12/16/22
Newsletter #190
The Crack of Dawn
The early film industry had quite a few fascinating, powerful, important women involved who helped shape the film business. The first sex goddess was Theda Bara (real name: Theodosia Burr Goodman) who created a new character in film known as the “Vamp,” which was short for a female vampire of men. Theda Bara (which is an anagram for Arab Death) was a huge star from 1915-19, vying with the sweet, pure-hearted, Mary Pickford. Theda Bara was said to be Turkish, Russian or Egyptian, but was really a Jewish girl from Cincinnati. Apparently, her crowning glory was Cleopatra (1917), and enormous worldwide success, which no longer exists. Not a single print has survived. Theda grew bored with movies quickly. In 1920 she left Hollywood and returned to Broadway, and that was the end of her film career.
Alla Nazimova was born Marem-Ides Leventon (Russian name: Adelaida Yakovlevna Leventon) in Yalta, Crimea, Russia, to a Jewish family. Nazimova was a student of Constantin Stanislavski and early purveyor of “The Method.” She was a big star of the Russian theater in the very early 1900s, then moved to America in 1905. She apparently learned fluent English in five months, then opened the first acting school in America using the Stanislavski method. Her school failed, but she became a major Broadway star. Alla Nazimova was 37 when she made her film debut in 1916 in a film produced by Lewis Selznick (David O. Selznick’s father), and received the astronomical salary of $1,000 a day. She moved to Hollywood in 1917, created her own production company (financed and distributed through Metro Pictures). She was paid the unheard of salary of $13,000 a week. Nazimova not only starred in her films, she was also producer, director, writer, costume designer and did the lighting on many of the films. Her film, Salome (1923), is now considered a feminist classic.
Alla Nazimova, like so many other silent screen actors, was not suited for sound pictures due to her thick Russian accent. She quit the movies and opened the infamous hotel, the Garden of Alla (later the Garden of Allah) on Sunset Blvd. This hotel was the location of many crazy, wild, infamous Hollywood parties. Nazimova was a lesbian but was married twice as a cover. She was romantically involved with the famous British actress, Eva Le Gallienne; film director Dorothy Arzner; Oscar Wilde’s niece, Dolly Wilde; and interestingly with stage actress, Edith Luckett, who was the mother of Nancy Davis. Nancy Davis ultimately married Ronald Reagan.
Alla Nazimova was the aunt of the innovative producer Val Lewton, who made a series of low-budget, but extremely important movies in the 1940s. Val Lewton’s films, The Cat People, Isle of the Dead, The Body Snatcher, The Leopard Man, The Seventh Victim, Return of the Cat People, were famous for implying the monsters or evil forces without showing them, and were therefore extremely cinematic. Val Lewton was responsible for starting the directorial careers of Robert Wise (Oscars for West Side Story and The Sound of Music) and Mark Robson (The Bridges of Toko-Ri, Peyton Place, Valley of the Dolls, and Earthquake).
Have a fine day, because I intend to.