Jack Pickford: In Mary's Shadow

The Mary Pickford Institute has been absolutely wonderful to me. And through them I found Elaina Archer who has made several wonderful documentaries (including the one that was one of my first posts on FTT: Why Be Good?). But one that surprised me was about Mary's brother Jack.

Made in 2001 In Mary's Shadow: The Jack Pickford Story has apparently slipped under the radar in recent years (click here for a clip. Quicktime required). In fairness Elaina tells me it was available only on VHS which might have something to do with that. However there is news that it will be on DVD soon, and of course when it is I will let you all know!

I'm a tad obsessed with the Pickford clan...mostly because they were so fascinating. Lottie may have been a subpar actress and Olive Thomas was trouble all the way...but their stories are what makes them so fascinating. Being an Olive fan I cant say I'm wild about Jack, though I don't subscribe to the murder theories (that is just insane). If there was ever an evenly matched couple in the history of the world it was Jack and Ollie: trouble defined.

Both Jack and Olive were very good actors, though particularly in Jack's case he found life (i.e. partying and ladies) much more exhilarating than acting. One gossip columnist noted how she was at a party sitting next to Rudolph Valentino sure any woman in America would kill to be in her place. Yet every woman at the party could care less...they were after Jack Pickford who was also in attendance.

Elaina's documentary on Jack is quite wonderful. If you look at his career sans his famous sister he was quite an active silent film actor. He made 28 shorts and over 40 features...many of which were very popular particular in the mid 1910s. Many of his films still exist including "Tom Sawyer" (in which Olive has a small bit in the choir during a church scene).

Mary loved Jack, and quite literally favored him. She herself theorized in her autobiography "Sunshine and Shadows" that had Jack not been a Pickford he would have gone on to a great acting career (more accurately if he hadn't been predisposed to alcoholism it probably would have helped greatly). In fact Mary loved him so much that the only way Kevin Brownlow could lure her out of her recluse state was to offer to show a film of Jack's. Despite all the years that passed Mary still thought her brother was one of the best actors of all time.

I think what is most amazing to me is just how many Jack fans there are out there. I never gave it much thought but through writing about Mary and Olive I've had many people write me, asking for more about Jack. I hope the discovery of Elaina's documentary will make them very happy.

It is a bit late notice but if anyone is in Malibu tomorrow (Sunday) The Malibu Friends of Music will be showing Elaina's documentary as well as Tom Sawyer. A little birdy told me both films will also be shown at The Rudolph Valentino Film Festival in May.

The Greatest Flapper

So concludes another Silent Film poll (on the right hand side of your screen). July's question, "Who was the Greatest Flapper?" It seems one choice was obvious to most of you.

#1: Clara Bow 46%
#2: Louise Brooks 30%
#3: Olive Thomas 10%
#4: Colleen Moore 8%
#5: Anna May Wong 3%
#6: Gloria Swanson 1%

As always I think you kiddies are a little off. Below is my ranking:



#1: Louise Brooks

Louise Brooks made a strong showing in our vamp and greatest actress poll. She was definitely the point where vamp met flapper. I think to most people a picture of Louise would signify flapper as they envision it: her black helmet, a low cut (usually in the back) dress, no bosom or hips, and that "I'll do what I want" little look she had since 1916.

In her films Louise is more vamp than flapper. Flappers didn't take crap, and they rarely dealt with such heavy issues like Louise's films did (Pandora's Box, Beggars of Life). True Louise was very independent, very for the moment as one would imagine a flapper. She was flapper in image, but not in her films. And arguably not in life either (flappers would rather drink then stay home and read...of course Louise found a way to combine the two but I digress...)

It's a little odd to place her above those who embodied flapper more so in their films. But I guarentee when anyone thinks flapper Louise is the first image that jumps in their mind. One look at the number of black helmet styled hairdos that reign to this day would prove as such.



#2: Clara Bow

Now Clara was the opposite: flapper in her films, but not in her life. Oh sure she tried...Clara was always up for fun and partying. But Hollywood literally shunned her, and with newspapers making up scandals she wasn't allowed to see her believed USC friends (who by the way she did not have a gangbang with, that was one such terrible rumor). Clara was free and wild and tried to embody the flapper...but she had a much darker sadder side. Raped by her father and abused by both her parents her childhood makes Marilyn Monroe's look like a fairytale. Clara was not well and suffered horribly for the lack of help she received. Unfortunately this also derailed her career; as she could not continue being abused by the studio and those around her while near the breaking point.

