Some starlets in the silent era of movie making were described as perversely beautiful with an intoxicating allure. Seductively calculating and wonderfully wicked women who cast spells on some men, causing them to lose all thoughts of their past and sending them into the realms of amnesia, all this power over men with a simple gaze. ("Sex Goddesses of the Silent Screen")
Some doctors claim it's possible for a man to get a blood clot in his brain with simple thoughts of love.
The unrelenting vehemence of Barbara Lamarr put so much pressure on one man's brain, she inadvertently killed him in 1914. Lamarr was guilty for having soft soulful eyes and radiating a depth of experience, uncommon for her young mind. ("Sex Goddesses of the Silent Screen")
A young man infatuated with Lamarr more than 100 years ago was diagnosed with a permanent brain disorder, causing insanity before his death. Her lips, nose and mouth were perfect, as if drawn by an artist, and one man's insane allure to her looks eventually ceased all of his brain functions.
"The Queen of Tragedy to Wed the King of Comedy" was a 1922 Los Angeles Times headline when Charlie Chaplin was engaged to actress Pola Negri.
Negri wrote and directed herself in the movie "Love and Passion," and was happy she never went through with the marriage to Chaplin, who was overly jealous and constantly bothersome, she said. By 1923, she was making $500,000 a year.
Norman Zierold's 1973 book, "Sex Goddesses of the Silent Screen" was inspired by the ancient tabloids of the 1920s and years earlier. Upon the release of this book, even Zierold was oblivious to all five of the women he wrote about, yet illustrated the facts and fantasy with signature prowess.
"My heart is ice, my passion consuming fire, men beware," Theda Bara said. "The Devils Daughter," starring Bara still has some punch for a movie more than 100 years old.
Hypnotic eyes and her dark lustrous hair cascading in great waves across her bare shoulders ignited her fabulous frame. Bara was called a serpentine of sexuality who adverted the minds of movie goers who were reading about the disheartening figures of American soldiers killed in World War I.
Bara was described as having a generous voluptuous fame that seldom moved to an ordinary beat. She said she was an ordinary woman, a little tall, a little thin.
From beginning to end, the personal lives of these women were of little interest to me, except for Clara Bow, yet there were some fascinating facts on all five lucrative actresses featured in this book.
Clara Bow, 1920s
Clara Bow, left, 1927s "Hula"
Clara Bow, 1927s "Hula," left and 1929s "Dangerous Curves."
Clara Bow was the number one box office draw in America, if not the world for a few years during the 1920s and starred in 1927s "Wings," the first movie to receive best picture of the year.
The sex oracle or her time, Elinor Glyn, a risque and acclaimed novelist before 1910 found many of her stories transformed into screenplays, and Bow was a featured actress in some of these flicks.
"When they line up a story for me, the first thing they think of is how do I get Clara undressed?" Bow said.
Zierold's synopsis of Bow's career and personal life is no "Running Wild," and it doesn't need to be. Bow was indeed a mega movie star before she was 21-one-years-old, and lived the hype of the Roaring Twenties.
- Bow was the ideal woman of the 1920s, hot cha-cha, an adolescent rebellion with a reckless hilarity, suitable in an era of short skirts, bath tub gin and hip flasks a journalist said. ("Sex Goddesses of the Silent Screen)
Excessive boozing, hard drug use, and lascivious desires achieved from both genders were mere pieces in the puzzle in Bow's life. Her mother entertained abusive Johns before she was 5-years-old, and she witnessed her best friend Johnny die from severe burns before her 10th birthday.
Bow moved away from Los Angeles in the early 1930s to live with her lover, Rex Bell on his ranch in Nevada. She married Bell in 1931, and made her last movie in 1933. By 1938, she had two boys with Bell and the two lived together on the ranch until his death in 1962. Bow was institutionalized briefly in the 1950s for her mental health. She made her second to last public appearance in 1952, and her last one at her husband's funeral in 1962. She passed away peacefully in 1965.
At one point, she was receiving 40,000 fan letters a week, and her ambivalence toward a Yale football player summoned his attempted suicide by slashing his wrists. While recovering in the hospital from his self inflected wounds, a doctor said women slash their wrists when committing suicide, men use a gun.
"The more I saw of men, the better I liked dogs...I've never done a thing everyone else in Hollywood hasn't done. I may have made mistakes, I must have certainly been foolish, but my greatest mistake seems to have been I was open and above the board about everything," Bow said.
She retired when she was 28-years-old and by the 1950s, she was reading about four dozen books a month.
All five women featured in "Sex Goddesses of the Silent Screen" had youth, beauty and wealth while living in the spirit of the Roaring Twenties. Four stars easy for this book, and thank you Steve for giving me this book, a great read.
Mark Izzy Schurr
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