The 10 best-looking silent film stars (IMO)
(With No. 1 being, of course, the King of Kings...)
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Douglas Fairbanks was born Douglas Elton Thomas Ullman in Denver, Colorado, to Ella Adelaide (nee Marsh) and Hezekiah Charles Ullman, an attorney and native of Pennsylvania, who was a captain for the Union forces during the Civil War. Fairbanks' paternal grandparents were German Jewish immigrants, while his mother, a Southerner with roots in Louisiana and Georgia, was of British Isles descent. From the age of five he was raised by his mother due to her husband's abandonment. She changed her sons' surnames to Fairbanks (her former husband's surname) and covered up their paternal Jewish ancestry.
He began amateur theater at age 12 and continued while attending the Colorado School of Mines. In 1900 they moved to New York. He attended Harvard, traveled to Europe, worked on a cattle freighter, in a hardware store and as a clerk on Wall Street. He made his Broadway debut in 1902 and five years later left theater to marry an industrialist's daughter.
He returned when his father-in-law went broke the next year. In 1915, he went to Hollywood and worked under a reluctant D.W. Griffith. The following year he formed his own production company. During a Liberty Bond tour with Charles Chaplin he fell in love with Mary Pickford with whom he, Chaplin and Griffith had formed United Artists in 1919. He made very successful early social comedies, then highly popular swashbucklers during the 'twenties. The owners of Hollywood's Pickfair Mansion separated in 1933 and divorced in 1936. In March 1936, he married and retired from acting.- Actor
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British leading man of primarily American films, one of the great stars of the Golden Age. Raised in Ealing, the son of a successful silk merchant, he attended boarding school in Sussex, where he discovered amateur theatre. He intended to attend Cambridge and become an engineer, but his father's death cost him the financial support necessary. He joined the London Scottish Regionals and at the outbreak of World War I was sent to France. Seriously wounded at the battle of Messines--he was gassed--he was invalided out of service scarcely two months after shipping out for France. Upon his recovery he tried to enter the consular service, but a chance encounter got him a small role in a London play. He dropped other plans and concentrated on the theatre, and was rewarded with a succession of increasingly prominent parts. He made extra money appearing in a few minor films, and in 1920 set out for New York in hopes of finding greater fortune there than in war-depressed England. After two years of impoverishment he was cast in a Broadway hit, "La Tendresse". Director Henry King spotted him in the show and cast him as Lillian Gish's leading man in The White Sister (1923). His success in the film led to a contract with Samuel Goldwyn, and his career as a Hollywood leading man was underway. He became a vastly popular star of silent films, in romances as well as adventure films. The coming of sound made his extraordinarily beautiful speaking voice even more important to the film industry. He played sophisticated, thoughtful characters of integrity with enormous aplomb, and swashbuckled expertly when called to do so in films like The Prisoner of Zenda (1937). A decade later he received an Academy Award for his splendid portrayal of a tormented actor in A Double Life (1947). Much of his later career was devoted to "The Halls of Ivy", a radio show that later was transferred to television The Halls of Ivy (1954). He continued to work until nearly the end of his life, which came in 1958 after a brief lung illness. He was survived by his second wife, actress Benita Hume, and their daughter Juliet Benita Colman.- Actor
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Luis Antonio Damaso de Alonso, later known as Gilbert Roland, was born in 1905 in Mexico. Following his parents to the USA, he did not become the bullfighter he had dreamed of being but became an actor instead. His Mexican roots, his half macho half romantic ways, his handsome virile figure helped him land roles in movies from the early twenties to 1982. A long and varied career in which Roland was in turns an extra, a matinée idol (Armand Duval in Camille (1926)), a Latin Lover, a star of English-speaking films made in Hollywood in the early 1930s, a Mexican bandit in B-Movies, The Cisco Kid in a series of six popular Westerns, a brilliant character in major A movies (John Huston's We Were Strangers (1949), Vincente Minnelli's The Bad and the Beautiful (1952); Anthony Mann's Thunder Bay (1953), John Ford's Cheyenne Autumn (1964)), a sinister character in Spaghetti Westerns... When he retired in 1982, twelve years before he died, he could be satisfied. His career had spanned six decades, the coming of sound had not ended it, he had played in all kinds of movies, he had held the most beautiful women in his arms, and maybe the most important thing, he had been given the opportunity to show his acting talents. Not every actor can boast such a life achievement.- Actor