In her films Clara was much more the flapper. She was the IT girl (the one and only bite me Paris Hilton...Paris Hilton has skankiness, not IT), she was the dancing happy wild flapper in one film after another. Everyone wanted to be Clara...including Louise Brooks who wrote very fondly and enthusiastically of her later on in life (and was very angry that Kevin Brownlow had not mentioned Clara at all in his book).

Clara's image is to me more Clara than flapper or vamp or any type. That wild flowing hair is how we all think of her, though she ran through various styles (my finger wave book gives a variation on a short bob as 'the Clara Bow bob' presumably before IT) and colors (she sometimes had to switch between blonde and red hair in a WEEK due to filming several films at once). Though her look was all Clara, her actions were flapper when she was well. Clara recalled fondly driving down Sunset Blvd in her convertible with her red hair flowing and a few yappy dogs of the same color running around in the back seat. Now THAT is a flapper!



#3: Anna May Wong

Anna was a flapper that could have outshone even Louise...had she been white. Hollywood would not let Anna lead...she couldn't after all it was against the production code to show an interracial kiss and apparently no one thought to pair her with Sessue Hayakawa (it finally happened as b characters in a talkie). Anna's story combines elements of both Louise and Clara's...however Anna rarely sabotaged herself (like Louise). Everyone else sabotaged her.

Anna had a very distinct look...and frankly I think it was very flapper. She had a cute round head and big eyes, and for quite awhile wore bobbed hair. She was the perfect model for flapper fashions and again she could have outshone Louise in this regard any day (in fact Anna modeled one of the first pant suits for women in the late 20s...take that Dietrich and Crawford!)

Anna perhaps more than the others was very flapper in her personal life. Restricted by her traditional Chinese American family she was always walking the fine line between two worlds. But she traveled, she studied what she wanted, and she dated several prominent white men no matter how illegal it was (yes it was at the time...how sad). She paid a price, but she at least got a little something in return.

In her films Anna was rarely allowed to be anything but a 'Dragon lady'. Always the evil chinee out to steal the white man, and she must die or kill herself by the end of it. Like Josephine Baker she made a few more flappery films in Europe, but overall dear Anna barely got to be flapper (or much anything) in her films despite her talent and beauty.



#4 Gloria Swanson
I dont think any of us nowadays think much of Gloria as a flapper. When I first read her biography (shortly after being acquainted with silent film) I was perplexed at how she had been a fashion icon...to me she was this woman known for being a great actress...yet from the 1910s to the 1930s Gloria was all fashion. Sure she was a great actress WHILE looking good, but she was as important to fashion as Posh Spice or Valeska Surratt. Gloria even credited one of her outfits for landing her a role as an extra, her first foray into film.

Nowadays I think we associate her more as glamorous. A mid 1920s paper called her a baby vamp which enraged her. I think that might be how we see her now: a glamorous little vamp with talent. But indeed she was a flapper during the 20s! In her films women came to see Gloria's latest fashions. When she bobbed her hair or wore a certain style it was a fashion ruling as if laid out in Vogue. Some of her earliest films showed the evolving baby vamp to flapper: Why Change Your Wife? to Beyond the Rocks. By the late 20s Gloria had gone full out: what is more flapper than Sadie Thompson?

In her private life Gloria was quite flapper as well. She married several times, had a child without being married (albeit adopted him), and ran her own production company for UA. Sometimes she made bad decisions but they were always her doing...Gloria lived the good and fast life and she enjoyed and paid for it all. Sadly via these polls I'm starting to think you guys are forgetting her greatness...she didn't come out anywhere near high enough in the greatest actress poll!



#5: Olive Thomas

Olive was THE original flapper. Sure she was stuck somewhere between baby vamp and actual flapper but hey...when you're the first...

Olive's films followed a forumla much like Clara Bow's did (only Ollie's are much...older). She would play a teenaged girl in some sort of comedy or drama and usually end up doing something girl power along the way (In Love's Prisoner she robs the rich ladies she throws parties for to pay for her sisters after her father was wrongly thrown in jail).

