Uploads from Susie Bright

Agnes Williams, my grandmother, in Walhalla, ND

nobody@flickr.com (Susie Bright) — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 14:53:28 -0800

The Great Nazimova!

nobody@flickr.com (Susie Bright) — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 14:53:28 -0800

Alla Nazimova (Russian and Ukrainian: Алла Назимова; 3 June [O.S. 22 May] 1879; 13 July 1945[1]), was a Russian American film and theater actress, a screenwriter, and film producer. She is perhaps best known as simply Nazimova.

She was signed up by the American producer Henry Miller and made her Broadway debut in New York City, New York, in 1906 to critical and popular success. She quickly became extremely popular (a theater was named after her) and remained a major Broadway star for years, often acting in the plays of Henrik Ibsen and Anton Chekhov. Dorothy Parker described her as the finest Hedda Gabler she had ever seen.

Due to her notoriety in a 35-minute 1915 play entitled War Brides, Nazimova made her silent film debut in 1916 in the filmed version of the play. A young actor with a bit part in the movie was Richard Barthelmess whose mother taught Nazimova English.[4] This appearance brought her to the attention of Lewis J. Selznick. Over the next few years she made a number of highly successful films that earned her a considerable amount of money. By 1917 her contract was earning her $13,000 per week.

In 1918, Nazimova felt confident enough in her abilities that she began producing and writing films in which she also starred. In her film adaptations of works by such notable writers as Oscar Wilde and Ibsen she developed her own film making techniques, which were considered daring at the time.

From 1912 to 1925 Nazimova lived in a "lavender marriage" with Charles Bryant (1879–1948),[6] a New York actor.

Between the years of 1917 and 1922 Nazimova wielded considerable influence and power in Hollywood. By all accounts she was extremely generous to young actresses in whom she saw talent and became involved with at least some of them romantically. One noteworthy example was Anna May Wong, whose first film role at age 14 was as an extra in The Red Lantern.

Nazimova helped start the careers of both of Rudolph Valentino's wives, Jean Acker and Natacha Rambova.

Nazimova was involved with actress Eva Le Gallienne, director Dorothy Arzner, writer Mercedes de Acosta, and Oscar Wilde's niece, Dolly Wilde, and Bridget Bate Tichenor, a Magic Realist artist and Surrealist painter.

It was allegedly Nazimova who coined the phrase "Sewing circles" as code to refer to lesbian or bisexual actresses of her day who concealed their true sexuality.

Nazimova lived with Glesca Marshall from 1929 until her death in 1945.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alla_Nazimova

Photo: Alpeda

Charles Cleery, "To Agnes Williams"

nobody@flickr.com (Susie Bright) — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 09:13:15 -0700

Susie Bright posted a photo:

Charles Clary (March 24, 1873 – March 24, 1931) was an American actor of the silent era. He appeared in 206 films between 1910 and 1930.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Clary

Photo: Photoplayers Studios, LA

Milton Sills

nobody@flickr.com (Susie Bright) — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 09:13:08 -0700

Susie Bright posted a photo:

Milton Sills (January 12, 1882 – September 15, 1930) was a highly successful American stage and film actor of the early twentieth century.

Sills had the distinction of being among the original 36 individuals in the film industry to found the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, a professional honorary organization dedicated to the advancement of the arts and sciences of motion pictures.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milton_Sills

Wallace Reid, Cordially

nobody@flickr.com (Susie Bright) — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 09:12:58 -0700

Susie Bright posted a photo:

Wallace Reid (April 15, 1892[1] – January 18, 1923) was an actor in silent film referred to as "the screen's most perfect lover".

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wallace_Reid

Photo: Hartsook SF-LA

William S. Hart

nobody@flickr.com (Susie Bright) — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 09:12:50 -0700

Susie Bright posted a photo:

William Surrey Hart (December 6, 1864 – June 23, 1946) was an American silent film actor, screenwriter, director and producer. He is remembered for having "imbued all of his characters with honor and integrity."

A successful Shakespearean actor on Broadway who had worked with Margaret Mather and other stars, he appeared in the original 1899 stage production of Ben-Hur.

Hart went on to become one of the first great stars of the motion picture western. Fascinated by the Old West, he acquired Billy the Kid's "six shooters" and was a friend of legendary lawmen Wyatt Earp and Bat Masterson.

Hart was particularly interested in making realistic western films. His films are noted for their authentic costumes and props, as well as Hart's extraordinary acting ability, honed on Shakespearean theater stages in the United States and England.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_S._Hart

William Garwood, "to Miss Agnes Williams Sincerely yours"

nobody@flickr.com (Susie Bright) — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 09:12:44 -0700

Susie Bright posted a photo:

William Garwood (April 28, 1884 – December 28, 1950) was an American stage and film actor and director of the early silent era in the 1910s.

