, and period spectaculars being replaced by message films, gangster shoot-em'-ups, westerns, science fiction, and horror films. This switch took out Theda Bara, Louise Brooks, Florence Lawrence, and Mary Pickford.

      When the end came, a few actresses comfortably on what they had saved from their careers; others saw their careers end disastrously. Clara Bow ended her days in a mental institution, while Louise Brooks became a prostitute, in order to pay her bills. Marion Davies, Anna May Wong, Mary Pickford, and Constance Talmadge became alcoholics; Jeanne Eagles, Norma Talmadge, and Barbara LaMarr all died from drug overdoes; while Florence Lawrence, Virginia Rappe, and Olive Thomas died from poisoning of one kind or another. Peg Entwistle committed suicide by jumping off the Hollywood sign

      They are all gone now but what a trail they blazed across the sky. They had entered a new and exciting industry and single-handedly elevated it into an art form. The way they dressed, the way they acted, the way they lived became the object of the greatest interest to their millions of fans who sought to emulate them in every way they could. For better or worse they set standards of behavior and expectations of that era. We cannot understand ourselves without understanding how we got here and this book is written to shed some light on days long gone, when our grandparents had their lives forever altered by the great silent film actresses and they became part of what we have become today.

      Theda Bara

      Theda Bara was born Theodosia Goodman on July 29, 1885, in Cincinnati, Ohio. She was named after Aaron Burr’s (Thomas Jefferson’s Vice President) only daughter, who drown on a sea voyage in going to meet her father. Theda’s father was a tailor and her mother sold hair goods. When Theda graduated from high school, she attended the University of Cincinnati for 2 years, which gave her a life-long love of reading.

      Having a strong desire to act in the theater, the 18-year-old Theda talked her father into paying her way to New York. She failed to land a part on Broadway but did get a small role with a road company at $25 a week. When her salary was cut to $18 a week, Theda left the company. After several ups and downs, Theda decided to attend drama school. She became widely known in theatrical circles as a ambitious actress specializing in femme fatale roles.

      By 1914 Theda was 30 years old and it became apparent after 9 years of trying that she wasn’t going to be successful in the theater, as she had yet to get a leading role. She then began to redirect her energies toward the movie studios. Cecil B DeMille remembered that Theda came in virtually every time they were casting to see if there might be a part for her. There never was.

      In the latter part of 1914 Theda met film director Frank Powell from Fox, who had seen her in several bit parts and had been impressed with her body and her large eyes. He asked her if she would like to be in movies. He needed someone who would work cheap and she was desperate for a break, so it turned out to be a match made in heaven. Her first role was in a crowd scene. In our day Theda would hardly seem like a promising actress. She was 5’6 tall and weighed 132 pounds. She had a heavy jaw-line and a thick nose. Without her glasses Theda was also nearsighted and would habitually squint when gazing at something and had to memorize where objects were on the stage, in order not to bump into them. A natural blond, Theda dyed her hair black to give her an exotic" look.

      Theda had the good fortune to make her appearance at Fox at exactly the right time. William Fox had purchased the rights to A Fool There Was, which he wanted to make into a film. The story was about an evil vampiress whose sole function in life seemed to be to bring about the downfall of powerful men. Fox hired Frank Powell away from Pathe to direct the picture. He thought Theda a natural for the lead. The picture was to make Theda an instant star.

      Theda was still known as Thedosia Goodman, which the Fox publicity department did not think a suitable actress name for her. And the more they though about it the more convinced they became that they would create not only a new name for her but a new persona as well; one that would accentuate her movie role. Publicity felt that the movie’s vampire needed to be mysterious and exotic, in order to be a believable seducer of men, so they would have Theda born in the mysterious land of Egypt with a French mother and an Italian father. They took the word Arab and spelled it backwards, making Bara her last name. They then shortened her first name to Theda, and Theda Bara was born. Someone in the studio’s marketing department saw that Theda could be rearranged to spell death and Bara’s name now became the anagram, Arab Death.

      Now the publicity department went into high gear. Theda was said to have born in the shadow of the Sphinx, the daughter of Theda De Coppet, a French actress and Guiseppa Bara, an Italian painter and sculptor. While De Coppet sketched in the African desert, Theda, who was weaned on serpent’s blood and mentored by a sorceress, acquired mastery over the occult powers of love. When Theda debuted on the Paris stage, it was claimed that on a whim she drove men mad with love. When reporters interviewed her, they were always sent in pairs in the real fear that if they went alone they would be overcome by her hypnotic control and forced to be her slave.

      In A Fool There Was Theda plays a vampire who uses her sexuality to destroy men. On the voyage to Europe she meets a diplomat who falls

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