Rooms

Gladys Louise Smith (April 8, 1892 – May 29, 1979), known professionally as Mary Pickford, was a Canadian-born American film actress and producer with a career spanning 50 years. She was a co-founder of the Pickford–Fairbanks Studios with Douglas Fairbanks and the United Artists studio with Fairbanks, Charlie Chaplin, and D. W. Griffith, and she was one of the 36 founders of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences who present the yearly “Oscar” Awards ceremony.

Continue Reading »

Fairbanks really enjoyed making movies from the start of his screen career. From 1915 to 1920, he tried his hand at occasionally adapting his own scenarios. By the time United Artists (the company he partly founded, in 1919, and actively participated in) was operating very successfully, he found his niche in costume pictures. He knew what kind of script worked best to showcase his persona. Beginning in 1922, he resumed writing and wrote many of his own entertaining and creative story lines under the pseudonym of Elton Thomas (his two middle names). These feature films included: Douglas Fairbanks in Robin Hood (United Artists, 1922), The Thief of Baghdad (1924), The Black Pirate (1926), The Gaucho (1927) and The Iron Mask (1929).

Doug lived very much like a great and beloved king. He was an active member of society and worked towards the betterment of his beloved Southern California, as well as the movie industry – co-founding Beverly Hills, United Artists and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. He was a world traveler and, with his queen Mary Pickford, thrilled the imagination of people all over the globe. It seemed as if this dynamic individual would outlive all his contemporaries.

Valentino was the ultimate Latin Lover with a magnetic pull that made the ladies swoon. He became one of the screen’s first idols with his appearance in such silent films as “The Sheik” and “The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.” He was irresistible in the movies, and fans devoured magazines that discussed him. When Valentino’s untimely death at 31 was announced there was worldwide hysteria, and millions mourned.

Read Biography

The “jazz baby” personified, Clara Bow (1906-1965) became one of Hollywood’s brightest lights of the ’20s. Saucy and pert, Clara was dubbed ‘The “It” Girl’ by Elinor Glyn and chosen to star in the film version of Ms. Glyn’s famous novel. While nothing more than good old sex appeal, “It” symbolized the tremendous progress women were making in society, and leading the way was Clara Bow.

Success followed success, with Clara’s popularity growing from such films as Mantrap, Kid Boots, Dancing Mothers, and Wings. But it was 1927’s grand-slam smash It which made Clara Bow Paramount’s number 1 star, and the most famous name in Hollywood.

Contrary to popular belief, Clara Bow successfully made the transition to talkies with such roles as Call Her Savage and Hoopla. She retired from films in 1933 to become a full-time wife and later, full-time mother to two sons, Tony and George.

Ethel Barrymore (Ethel Blythe) actress
Born: 8/15/1879
Birthplace: Philadelphia

Best known as a stage actress, she appeared in The Corn Is Green (1940-42) and has a Broadway theater named in her honor. She won an Academy Award for None but the Lonely Heart (1944).

John Barrymore (John Blythe) actor
Born: 2/15/1882
Birthplace: Philadelphia

Film and stage actor known for his acting skills and tempestuous personal life. In 1922 and 1923, he gave 101 performances as Hamlet. His films include A Bill of Divorcement (1932) and Twentieth Century (1934).

Lionel Barrymore (Lionel Blythe) actor
Born: 4/28/1878
Birthplace: Philadelphia

An Academy Award-winning actor, he appeared in the films Free Soul (1931) and Dinner at Eight (1933).

Short Bio

October 30, 1920

EXCLUSIVE TO THE “PICTURE SHOW.”
For the first time the romantic life story of Norma, Natalie, and Constance Talmadge has been written and will appear exclusively in the “Picture Sow.” The early struggles of these girls, before they were stars, make most fascinating reading, especially as they have recently visited Great Britain.