Between 1911 and 1913, Garwood starred in a number of early adaptions of popular films including Jane Eyre and The Vicar of Wakefield (1910), Lorna Doone, The Pied Piper of Hamelin and David Copperfield (1911), The Merchant of Venice (1912), and Little Dorrit and Robin Hood (1913). In total, he appeared starred in more than 150 films.

Garwood was determined to remain a bachelor for the entirety of his life and when answering reporters' inquiries about the possibility of his becoming married he always replied strongly with "Never!" He lived with a Japanese servant, who attended to his personal needs and did most of the cooking.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Garwood

Photo: National NY

Violet Mersereau, Sincerely, nude

nobody@flickr.com (Susie Bright) — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 09:12:36 -0700

Susie Bright posted a photo:

Photo: Moody NY

Violet Mersereau (October 2, 1892 – November 12, 1975) was an American silent movie star.

Violet was given the nickname The Child Wonder. She starred on the road as Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm and then became a screen actress.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Violet_Mersereau

Viola Dana - Metro, Agnes Williams, Sincerely

nobody@flickr.com (Susie Bright) — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 09:12:28 -0700

Susie Bright posted a photo:

Viola Dana (June 26, 1897 – July 3, 1987) was an American film actress who was successful during the era of silent movies.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viola_Dana

Photo: Walls Studio, 456 Broadway, NY

Thomas Meighan, Sincerely

nobody@flickr.com (Susie Bright) — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 09:12:21 -0700

Susie Bright posted a photo:

Thomas Meighan (April 9, 1879 – July 8, 1936) was an American actor of silent films and early talkies. He played several leading man roles opposite popular actresses of the day including Mary Pickford and Gloria Swanson.[1] At one point he commanded $10,000 a week.[2]

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Meighan

Theda Bara, with greyhound

nobody@flickr.com (Susie Bright) — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 09:12:14 -0700

Susie Bright posted a photo:

Theda Bara (July 29, 1885 – April 13, 1955), born Theodosia Burr Goodman, was an American silent film actress – one of the most popular of her era, and one of cinema's earliest sex symbols.

Her femme fatale roles earned her the nickname "The Vamp" (short for vampire). The term "vamp" soon became a popular slang term for a sexually predatory woman.

She was the star of the first film of "Cleopatra" (1917)

Theda Bara has a higher percentage of lost films than any other actor with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Bara is also one of the most famous completely silent stars – she was never filmed in sound, lost or otherwise.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theda_Bara

Photo: National, NY

Ralph Kellard

nobody@flickr.com (Susie Bright) — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 09:12:07 -0700

Susie Bright posted a photo:

(1882–1955)

www.imdb.com/name/nm0445516/

Photo: Lumiere, NY

Norma Talmadge, Sincerely yours

nobody@flickr.com (Susie Bright) — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 09:11:58 -0700

Susie Bright posted a photo:

Norma Talmadge (May 2, 1894 – December 24, 1957) was an American actress and film producer of the silent era. A major box office draw for more than a decade, her career reached a peak in the early 1920s, when she ranked among the most popular idols of the American screen.

A specialist in melodrama, Talmadge was one of the most elegant and glamorous film stars of the roaring twenties. By the end of the silent film period her popularity with audiences had waned.[3] After her two talkies proved disappointing at the box office, she retired a very wealthy woman. She is little remembered, yet in her day she was hugely popular and the epitome of stardom.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norma_Talmadge

Photo: Lumiere NY

J. Warren Kerrigan, Yours truly

nobody@flickr.com (Susie Bright) — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 09:11:51 -0700

Susie Bright posted a photo:

George Jack Warren Kerrigan (July 25, 1879 – June 9, 1947) was an American silent film actor and film director.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._Warren_Kerrigan

Charlie Chaplin

nobody@flickr.com (Susie Bright) — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 09:11:43 -0700

Susie Bright posted a photo:

Sir Charles Spencer "Charlie" Chaplin, KBE (16 April 1889 – 25 December 1977) was an English comic actor, film director and composer best known for his work during the silent film era.

He became the most famous film star in the world before the end of World War I. Chaplin used mime, slapstick and other visual comedy routines, and continued well into the era of the talkies, though his films decreased in frequency from the end of the 1920s. His most famous role was that of The Tramp, which he first played in the Keystone comedy Kid Auto Races at Venice in 1914.

