Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks “dedicate” a new link of the Pacific Highway. The crowned heads of Hollywood, always called out to officiate at cornerstone layings, their popularity toward the end of the Twenties was perhaps more official than real, but none challenged their royal status as long as silence lasted.
Pedro de Cordoba and Marion Davies in Young Diana, 1922. Miss Davies’ popularity as a romantic heroine was long a figment of William Randolph Hearst’s imagination, but she eventually won a following as a comedienne.
Lillian Gish with Ronald Coleman in The White Sister, 1923, her biggest hit after she left Griffith.
William Boyd, idolized as the rugged Hopalong Cassidy, began his career as a romantic and marcelled leading man in the costume dramas of Cecil B. De Mille and D.W. Griffith. Here he is in Griffith’s Lady of the Pavements, 1929, with Jetta Goudal and Lupe Velez.
Seventeen stars assembled in the M-G-M commissary for a single scene in Show People, 1928.
Polly Moran, Dorothy Sebastian, Louella O. Parsons, Estelle Taylor, Claire Windsor, Aileen Pringle, Karl Dane, George K. Arthur, Leatrice Joy
Renee Adoree, Rod La Rocque, Mae Murray, John Gilbert, Norma Talmadge, Douglas Fairbanks, Marion Davies, William S. Hart
John Gilbert starred in minor films for William Fox before The Big Parade brought out the dynamic magnetism which made him the top male star until the end of the silent era.
In a famous scene, Gilbert, the American doughboy, teaches the French girl, Renee Adoree, the technique of chewing gum. (The Big Parade, 1925)
Janet Gaynor and Charles Farrell were the sensations of 1927 in Seventh Heaven; they co-starred for over seven years.
A fan magazine used this publicity still of Norma Talmadge on its cover in 1929, but painted out the number 5 on the mike and substituted 13. A veteran of twenty years of the movies, Miss Talmadge had grown a little bored with stardom, but the talkies seemed to challenge her and after more than a year of voice instruction she made a successful sound debut in New York Nights, 1930. But her second talkie, based on Belasco’s Madame Dubarry, evoked from a critic: “She speaks the Belascoan rodomontades in a Vitagraph accent.” Her sister Constance, already retired, wired her, “Leave them while you’re looking good and thank God for the trust funds Momma set up.” A few years later a fan asked Miss Talmadge for her autograph. “Get away, dear,” the ex-star replied. “I don’t need you any more.”
