This is pretty saucy stuff for the time – Joan Crawford shimmying in front of a mirror as she gets dressed to go out for the evening circa 1928, before recorded dialogue, but there was a synch soundtrack… –
Author: Vickie Lester
Susannah Corwin is a screenwriter and novelist (under the pen name of “Vickie Lester”). She started her career as a production assistant after studying Film at an east coast university. Her first duties behind the scenes in Hollywood included locating actors who had wandered away from set for romantic assignations. One particularly memorable roundup involved chivying said actors back into the makeup trailer where she picked up a sponge to help reapply their fake tans as they were required onset faster than all hands could paint them. Susannah Corwin’s screenplays have been optioned by David Matalon, Alan Blomquist, A. Kitman Ho, and Kevin Spacey. Her first novel, “It’s In His Kiss”, a modern Hollywood Noir, was published May 2014. She writes the blog “Beguiling Hollywood” (vickielester.com) peeking into the glittering past of Tinseltown with the witty eye of an educated observer. Susannah is now writing her second novel, “You Don’t Own Me” about a Hollywood babysitter who rises to studio boss.
This is what Hollywood looked like at the turn of the 20th century: In 1903 a small place built by H.J. Whitley (Whitley Heights is where the silent film stars lived) called the Hollywood Hotel looked like this: Soon after this picture was taken a wealthy woman from Iowa, Almira…
Hal Roach was the first to spot Jean Harlow’s comedic talents: Harlow (the real bathing beauty) is to the right of Charley Chase. Harlow was seventeen when she made “Double Whoopee”, a Hal Roach short, with Laurel and Hardy. Leo McCarey, who went on to become a preeminent director of…