The fashions are very 1910s but they were still stunning none the less. However Olive came along before the bob (actually she came around right about the year a Kansas barber bobbed Louise's hair for the first time) at a time when corsets were the role and makeup was still for whores. In her looks we would not associate her with flapper.

In her actions however Olive set a proud precedent for all future flappers. She danced, she drank, she smoke, she likely did cocaine. She lied and said she married Jack Pickford (brother to Hollywood's queen and one of the richest and most famous women in the world at the time) in 1916 when actually they wouldn't marry for another 2 years. She had a mouth that would make Clara Bow or Nita Naldi blush. She went out in spectacular fashion: accidentally swallowing poison in Paris after partying all night. If there ever was a true flapper Olive Thomas was it.

Olive was the first to portray a flapper, with 1920's "The Flapper" (one of her last films). Olive played a similar type she had always played, the type that would pave the way for so many others. Unfortunately midway through the silent era she is all but forgotten today.



#6: Colleen Moore

In 1923 Colleen Moore defined herself with a picture that seemed to define a fad: Flaming Youth. Colleen always thought she was the first flapper (she wasn't) and that she was the first to bob her hair (she wasn't). Flaming Youth supposedly defined the flapper, heavily associating Colleen with that role. F. Scott Fitzgerald considered himself and Colleen the flame that set off the flapper movement (well they definitely grew upon it they did not originate the idea). Eventually Colleen would switch to more comedic roles, as if a flapper playing in a comedy.

In her later years Colleen gave a print of "Flaming Youth" to MOMA. MOMA decided to sit on their hands and do nothing and the print decomposed...the film is now considered lost (as are a lot of her films). While she had some nice movies its hard to think of her as much of a flapper today. To me shes about as flapper as Mary Pickford and about as comedic as a rip off of Mabel Normand (hides from the tomatoes thrown at her).

Personally I don't think she had much of the flapper look either. Sure she had the bob, and the flat body...but she looks more like a little doll than a naughty flapper. Like a good Christian version of Louise Brooks...she's cute but she isn't iconic in her look.

In her private life Colleen didn't seem much like a flapper either. She married shortly after talkies and wrote books about investing in the stock market (something her husband made a lot of money doing).

Silent Novels: The Good and The Bad

I'm currently trying to find the will to finish up my Valentino novel "Conversations with Rodolfo". For a writer I sure go in spurts (as FTT can attest)... Its near done, just some flourishes. I think it will be quite good.

When I started the novel I decided to read other silent based novels to see what narrative they took. I had the storyline, and I wanted to make it like an interview...but I don't write fiction much so some help was needed. There have been 4 books and 1 play released to this effect, and unfortunately I've only made it through 2 (Sunnyside is on the list I promise!) And the two novels I think show the best and worst of taking a historical figure and writing a fiction around them. Ironically the worst is the highest recommend...cant figure that one out.


The Good: The Biograph Girl by William J. Mann

For 25 cents on amazon you can get a copy of this novel...which considering its as thick as an Iowan phonebook is quite mind boggling. The novel asks the question: what if Florence Lawrence faked her death and was actually alive in 1997? Frankly the Spice Girls reference made my day.

I'm not sure how much I liked the actual narrative...it flipped between the present, the 1930s, and the 1910s. Very randomly, though it was trying to build to a point. Spoilers ahead: in the novel Florence's roommate kills herself, and Florence so gone in obscurity is able to convince a doctor she is in love with to say its her. She then lives her life, eventually ending up in a retirement home in New York (or somewhere near it). A feisty old broad she's witty and the light of the home, and 2 dueling brothers find her and her story and exploit it for their own use (one a writer, the other a director).

I like the fanciful events about what would happen if indeed Florence Lawrence had made it until 1997. BUT I didn't like the other characters. The girlfriend was a needy skank, the director brother reminds me of the worst of men I have ever met, and the gay brother seems like an attempt at being edgy. They become less annoying towards the end of the present narrative but I still don't like em. The nun was okay...but she was very annoying in her stupidity. End most spoilers.

What I really liked about this novel was I think it presented its story wonderfully: obviously in a novel you can make up anything you want...look at that trash Hollywood's Silent Closet. You could say Charlie Chaplin married Tom Mix and gave birth to Nita Naldi if you wanted...any crazy or offensive thing you could imagine. But personally I think when mixing a real story in with an imagined one its imperative to be faithful to the factual part. It doesn't necessarily detract from a novel, in fact I feel it explains it even better (to write a story like this one you would have to have an understanding of Florence Lawrence to appreciate it).