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John Gilbert was born into a show-business family - his father was a comic with the Pringle Stock Company. By 1915 John was an extra with Thomas H. Ince's company and a lead player by 1917. In those days he was assistant director, actor or screenwriter. He also tried his hand at directing. By 1919 he was being noticed in films and getting better roles. In 1921 he signed a three-year contract with Fox Films. His popularity continued to soar and he was turning from villain to leading man. In 1924 he signed with MGM which put him into His Hour (1924). In 1925 he appeared in the very successful The Big Parade (1925) and was, by now, as popular as Rudolph Valentino. Lillian Gish, who had a new contract with MGM, picked Gilbert to co-star with her in La Bohème (1926). With the death of Valentino, his only competition, John was on top of the world. Then came Greta Garbo, who starred with him in Love (1927), Flesh and the Devil (1926) and A Woman of Affairs (1928). The screen chemistry between these two was incredible and led to a torrid off-screen affair. The studio publicity department worked overtime to publicize the romance between the two, but when it came time to marry, John was left at the altar. His performances after that were devoid of the sparkle that he once had and he began to drink heavily. Added to that, the whole industry was moving towards sound, and while his voice was not as bad as some had thought, it did not match the image that he portrayed on the screen. Even his characters had changed, in such films as Redemption (1930) and Way for a Sailor (1930). He was no longer the person that bad things happened to, but he now was the cause of bad things which happen. MGM did little to help John adjust to the new sound medium, as studio chief Louis B. Mayer and Gilbert had a fierce and nasty confrontation over Garbo. John was still under contract to MGM for a very large salary, but the money meant little to him. His contract ran out in 1933 after he appeared in Fast Workers (1933) as a riveter.
Garbo tried to restore some of his image when she insisted that he play opposite her in Queen Christina (1933), but by then it was too late. He appeared in only one more film and died of a heart attack in January 1936.- Actor
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Hollywood's original Latin Lover, a term that was invented for Rudolph Valentino by Hollywood moguls. Alla Nazimova's friend Natacha Rambova (nee Winifred Hudnut) became romantically involved with Rudy and they lived together in her bungalow from 1921 (during the filming of Camille) until they eloped to Mexico on May 13, 1922 believing that his divorce from Jean Acker was official. After their re-marriage two years later she left him because he signed a contract that barred her from being involved in his pictures and wasn't allowed on set. She went to Nice to live with her parents and never entered their new mansion, Falcon Lair. He began to date sexy Pola Negri and was also linked to Vilma Banky. While he was touring to promote his last film, an editorial in the Chicago Tribune accused him of "effeminization of the American male". He defended his manhood by challenging the article's writer to a boxing match; it never took place, but another writer for the paper did enter the ring on behalf of the author who would not be named, and Valentino defeated him. He died shortly afterward while he was in New York attending the premiere of his last film. He collapsed in his hotel on August 15, 1926 and died on August 23, after an operation that led to an infection. 80,000 mourners nearly caused a riot at his New York funeral. Another funeral followed in California.- Actor
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Ramon Novarro was born José Ramón Gil Samaniego on February 6, 1899 in Durango, Mexico, to Leonor (Gavilan) and Dr. Mariano N. Samaniego Siqueiros, a prosperous dentist. Ramon and his family moved to Los Angeles in 1913, as refugees from the Mexican Revolution. After stints as a ballet dancer, piano teacher and singing waiter, he became a film extra in 1917. For five years he remained an extra until director Rex Ingram cast him as Rupert in The Prisoner of Zenda (1922). He was cast with Lewis Stone and Ingram's wife, Alice Terry (Ingram was also the person who suggested that he change his name to Novarro). He worked with Ingram in his next four films and was again teamed with Terry in the successful Scaramouche (1923). Novarro's rising popularity among female moviegoers resulted in his being billed as the "New Valentino". In 1925 he appeared in his most famous role, as the title character in Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ (1925), and later co-starred with Norma Shearer in The Student Prince in Old Heidelberg (1927). His first talking picture was Call of the Flesh (1930), where he sang and danced the tango. He continued to appear in musicals, but his popularity was slipping. He starred with Greta Garbo in the successful Mata Hari (1931), but his career began to fade fast. In 1935 he left MGM and appeared on Broadway in a show that quickly flopped. His later career, when he was able to find work in films, consisted mostly of cameos. On October 30th, 1968, Ramon Novarro was savagely beaten in his North Hollywood home by two young hustlers. They had heard - in error - that he had thousands of dollars locked away somewhere in his home. They never found any money, and Ramon was discovered dead the next day by his servant.- Actor
