The story of film from its beginnings to the end of the studio system.
The Silent Stars Learn To Talk
In
the silent era the stars were international household names because of
the universal language of silent film. The two greatest silent stars
were Mary Pickford and Charles Chaplin . Pickford was described by
Adela Rogers St Johns as the most famous woman who ever lived. By 1915
Mary was on a salary of $10,000 a week. In the Twenties Douglas
Fairbanks and Mary Pickford were the King and Queen of Hollywood at
Pickfair. Among the guests were Lord and Lady Mountbatten. Others stars
lived in similar mansions such as Harold and Mildred Lloyd's
Greenacres, Buster and Natalie Keaton's Italian Villa and Rudolph
Valentino's Falcon Lair.
As
Gloria Swanson observed : "In
those days the public wanted us to live like kings and queens so we
did. And why not? We were in love with life. We were making more money
than we ever dreamed existed and there was no reason to believe it
would ever stop." However by the mid 20s cinema audiences had begun to
decline as the popularity of radio increased. The public were becoming
used to hearing the sound of the human voice.
The arrival of sound gave the film industry a crucial boost but it also sent the silent stars into a panic. Renowned stage actors came out from Broadway to teach the silent movie stars how to talk articulately with "round" tones. Stage experience suddennly became a passport to Hollywood and of the same trains as the voice coaches came Broadway actors. Mae Clarke though made the point that these actors didn't have any experience with microphones. Nevertheless in this atmosphere the silent film actors were often considered natural mutes. They had little opportunity to gain talkie experience because the sound films which followed The Jazz Singer (1927) mostly featured music scores and sound effects not dialogue.
The most worried stars were those with thick foreign accents or those that couldn't speak English at all. Emil Jannings (who had won first Best Actor Oscar for The Last Command) left for Germany and Pola Negri who declared "It is a fad, a curiosity" found it had come to stay,temporarily severing relations with the screen.
Despite fears about her accent which meant MGM put off making her first talkie until they
couldn't any longer Greta Garbo made a triumphant sound debut in Anna Christie in 1930.
Other stars weren't so lucky. Norma Talmadge found her twangy Brooklyn tones totally unsuited to an aristocratic lady of France in Dubarry, Woman of Passion but the most tragic fall from grace was undoubtedly experienced by John Gilbert. It is said that when Gilbert declared his passionate love for his leading lady in the erroneously titled His Glorious Night (1929) audiences laughed at him. Whether they did or not I believe the problem with the scene is it was no longer believable in a new, more realistic sound cinema.
One dimensional stereotypes like the Lover, the Sweetheart and the All American Boy had to be redefined for sound. Film stars were now more down to Earth, the silent stars were more mysterious and illusory. Some stars were able to adapt to the new reality like Ronald Colman while others found it hard to maintain popularity as really big stars as they were too associated with the silent era. This was true of Lillian Gish and even Gloria Swanson despite her majestic comeback in Sunset Boulevard (1950).
Mary Pickford won an Academy Award for Best Actress for her first Talkie Coquette (1929) but soon retired while her husband Douglas Fairbanks never really believed in sound movies. Chaplin said : "Talk for me it would be fatal." and meant it, he wasn't to talk onscreen till The Great Dictator in 1940.
The arrival of sound gave the film industry a crucial boost but it also sent the silent stars into a panic. Renowned stage actors came out from Broadway to teach the silent movie stars how to talk articulately with "round" tones. Stage experience suddennly became a passport to Hollywood and of the same trains as the voice coaches came Broadway actors. Mae Clarke though made the point that these actors didn't have any experience with microphones. Nevertheless in this atmosphere the silent film actors were often considered natural mutes. They had little opportunity to gain talkie experience because the sound films which followed The Jazz Singer (1927) mostly featured music scores and sound effects not dialogue.
The most worried stars were those with thick foreign accents or those that couldn't speak English at all. Emil Jannings (who had won first Best Actor Oscar for The Last Command) left for Germany and Pola Negri who declared "It is a fad, a curiosity" found it had come to stay,temporarily severing relations with the screen.
Despite fears about her accent which meant MGM put off making her first talkie until they
couldn't any longer Greta Garbo made a triumphant sound debut in Anna Christie in 1930.
Other stars weren't so lucky. Norma Talmadge found her twangy Brooklyn tones totally unsuited to an aristocratic lady of France in Dubarry, Woman of Passion but the most tragic fall from grace was undoubtedly experienced by John Gilbert. It is said that when Gilbert declared his passionate love for his leading lady in the erroneously titled His Glorious Night (1929) audiences laughed at him. Whether they did or not I believe the problem with the scene is it was no longer believable in a new, more realistic sound cinema.
One dimensional stereotypes like the Lover, the Sweetheart and the All American Boy had to be redefined for sound. Film stars were now more down to Earth, the silent stars were more mysterious and illusory. Some stars were able to adapt to the new reality like Ronald Colman while others found it hard to maintain popularity as really big stars as they were too associated with the silent era. This was true of Lillian Gish and even Gloria Swanson despite her majestic comeback in Sunset Boulevard (1950).
Mary Pickford won an Academy Award for Best Actress for her first Talkie Coquette (1929) but soon retired while her husband Douglas Fairbanks never really believed in sound movies. Chaplin said : "Talk for me it would be fatal." and meant it, he wasn't to talk onscreen till The Great Dictator in 1940.
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Written content of the Golden Age of Hollywood Website (except where indicated) copyright Derek McLellan, 2007.