In that way Mann was very thorough: released about the time Kelly Brown's biography of Florence came out it matches all the facts as best it can. Sure some things are exaggerated a bit for creative license (her second marriage, her 1930s life) but nothing is mean, nothing is slanderous. You come away liking the real and imagined Florence. Definitely one of the better such novels out there. Click here to purchase.


The Bad: I, Fatty: A Novel by Jerry Stahl

Well amazon agrees with me: this one is going for a penny! Several times I've had this novel highly recommended to me. People swear its true and factual to a fault. It has 4 and a half stars on amazon and not too long ago I seen it featured in a Santa Monica Barnes and Noble as recommended reading.

Then I read it. And was horribly disappointed. I read it in the same way I read Florence's: I read the biography first, then the novel. Frame Up is the best Fatty Arbuckle biography out there...and its not even that good. Not so slanderous, but not very accurate either. To go off of that and then make THIS piece of garbage...well.

The worst part is Jerry Stahl has proclaimed (from the opening of the book to all his lectures and promotions) that this is 'FACTUAL' mixed in with a narrative. Apparently Johnny Depp (who wanted to do a Fatty Arbuckle film) swore it was THE book on Roscoe. Mr. Depp is sorely mistaken and thankfully it seems that movie idea has fallen through.

The narrative isn't as jumpy as the Florence book, but its not that mind blowing either. According to the preface its an imagine biography/interview session between Roscoe and his Asian maid/dope dealer towards the end of his life. Frankly it read more to me like "Frame Up...with additions to make it first person". Literally for the first 60 pages it goes that way...Frame Up only now told by Fatty himself. But there were signs some things were seriously wrong...things that made my blood boil.

The very first sentence of the book is about how Roscoe's father hated him for in essence breaking his mother's 'flower' or vagina to be so crass. I should have stopped there, but I let it go being fiction and all. True his father did seem to hate him to no end; but the way Stahl imagines and flourishes with factual events is down right disgusting. Another such flourish: his drunken father parades a young Roscoe around nude in front of the neighbors making fun of his happy area. When Mann put creative flourishes they did not insult Florence or her story. When Stahl did it...it was down right nasty and perverse. Another: his description of Roscoe and Minta's sexual life. Minta was supposedly interviewed at some point, but she was gone by the time this piece of trash came out. It does follow the Frame Up mode of a non existent sex life; but the way Stahl flourishes it again leaves you feeling dirty and insulted.

Still only mildly offended I kept reading. It got to the chapter about him, Mabel, Mack, and Charlie. Mack gets it the worst, and Stahl has Mabel as a coke head 3 years before she started having her troubles. Then small things go wrong: he tells the Adela (re: unreliable ala Perez Hilton) version of Mabel and Mack's break up, and then he gets Charlie's tramp creation wrong. Not insulting, but weird things to get wrong in a book claiming to be heavily researched and factual despite being a novel.

After that point, several chapters in, I feared the worst and flipped towards the infamous party night...the night Roscoe would be accused of raping Virginia Rappe. Stahl follows the standard story close enough...(with all due respect to Joan I can only tell the version of the tale out there as is) Virginia gets drunk, ends up sick in the bathroom, and then Roscoe is alone with her very briefly and tries to help her out. His embellishments and conclusions make me want to slap him ala Kenneth Anger.

According to I, Fatty Virginia is sick in the bathroom, covered in vomit (possible surely if she was indeed sick in the bathroom). Roscoe tries to help her and takes her to the bed. Virginia is writhing in pain saying she's dying and needs help. Roscoe tries to see if shes faking by taking an icy BOTTLE of champagne and putting it well...her happy area (why does recounting this book make me, such an obscene foul mouthed little heathen feel so unclean?) AND while doing so Roscoe is having racing thoughts...Stahl has spent the whole book telling us how Roscoe has no sexual interest at all (this syncs up with Frame Up) and NOW he has Roscoe saying how for the first time in his life, this writhing woman covered in vomit and rife with disease (so the narrative goes) is SEXY to him?!?!?!?!? SERIOUSLY?!

