1912 Photoplay – Sarah Bernhardt
Photoplay flashback! Sarah Bernhardt in the 1912 silent film Queen Elizabeth or–if you prefer the original French title–Les Amours de la reine Élisabeth.
Happy New Year, everyone!
Category Archives: 1910s
Geraldine Farrar as Joan of Arc – Jan. 1917 Picture-Play
- Opera singer Geraldine Farrar was an international celebrity so it’s no wonder she was recruited for the cinema.
- In 1916 she appeared in Cecil B. DeMille’s Joan the Woman.
- It wasn’t only the movie stars who were celebrities; as noted along the top of the cover, the magazine also profiles film director Thomas Ince.
- Footage of Farrar as Joan was spliced into Sarah Bernhardt’s 1917 film Mothers of France. Source: Film historian Victoria Duckett’s fascinating 2015 book Seeing Sarah Bernhardt: Performance and Silent Film.
Filed under 1910s, Geraldine Farrar, Sarah Bernhardt
Photoplay Nov.-Dec. 1919
The last two Photoplay covers in 1919 featured Lillian Gish and Betty Compson. Gish surely needs no introduction. Her cover is by A. Cheney Johnston.
Compson had just starred in the recently-released The Miracle Man and it proved to be her star-making role. She formed her own production company and continued to work for decades, even testing for the role of Belle Watling in Gone With the Wind.
Filed under 1910s, Alfred Cheney Johnston, Betty Compson, Lillian Gish, Photoplay
Photoplay Aug.-Oct. 1919
- Cover girls (l.-r., in order of appearance): Alice Brady, May Thurman, and Dorothy Dalton.
Filed under 1910s, Alice Brady, Dorothy Dalton, Mary Thurman, Photoplay
Photoplay Apr.-July 1919
- Cover girls (l.-r., in order of appearance): Marjorie Rambeau, Billie Burke, Constance Talmadge, Dorothy Phillips.
- Per the May issue’s table of contents, the cover image of a periwigged Billie Burke is “From the Oil Painting by Alfred Cheney Johnston.”
Photoplay Feb.-Mar. 1919-Opera Assoluta!
Incongruous as it may seem, there were many opera singers who appeared in feature films back when Hollywood was getting started. Yes, back in in the days of the silent silver screen. Celebrated opera singers were internationally known and many had fervent followers, so in the eyes of film producers, they were bankable commodities.
Arguably the most famous of these singers-actors was Geraldine Farrar, a popular American soprano who’d sung at the Metropolitan Opera and across Europe. Young women in particular idolized her and were known as “Gerry-flappers.” Farrar was recruited for film by producer Jesse L. Lasky and in 1915-17 she appeared in several Cecil B. DeMille movies, usually with Wallace Reid as her leading man: Maria Rosa, Carmen, Temptation, Joan the Woman, The Woman God Forgot, and The Devil Stone. Here she is on the cover of the February 1919 issue of Photoplay. 
Not missing a beat, Photoplay then promptly featured Farrar’s chief rival Italian soprano Lina Cavalieri on its March 1919 cover. Cavalieri was known as the most beautiful woman in the world, a title immortalized by the 1956 film of the same name starring Gina Lollobrigida. What–you’ve never heard of that film? Well, you may be familiar with Cavalieri as she is the face featured in artist Piero Fornasetti’s work. I’ll probably showcase his work in a future post, but for now here is Cavalieri on the cover of Photoplay.
The tagline to the cover story for the Cavalieri issue: “The Real-Life Romance of Cavalieri and [Lucien] Muratore.” Muratore was Cavalieri’s tenor husband and they appeared together in the silent films Manon Lescaut (1914) and The Shadow of Her Past (1916). Solo, Cavalieri starred in 1918’s Love’s Conquest and A Woman of Impulse; and in 1919, The Two Brides.
Farrar fans may be interested in checking out my Pinterest board. I’m always on the lookout for more pins of this great singer!
Filed under 1910s, Geraldine Farrar, Lina Cavalieri, Opera, Photoplay, Piero Fornasetti
Photoplay Jan. 1919
- January’s cover girl is Marie Doro.
- The hat trend continues!
Filed under 1910s, Marie Doro, Photoplay
Photoplay July-Dec. 1918
- Cover girls (l.-r., in order of appearance): Doris Kenyon, Mabel Normand, Lila Lee, Marguerite Clayton, Edith Story, Sylvia Breamer.
- 1918’s trendiest headwear is on display here!
- W. Haskell Coffin did the July (Kenyon), August (Norman) and October (Clayton) covers.
- The August issue extols slapstick queen Mabel Normand for reading Strindberg, Ibsen, and Shaw. You can read the article courtesy of the excellent Looking for Mabel Normand site, here’s the link:
Photoplay Jan.-June 1918
- Cover girls (l.-r., in order of appearance): June Elvidge, Alma Rubens, Virginia Pearson, Elsie Ferguson, Gail Kane, Olive Tell.
- All the covers except for February’s Rubens cover are by the great illustrator W. Haskell Coffin. The Feb. issue’s Table of Contents notes the Rubens Cover Design is “From a Pastel Portrait.”
- Also in the Feb. issue: “From Stenography to Stardom”, about the actress Virginia Valli; and a photo feature about “Alice Joyce and Her New Clothes.”
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