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John Barrymore was born John Sidney Blyth on February 15, 1882 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. An American stage and screen actor whose rise to superstardom and subsequent decline is one of the legendary tragedies of Hollywood. A member of the most famous generation of the most famous theatrical family in America, he was also its most acclaimed star. His father was Maurice Blyth (or Blythe; family spellings vary), a stage success under the name Maurice Barrymore. His mother, Georgie Drew, was the daughter of actor John Drew. Although well known in the theatre, Maurice and Georgie were eclipsed by their three children, John, Lionel Barrymore, and Ethel Barrymore, each of whom became legendary stars. John was handsome and roguish. He made his stage debut at age 18 in one of his father's productions, but was much more interested in becoming an artist.
Briefly educated at King's College, Wimbledon, and at New York's Art Students League, Barrymore worked as a freelance artist and for a while sketched for the New York Evening Journal. Gradually, though, the draw of his family's profession ensnared him, and by 1905, he had given up professional drawing and was touring the country in plays. He survived the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, and in 1909, became a major Broadway star in "The Fortune Hunter". In 1922, Barrymore became his generation's most acclaimed "Hamlet", in New York and London. But by this time, he had become a frequent player in motion pictures. His screen debut supposedly came in An American Citizen (1914), though records of several lost films indicate he may have made appearances as far back as 1912. He became every bit the star of films that he was on stage, eclipsing his siblings in both arenas.
Though his striking matinee-idol looks had garnered him the nickname "The Great Profile", he often buried them under makeup or distortion in order to create memorable characters of degradation or horror. He was a romantic leading man into the early days of sound films, but his heavy drinking (since boyhood) began to take a toll, and he degenerated quickly into a man old before his time. He made a number of memorable appearances in character roles, but these became over time more memorable for the humiliation of a once-great star than for his gifts. His last few films were broad and distasteful caricatures of himself, though in even the worst, such as Playmates (1941), he could rouse himself to a moving soliloquy from "Hamlet". He died on May 29, 1942, mourned as much for the loss of his life as for the loss of grace, wit, and brilliance which had characterized his career at its height.- A serious rival to Rudolph Valentino as the suave, smouldering 'Latin Lover' type was black-haired Spanish-born Antonio Moreno. One of the most prominent screen stars of the 1920s, he was equally adept at romance, melodrama or comedy and appeared opposite most of the legendary movie queens of the era, from the Gish sisters to Greta Garbo, to Gloria Swanson and Mary Pickford.
Moreno was born Antonio Garrido Monteagudo in Madrid and came to America at the age of fourteen. His working life began as an employee of the Northhampton Electric Light and Gas Company. He first acted on stage under the tutelage of Maude Adams whose theatre he had initially visited in order to fix the lighting. From the repertory stage in Massachusetts, he then made his way to Hollywood where he arrived in 1912.
Having made his motion picture debut at Rex-Universal Moreno then featured as a top draw card for Vitagraph until 1921. He proudly held the sobriquet "King of the Cliff-hangers" (usually as co-star to Pearl White) because of his prolific work in serials. However, the pinnacle of his career came a few years later under contract to Famous Players Lasky/Paramount (from 1923 to 1924) and at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (in 1926), at which time Moreno was one of the highest paid actors in Hollywood. With the advent of sound pictures, his career suffered a sharp decline, in no small measure due to a heavy Spanish accent. Nonetheless, he eventually segued into character parts and remained gainfully employed in the industry until the late 1950s. Moreno has a star on the iconic Walk of Fame on Hollywood Boulevard.