Now...surely a naked woman could be quite alluring especially when left alone. One writhing in pain and covered in vomit would not be quite ideal. The official story has it that when Roscoe laid her on the bed Virginia kept tearing at her clothes, and to see if she was faking he placed ice on her stomach or thigh (something Buster Keaton supposedly taught him). There was no champagne or coke bottle...that was a Kenneth Anger styled rumor before he was even born.

I stopped right there and immediately put the book in my return pile. Jerry Stahl should be shot. Its one thing to write a terrible novel and slander people, its another to go around claiming its FACTUAL while slandering people. For the record Frame Up had the standard version of events, Stahl added his own perverse embellishments.


Others

I hear Sunnyside is quite good, but I cant officially say it until I read it. China Doll by Elizabeth Wong is a small play based on the life of Anna May Wong. There is also the recently released children's novel Shining Star the Anna May Wong Story by Paula Yoo and Lin Wang. Sadly there's not many more novels out there; and the silent world is quite rife with inspiration.

As for my own as I was working on The Rudolph Valentino Society site a thought kept popping in my head, "What if Rudy had lived longer?" What with the death festival and the icon status it seems as if that's the question...what did we miss? I decided I'd make him an old man, alive until 2005. So I wrote that story out...and now I just have to format it a bit. Originally it was supposed to be a short story for our festival anthology (which will have several silent film based stories) but now its too long for that. Originally I was just going to tell the fictional story, the 1926 and after story. But now that it will be its own book I decided to add the factual part as well. And I guarantee it will not go all I, Fatty. I'm pretty sure it will be out by the end of the year. Hopefully I wont have to sell it for a penny!

Nita Naldi: New revelations!

So what have I been working on lately? A little site called The Rudolph Valentino Society...which has so many articles its exhausting me! I'll be updating FTT shortly.

One really great thing about this project is the articles section...once I finish the lengthy Gloria Swanson one I'll be happy. I highly recommend checking out the Vilma Banky article, written by her biographer Rachel Schildgen!

One thing I've wanted to do for awhile is put out a solid biography on Nita Naldi...the premiere vamp queen after Theda Bara. Nita was Valentino's most frequent co-star...yet there was absolutely nothing out there about her. The web was useless, and the few books that mention her don't give any details or go into in depth research. Nita deserved way better.

So I spent 3 days straight researching dear Nita. She was as salty as everyone thought! When I found enough information I wanted to run it through Ancestry.com...find the census and what not. That turned out harder than I thought and the results were just amazing!

Nita gave several birth names and places...and dates...throughout her life. These included Jianna Maria Theresa, Nonna Dooley, Anita Donna Dooley, Donna Dooley, and even Mary Dooley. Her birth year was anywhere from 1897-1900, and her birth state was anything from New Jersey to DC depending what she felt like at the moment.

Little was known about Nita's family, other than she had a sister. The articles I read said her father died while she was young and then her mom soon after. She noted she had a great aunt who was Mother Superior of a Catholic school.

Nitratevillian Jim Gettys was able to find the census records. A Mary Nonna Dunphy founded The Academy of Holy Angeles in 1879 in Ft. Lee, New Jersey. A Nonna Dooley attended her school in 1910, aged 15. Nonna was also found to be living in New York, same age. Her father was around in 1900, but by 1910 census he was no longer listed and her grandparents were living with the family. Nita's tombstone verifies the names: Julia Dooley (her mother), Mary Dunphy (her sister), and Daniel Francis (Frank, her brother). Nita said her mother died soon after her father left (or so I'm betting). Indeed Julia died in 1915, the same year Nita entered theatre. Again without Jim I probably wouldn't have found the damn thing...so I owe him so much for that!

So despite the fact Nita will surely haunt me for revealing her real age, she was born March 1895 as Nonna Dooley. This is I'm certain the first time this news has been discovered anywhere. All other reports cite her as Anita Donna Dooley...Anita seems logical but indeed it wasn't her name. Most birth dates cite 1897 at the latest...but nope she was just slightly older than Valentino!

Other interesting things found: Nita stole her husband J Searle Barclay in 1923 (and though they were together almost a decade the marriage was quite short). Her weight was scrutinized quite unfairly throughout her career. And she almost made a talkie in the 40s!

For all Nita revelations please click here. Now who's gonna tell Wikipedia?