- Cover girls (l.-r., in order of appearance): Barbara LaMarr, Corinne Griffith, Pola Negri, Sylvia Breamer.
- These cover portraits seem languid…somber…serious, don’t they–no sunny colors or smiling visages here.
Photoplay Jan.-Apr. 1924
Filed under 1920s, Barbara LaMarr, Corinne Griffith, Photoplay, Pola Negri, Sylvia Breamer
Photoplay Oct.-Dec. 1923
- Cover girls (in order of appearance): Alla Nazimova, May Allison, Constance Talmadge.
- The Nazimova cover really stands out, doesn’t it? No flowers, no hat, no sunny yellow-orange background.
- As that cover suggests, Nazimova was just as singular an actress. She was theatrically-trained and had appeared in Ibsen and Chekhov on Broadway before moving over to the silver screen. Here she is with Valentino in a 1921 screen adaptation of Camille. Photo from the great site allanazimova.com
Filed under 1920s, Alla Nazimova, Constance Talmadge, May Allison, Photoplay
Photoplay May-Sep. 1923
- Cover girls (l.-r., in order of appearance): Lois Wilson, May McAvoy, Pauline Garon, Marion Davies, Eleanor Boardman.
- Boy, hats sure were de rigueur back then, weren’t they? 🙂
- January cover girl Lois Wilson would later star as Daisy in the first known screen adaptation of The Great Gatsby (1926).
- Thanks to Citizen Kane, today April cover girl Marion Davies is known primarily for her relationship with William Randolph Hearst. Her career warrants re-examination; she appeared in many silent films and was especially noted for her comedic roles.
- The May issue features an article by April cover girl Barbara LaMarr on “Why I Adopted a Baby.”
- The June issue features “A Star in Search of Her Soul” about the very successful and famous serial queen Pearl White.
Filed under 1920s, Eleanor Boardman, Lois Wilson, Marion Davies, May McAvoy, Pauline Garon, Photoplay
Photoplay April 1923 – Barbara LaMarr
- April’s cover girl is Barbara LaMarr, known as the “girl who was too beautiful” thanks to Adela St. Rogers’s article in the July 1922 Photoplay.
- Pauline Frederick is profiled. She was a well-known stage actress who made her onscreen debut at the “advanced” age of 31.
- And yes, yet another feature on Valentino! This one purports to detail his “Hollywood Life.”
Here’s a LaMarr photo I have on Pinterest.
Filed under 1920s, Barbara LaMarr, Photoplay
Photoplay Jan.-March 1923
- The toothsome Douglas Fairbanks makes the January cover!
- Pola Negri, who got a big write-up in the May 1922 issue, makes the February cover.
- July 1922’s cover boy, Rudolph Valentino, continues to be press fodder and a new continuing feature “Valentino’s Life In Hollywood” begins in the February issue.
- Claire Windsor adorns the March 1922 cover.
Filed under 1920s, Claire Windsor, Douglas Fairbanks, Photoplay, Pola Negri
More Valentino and Rambova
As mentioned last time, the December 1922 Photoplay devoted space to Rudolph Valentino and his wife Natacha Rambova (some sources indicate they may not have been actually married at the time, but they would marry later). They were a glamorous couple whose visages adorned many a periodical.
- Below, James Abbe’s famous 1923 Vanity Fair portrait of Valentino and Rambova.
- A similar composition may be seen on the September 1923 cover of Motion Picture magazine.
Filed under 1920s, Motion Picture Magazine, Natacha Rambova, Rudolph Valentino
Photoplay Dec. 1922 – Nita Naldi
- The December 1922 cover girl is Nita Naldi. Naldi had starred in that year’s sensation, Blood and Sand, with Rudolph Valentino.
- More of the Valentino effect: the December issue also includes “The Story of Mrs. Valentino”, namely the multi-talented set and costume designer Natacha Rambova. She was quite a mover and shaker in early Hollywood; more on her in a future post.
- Here’s a great photo of Nita Naldi from the always excellent Classic Cinema Images blog.
Filed under 1920s, Natacha Rambova, Nita Naldi, Photoplay, Rudolph Valentino
Photoplay Aug.-Nov. 1922
- Cover girls (l.-r., in order of appearance): Madge Bellamy, not one but two Alices–Alice Terry and Alice Brady–and Colleen Moore.
- The September, October and November covers are emblazoned with a footer “The National Guide to Pictures.” This banner is short-lived; it’ll be gone by the December issue.
Filed under 1920s, Alice Brady, Alice Terry, Colleen Moore, Madge Bellamy, Photoplay
Photoplay June-July 1922
- 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.
Filed under 1920s, Barbara LaMarr, Mabel Ballin, Photoplay, Rudolph Valentino, Tempest Inman
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
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