He was married from 1923 to Daisy Danziger, the daughter of an oil millionaire. Their lavish mansion, called 'Paramour', was one of the largest in Hollywood and the site of many a famous party. Daisy died ten years later in a tragic car crash near Mulholland Drive. - Actor
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Rod La Rocque was born Roderick Ross LaRocque on November 29, 1898 in Chicago to a French father and an Irish mother. Stage-struck in his early teen years, he spent his summers with local stock companies, playing juvenile roles for $1.00 per performance. By the time he was 16, while he was appearing in vaudeville, he got a bit part in Triangle Studios' production The Snowman (1912), for which he was paid the princely sum of $3.25 for a day's work. He moved on to Chicago's other major studio, Essanay, as a bit player from 1914-1917. He started out in the company's Black Cat Productions division, which produced potboilers and comedies. He eventually moved up into better, and better-paying, parts.
Essanay went out of business in 1918, and La Rocque moved to New York City, where he signed with agent, and later independent producer, Edward Small, among whose clients was Norma Shearer, with whom La Rocque would later appear in MGM's Let Us Be Gay (1930). The 6'3" La Rocque got a bit part in the Billie Burke film Let's Get a Divorce (1918) and turned to the theater for work. He was cast in the lead of "Up the Ladder," which flopped, necessitating his return to cinema work, though he would continue to appear in the theater through the early 1920s. He made three movies for Sam Goldfish (who renamed himself Samuel Goldwyn) in 1918, but La Rocque remained a freelance actor, not signing with any one studio. He appeared in films for Famous Players-Lasky, Universal and Vitagraph, among others, but did not break through to the big time until Cecil B. DeMille cast him in The Ten Commandments (1923), the film that made La Rocque a star. For the next five years, until the advent of the talkies, he worked for DeMille's own Producers' Distribution Corporation and for Famous Players-Lasky (the future Paramount, with which DeMille also was associated). La Rocque met his future wife, Hungarian actress Vilma Bánky, at a dinner party at DeMille's home in 1925. When they married in 1927, it was a lavish affair in which DeMille served as best man. The wedding was attended by the creme de la creme of Hollywood society, and afterward, there was a reception for 2,000 at the Beverly Hills Hotel.
When La Rocque's contract with DeMille and Famous Players-Lasky lapsed after 1928, he went back to being a freelance actor, appearing in films for Fox, First National and MGM. It was the beginning of the sound era, but La Rocque and Banky were still popular. In 1930 Broadway producer Archibald Selwyn (one of the founders of both Goldwyn Studios and MGM) signed La Rocque and Banky to star in Anita Loos' play "Cherries are Ripe," but it drew indifferent crowds. Three years later husband and wife went to Germany, where La Rocque filmed S.O.S. Iceberg (1933) for director Leni Riefenstahl and Banky starred in what proved to be her final film, The Rebel (1933).
After returning to the US, La Rocque continued to appear in films, though now they were B-pictures, with the occasional supporting role in an A-picture such as The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1939). He made his last appearance in the Frank Capra classic Meet John Doe (1941).
After retiring from the screen, Rod La Rocque and Vilma Banky continued to live in Los Angeles, where he died October 15, 1969, six weeks shy of his 71st birthday.- Actor
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Warner Baxter claimed to have an early pre-disposition toward show business: "I discovered a boy a block away who would eat worms and swallow flies for a penny. For one-third of the profits, I exhibited him in a tent." When he was age 9, his widowed mother moved to San Francisco where, following the earthquake of 1906, his family lived in a tent for two weeks "in mortal terror of the fire." By 1910 he was in vaudeville and from there went on to Broadway plays and movies. A matinée idol in the silents, he came to prominence as the Cisco Kid with In Old Arizona (1928), for which he won an Oscar. He went on to star with Myrna Loy in Penthouse (1933) and to what many consider his best role, that of the doctor who treated Abraham Lincoln's assassin, in The Prisoner of Shark Island (1936). That year his $284,000 income topped the industry. In 1943, after slipping into a string of B-pictures, he began his Dr. Ordway "Crime Doctor" series with Crime Doctor (1943). He had suffered a nervous breakdown, and these pictures were easy on him (studio sets for one month, two films a year). Following a lobotomy to relieve pains of arthritis, he died of pneumonia.