The Editor

Read this first.
A wee little mite gave a rendering of “Sunshine in Paradise Alley” one afternoon at a seaside hotel. The singing was out of tune, but nevertheless, sweet. This was the debut in public of Norma Talmadge. Years after, when she and her two sisters, Natalie and Constance, were schoolchildren, the three girls gave a performance for their mother, Peg, and some friends, of a small play. Norma’s acting was so remarkable that her audience predicted a brilliant future for her. And they were not far wrong! When Norma was nearly fifteen she applied at the Vitagraph Studio, and was taken on as an “extra.” After a year at the studio, in which she got very disheartened, Norma was given a chance. She gave a wonderful rehearsal of her part before her sister Constance.

Norma makes good.

After the bedroom rehearsal with Constance as her only audience, Norma slept well. The next morning she went to the studio as usual. She was feeling nervous and yet hopeful. Young as she was, she had the true artist’s secret confidence in her own powers. Deep down in her heart, she felt that, given her chance, she could make good. And now her chance had come. She had a real part.

But there was always the risk of failure. Something might go wrong. A thousand and one things might happen to prevent her from making just the impression she wanted to make, and which she knew she could make if all went well. So she was anxious and conscious of a certain mental strain as she entered the studio. She was quite at home there now, and had many friends, but she was still looked upon as a beginner, just one in the crowd.

To-day she conversed little with her associates, but stood apart, preoccupied with her own thoughts. She had to wait some time, for the big scene of the play was being taken first, and in this she does not appear. The scene gave some trouble. For some reason or other, the lady who took the leading part was in a bad humour and nothing went right. The scene was taken over and over again, and the producer was almost driven to despair.

“Now, Miss Talmadge!”

Norma was startled by the sudden mention of her name. Mr. Wilmore’s voice was unusually sharp… Read more »

Short Bio

Birth Name: Lillian Diana de Guiche
Born: October 14, 1893 in Springfield, Ohio
Died: February 27, 1993 in New York, New York

Not only was Lillian Gish born in the right era, but she was also born with the ethereal beauty and grace to make her a star in the silent film industry. If Mary Pickford was the silent cinema’s greatest personality, Lillian was its greatest actress.

---

---

A consummate actress, Lillian seemed to take delight in suffering for the art form that became her obsession. In order to experiment, Lillian worked in extreme conditions such as starvation, intense heat and bitter cold. Soon, she became the quintessential silent screen heroine, lovely and open to suffering. However, despite her characters’ apparent weakness, Lillian’s performances also let their inner strengths shine through.

Harold Lloyd ranks alongside Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton as one of the most popular and influential film comedians of the silent film era. Lloyd made nearly 200 comedy films, both silent and “talkies”, between 1914 and 1947. He is best known for his “Glasses Character”, a resourceful, success-seeking go-getter who was perfectly in tune with 1920’s era America.

His films frequently contained “thrill sequences” of extended chase scenes and daredevil physical feats, for which he is best remembered today. Lloyd hanging from the hands of a clock high above the street in Safety Last! (1923) is one of the most enduring images in all of cinema. Lloyd did many of these dangerous stunts himself, despite having injured himself during the filming of Haunted Spooks (1920) when an accident with a prop bomb resulted in the loss of the thumb and index finger of his right hand (the injury was disguised on film with the use of a special prosthetic glove, though the glove often did not go by unnoticed).

Although Lloyd’s individual films were not as commercially successful as Charlie Chaplin’s on average, he was far more prolific (releasing twelve feature films in the 1920s while Chaplin released just three), and they made more money overall ($15.7 million to Chaplin’s $10.5 million).

Charlie Chaplain

Sir Charles Spencer Chaplin KBE (16 April 1889 – 25 December 1977) was an English comic actor, filmmaker, and composer who rose to fame in the era of silent film. He became a worldwide icon through his screen persona, “The Tramp”, and is considered one of the most important figures in the history of the film industry. His career spanned more than 75 years, from childhood in the Victorian era until a year before his death in 1977, and encompassed both adulation and controversy.

Continue Reading»