Category Archives: Tempest Inman

June 27, 2016 · 11:00 am

Photoplay July-Oct. 1924

Cover girls (l.-r., in order of appearance): Anna Q. Nilsson, Betty Compson, Colleen Moore, and making her Photoplay cover debut, Mary Philbin.
The August cover features a Compson portrait by Tempest Inman.
And if that’s not enough to reel in the reader there’s also the tantalizing question “Is Bobbed Hair An Extravagance?”
October cover girl Mary Philbin would go on to co-star with Lon Chaney in 1925’s The Phantom of the Opera.

Making their Photoplay cover debuts: Ramon Novarro and Leatrice Joy, on the May and June covers respectively.
Both covers are by Tempest Inman.
The June issue promised to tackle a controversial topic: “Why You Should and Why You Should Not Bob Your Hair.”

The June and July covers break with tradition. First, the June cover has a mirror shot instead of the standard portrait shot.
The June issue contains a profile on “The Girl Who Was Too Beautiful” by Adela Rogers St. Johns. The too beautiful girl in question? She’s not on the cover (that’s Mabel Ballin admiring herself) but it’s Barbara LaMarr, who had a banner year in 1922 with starring roles in Arabian Love, Domestic Relations, The Prisoner of Zenda and Trifling Women.
And the July issue has an even more unusual cover–for the first time since the May 1916 issue ( D.W. Griffith), a man is spotlighted on Photoplay’s cover! It’s none other than Rudolph Valentino, in the famous portrait by Tempest Inman.