Barbara La Marr: The Girl Who Was Too Beautiful for Hollywood (Screen Classics)

Barbara La Marr's (1896--1926) publicist once confessed: "There was no reason to lie about Barbara La Marr. Everything she said, everything she did was colored with news-value." When La Marr was sixteen, her older half-sister and a male companion reportedly kidnapped her, causing a sensation in the media. One year later, her behavior in Los Angeles nightclubs caused law enforcement to declare her "too beautiful" to be on her own in the city, and she was ordered to leave. When La Marr returned to Hollywood years later, her loveliness and raw talent caught the attention of producers and catapulted her to movie stardom. In the first full-length biography of the woman known as the "girl who was too beautiful," Sherri Snyder presents a complete portrait of one of the silent era's most infamous screen sirens. In five short years, La Marr appeared in twenty-six films, including The Prisoner of Zenda (1922), Trifling Women (1922), The Eternal City (1923), The Shooting of Dan McGrew (1924), and Thy Name Is Woman (1924). Yet by 1925 -- finding herself beset by numerous scandals, several failed marriages, a hidden pregnancy, and personal prejudice based on her onscreen persona -- she fell out of public favor. When she was diagnosed with a fatal lung condition, she continued to work, undeterred, until she collapsed on set. She died at the age of twenty-nine. Few stars have burned as brightly and as briefly as Barbara La Marr, and her extraordinary life story is one of tempestuous passions as well as perseverance in the face of adversity. Drawing on never-before-released diary entries, correspondence, and creative works, Snyder's biography offers a valuable perspective on her contributions to silent-era Hollywood and the cinematic arts. In 1914 at age seventeen, strong-willed, infamous Reatha Watson was declared by juvenile authorities to be “too beautiful for the city” and banished from Los Angeles. She soon returned, became further mired in scandal, and was subsequently barred by the film studios from working as an actress. Reborn as Barbara La Marr, she achieved renown as a dancer in the foremost cabarets throughout the country and on Broadway, acted in headlining vaudeville skits, and became a highly paid screenwriter for the Fox Film Corporation in the same town that cast her out. Her exotic beauty, curvaceous form, and potent presence enticed film producers; she temporarily averted association with her increasingly turbulent past long enough to reign as a preeminent vamp of the silent screen in the 1920s. Through it all, her stormy private life striped the pages of newspapers and film magazines. “There was no reason to lie about Barbara La Marr,” her publicist confessed after her death at age twenty-nine in 1926. “Everything she said, everything she did was colored with news-value. A personality dangerous, vivid, attractive; a desire to live life at its maddest and fullest; a mixture of sentiment and hardness, a creature of weakness and strength—-that was Barbara La Marr.” Her life story is one of tempestuous passions and unbending perseverance in the face of inconceivable odds. It is of a woman’s fierce determination to forge her own destiny amid the constant threat of losing it all to scandal and, ultimately, death. "Front cover"--"Copyright"--"Contents"--"Preface"--"Prologue" -- "One" -- "Two" -- "Three" -- "Four" -- "Five" -- "Six" -- "Seven" -- "Eight" -- "Nine" -- "Ten" -- "Eleven" -- "Twelve" -- "Thirteen" -- "Fourteen" -- "Fifteen" -- "Sixteen" -- "Seventeen" -- "Eighteen" -- "Nineteen" -- "Twenty" -- "Twenty-One" -- "Twenty-Two" -- "Twenty-Three" -- "Twenty-Four" -- "Twenty-Five" -- "Twenty-Six" -- "Twenty-Seven" -- "Twenty-Eight" -- "Twenty-Nine" -- "Thirty" -- "Thirty-One" -- "Thirty-Two" -- "Thirty-Three" -- "Epilogue" -- "Appendix" -- "Acknowledgments" -- "Filmography" -- "Notes" -- "Selected Bibliography Front cover Copyright Contents Preface Prologue One Two Three Four Five Six Seven Eight Nine Ten Eleven Twelve Thirteen Fourteen Fifteen Sixteen Seventeen Eighteen Nineteen Twenty Twenty-One Twenty-Two Twenty-Three Twenty-Four Twenty-Five Twenty-Six Twenty-Seven Twenty-Eight Twenty-Nine Thirty Thirty-One Thirty-Two Thirty-Three Epilogue Appendix Acknowledgments Filmography Notes Selected Bibliography Index Sherri Snyder. Includes Bibliographical References And Index. Mode Of Access: World Wide Web.