Forgotten Hollywood

In 1957, the State of California filed suit against the Confidential magazine. Its publisher, Robert Harrison (in his New York office in the photo), made a statement in the September issue, which read in part - “California has accused us of a crime --the crime of telling the truth! (.

When in the 1920s Hollywood studios created the star system which lasted till the 1960s, young men and women were plucked from obscurity, buffed and polished and transformed into movie stars with invented names and backgrounds to glamorize them. Every aspect of their lives was controlled by the movie studios with morals clauses inserted into their contracts, and ‘fixers’ hired to cover up scandals.

On January 9, 1936, the Reading Eagle’s front page headline blared: “Fight to Save Life of ‘Great Lover’ Futile. ” Actor John Gilbert, who “thrilled millions,” had died of a heart attack.

Silent movie star Billie Burke once said of Hollywood, “To survive there, you need the ambition of a Latin-American revolutionary, the ego of a grand opera tenor and the physical stamina of a cow pony. ” She had an almost six-decade career in show business, was the highest-paid star in silent movies for a while, and had a turbulent marriage as the second wife of Broadway impresario Florenz Ziegfeld, but she is mostly remembered as Glinda the Good Witch in The Wizard of Oz.

Flamboyant silent film star Alla Nazimova, acclaimed Russian actress, accomplished violinist, major Broadway luminary, the diva of multiple films as actor, producer, director, editor and costume designer is all but forgotten today, though there was a time when she ruled Hollywood and earned more money than Mary Pickford - $13,000 a week on a five-year contract with Metro Pictures in 1917. Nazimova was born Miriam Edez Adelaida Leventon in 1879 in Czarist Russia to Jewish parents.

Before the idea of Hollywood, a small town in Indiana was the first to experience the magic of motion pictures in the United States.  On June 6, 1894 inventor Charles Francis Jenkins created history by projecting a filmed motion picture by way of reeled film and electric light before a live audience.

In 2013, the Library of Congress announced that they had selected the 1920 silent film Daughter of Dawn to be inducted into the National Film Registry, the first feature that was filmed in Oklahoma. One remarkable thing is that this film still existed.

“A man ahead of his time. ” These simple words on a tombstone in Grand Bend, Kansas, define Oscar Micheaux.

Maria de los Delores Asunsolo y Lopez-Negrete was born in the Mexican town of Durango on August 3, 1904, to wealthy Mexican aristocracy. They lived the high life in the company of intellectuals and artists.

One of the biggest stars in silent films that most fans have never heard of was Colleen Moore who, in her heyday, was earning $12,500 a week in the 1920s and ‘30s, (close to $200,000 in today’s money). Unfortunately, most of her films are lost.