From the April 1914 one-reeler Twenty Minutes of Love onwards he was writing and directing most of his films, by 1916 he was also producing them, and from 1918 he was even composing the music for them. With Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks and D. W. Griffith, he co-founded United Artists in 1919.

Chaplin was one of the most creative and influential personalities of the silent-film era. He was influenced by his predecessor, the French silent film comedian Max Linder, to whom he dedicated one of his films.

His working life in entertainment spanned over 75 years, from the Victorian stage and the music hall in the United Kingdom as a child performer, until close to his death at the age of 88.

His high-profile public and private life encompassed both adulation and controversy. Chaplin's identification with the left ultimately forced him to resettle in Europe during the McCarthy era in the early 1950s.

In 1999, the American Film Institute ranked Chaplin the 10th greatest male screen legend of all time.

In 2008, Martin Sieff, in a review of the book Chaplin: A Life, wrote: "Chaplin was not just 'big', he was gigantic. In 1915, he burst onto a war-torn world bringing it the gift of comedy, laughter and relief while it was tearing itself apart through World War I.

Over the next 25 years, through the Great Depression and the rise of Adolf Hitler, he stayed on the job. ... It is doubtful any individual has ever given more entertainment, pleasure and relief to so many human beings when they needed it the most".

George Bernard Shaw called Chaplin "the only genius to come out of the movie industry".

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlie_Chaplin

Myrtle Stedman, Sincerely

nobody@flickr.com (Susie Bright) — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 09:11:36 -0700

Susie Bright posted a photo:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myrtle_Stedman

Myrtle Stedman (March 3, 1883[1] – January 8, 1938) was a leading lady and later character actress in motion pictures beginning in silent films in 1910. She was born in Chicago, Illinois and educated at a private finishing school there. Miss Stedman performed in light opera and musical comedies there. Her voice was cultivated in France. Her tutor was Marchesi, who was known as one of the finest instructors of voice culture in his country.

Photo: Carpenter LA

Monte Montague

nobody@flickr.com (Susie Bright) — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 09:11:27 -0700

Susie Bright posted a photo:

Monte Montague (23 April 1891 – 6 April 1959) was an American film actor. He appeared in over 190 films between 1920 and 1954. He was born in Somerset, Kentucky, and died in Burbank, California.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monte_Montague

Photo: Lumiere, NY

Mabel Normand, Sincerely, with kitten

nobody@flickr.com (Susie Bright) — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 09:11:20 -0700

Susie Bright posted a photo:

Mabel Normand (November 9, 1892 – February 23, 1930) was an American silent film comedienne and actress. She was a popular star of Mack Sennett's Keystone Studios and is noted as one of the film industry's first female screenwriters, producers and directors.

Onscreen she co-starred in commercially successful films with Charlie Chaplin and Roscoe Arbuckle more than a dozen times each, occasionally writing and directing movies featuring Chaplin as her leading man.

At the height of her career in the late 1910s and early 1920s, Normand had her own movie studio and production company.

Throughout the 1920s her name was linked with widely publicized scandals including the 1922 murder of William Desmond Taylor and the 1924 shooting of Courtland S. Dines, who was shot by Normand's chauffeur with her pistol. She was not a suspect in either crime.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mabel_Normand

Mary Miles Minter, Sincerely yours

nobody@flickr.com (Susie Bright) — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 09:11:12 -0700

Susie Bright posted a photo:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Miles_Minter

Her first film for director William Desmond Taylor was "Anne of Green Gables" in 1919, which made her a star. According to her, a romantic relationship developed between herself and the director, William Desmond Taylor.

Minter said Taylor had reservations from the outset and later curtailed the romance, citing the thirty-year difference in their ages.

In 1922, Taylor was murdered in his home. The ensuing scandal was the subject of widespread media speculation and embellishment. Minter was at the height of her success, having starred in more than 50 films and sensationalistic newspaper revelations of the twenty-year-old film star's association with a forty-nine-year-old murdered director caused rolling scandals.

There were several suspects in the long investigation of Taylor's murder. In 1937, Minter publicly announced, "Now I demand that I either be prosecuted for the murder committed fifteen years ago, or exonerated completely. If the District Attorney has any evidence, he should prosecute. If not, then I should be exonerated... Shadows have been cast upon my reputation"

Mae Marsh, Sincerely

nobody@flickr.com (Susie Bright) — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 09:11:04 -0700

Susie Bright posted a photo:

Mae Marsh (born Mary Wayne Marsh, November 9, 1894[1] – February 13, 1968) was an American film actress with a career spanning over 50 years.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mae_Marsh