Flappers with sleek bobs, cupid blow lips, long strings of pearls and lots and lots of sass, the roaring twenties were the place to be!
I just wanted to share this delightful 1920s advert for Chanel No.5 perfume today. As I’m sure you know by now (I’ve gone on about it enough) this is the perfume I wear and I so prefer the charm of the flighty flapper in this ad to the modern over-airbrushed perfume ads. It was drawn(…)
Alice Brady was a silent movie actress who won an Oscar for best supporting actress in 1937, and successfully made the transition into talkies. She started her career on the stage and made her silent movie debut in 1914 in As Ye Sow. Over the next 10 years she appeared in over 50 movies as(…)
Gable started out in Hollywood playing bit-parts in silent movies in the mid 1920s and starred in his first starring role in 1931 in The Painted Desert opposite leading lady Helen Twelvetrees. The movie that really catapulted him to fame was Red Dust (which I reviewed last week) where his rough and ready sex appeal(…)
There’s little more fascinating than looking at stars back when they were ‘normal people’. Even Marilyn Monroe looked like any other girl before she dyed her hair, had plastic surgery and changed her name. The other transformation as equally interesting. Who do you think has changed the most? Marilyn before she was famous (above) and(…)
It’s spring, and so of course my thoughts have returned to Paris, the beautiful city of blossom and boulevards, baguettes and bicyclette *sigh*. But Paris has always had a certain charm it was a very different place when Zeppelins were in the sky or there were German soldiers on the streets. Take a look at(…)
You don’t see fur adverts much these days (or at least I haven’t come across many) but basically fur advertising hasn’t changed much since this type of ad (above) from the 1960s. Why she’s holding a lit cigarette lighter that close to her flammable fur coat I have no idea… Anyway, by now you probably(…)
Stars were having nips, tucks and predominantly nose-jobs from as early as the 1930s. It’s not well-documented as the stars who had succesful surgery rarely owned up to it, and those who had less successful surgery (like Mary Pickford who was rumoured to have damaged facial muscles after an early facelift) just faded from public(…)
Ziegfeld girls were the cheesecake pinups of the 1920s. Beautiful and talented they were the chorus girls of the spectacular Ziegfeld Follies which ran from 1907 to 1931. Many Ziegfeld girls went on to fame and fortune in the cinema and stars including Barabara Stanwyck (below), Louise Brooks and Joan Blondell all launched their careers(…)
They are an interesting collection of women who were all photographed in the custody of New South Wales police between 1916 and 1929. They range from notorious brothel madams, to bigamists, murderers, drug dealers, prostitutes and simply the unfortunate, like Kate Ellick who was sentenced to prison because her family were dead and she was(…)
A tale of savagery, seduction and Stockholm Syndrome amongst the sand dunes… The Sheik, a silent-movie from 1921, is widely-regarded as the movie that really established Rudolph Valentino to stardom, so I thought I should give it a watch and boy was it a revelation! Watching silent movies is a funny old business, and I(…)
Pola Negri was a Polish silent movie star of the 1920s. She was famous for both her roles as a femme fatale and her tragic roles and, ever the drama queen, she never hesitated to use her personal life to boost her career having high-profile relationships with some of the biggest movie stars of the(…)
I turn 40 next week and this milestone got me thinking about all the Hollywood stars who died tragically young and didn’t even make it this far. Their deaths ranged from suicide, to murder, car and plane crashes and even an allergic reaction to a headache tablet. Did I miss anyone out of this list(…)
When we think of silent movie stars we inevitably think of Garbo, Charlie Chaplin, Rudolph Valentino as well as perhaps Lillian Gish (not forgetting the quintessential flappers Clara Bow and Louise Brooks). But for every movie icon there were hundreds of actresses who appeared in silent movies whose names haven’t stood the test of time(…)
So, you thought the selfie was something new? Apparently not! Here is the evidence that people have been taking selfies since the late 1800s – even naked selfies! It’s not just the celebrities of today who love showing off their bods! These photos range from the 1890s to the 1970s, some are self-portraits done with(…)
Well, I say there are 3, but frankly there are so many stunts packed into these movie clips that I couldn’t reliably count them. Movie-goers in the silent movie era loved slapstick as well as bold and outrageous stunts, all of which were made without the help of CGI and which could have been catastrophic(…)
The news this morning is filled with the pictures and winners from last night’s Academy Award ceremony – well, that and the slightly terrifying crisis in Crimea. As always the dresses were gorgeous (at the Oscars that is – I’m woefully under-informed about dresses in the Ukraine) and Jennifer Lawrence continued her Awards tradition of(…)
From the 1920s through to the 1950s Atomic energy was terrifically fashionable. Radium was used in everything from beauty and cosmetics, to household cleaning products (see the photo below of the Radium hand cleaner which ‘takes off everything but the skin’ – yikes!). So, why were people so keen to use radioactive products in every(…)
Valentine’s day is rapidly approaching, and I know it’s an occasion that people either love or hate, so I thought this was a great Valentines theme. ‘I Won’t Send Roses’ is almost an anti-love song – if you don’t know it, it comes from the 1920s musical Mack and Mabel and it makes me weep(…)