Hollywood Before Glamour

This exploration of fashion in American silent film offers fresh perspectives on the era preceding the studio system, and the evolution of Hollywood's distinctive brand of glamour. By the 1910s, the moving image was an integral part of everyday life and communicated fascinating, but as yet un-investigated, ideas and ideals about fashionable dress.

During the 1960s, many models, Playboy centerfolds, beauty queens, and Las Vegas showgirls went on to become “decorative actresses” appearing scantily clad on film and television. This well illustrated homage to 75 of these glamour girls reveals their unique stories through individual biographical profiles, photographs, lists of major credits and, frequently, in-depth personal interviews. Included are Carol Wayne, Edy Williams, Inga Neilsen, Thordis Brandt, Jo Collins, Phyllis Davis, Melodie Johnson, and many equally unforgettable faces of sixties Hollywood.

2020 Best Early Career Research Monograph, Monash University Malaysia Damsels and Divas investigates the meanings of Europeanness in Hollywood during the 1920s by charting professional trajectories of three movie stars: Pola Negri, Vilma Bánky and Jetta Goudal. It combines the investigation of American fan magazines with the analysis of studio documents, and the examination of the narratives of their films, to develop a thorough understanding of the ways in which Negri, Bánky and Goudal were understood within the realm of their contemporary American culture. This discussion places their star personae in the context of whiteness, femininity and Americanization. Every age has its heroines, and they reveal a lot about prevailing attitudes towards women in their respective eras. In the United States, where the stories of rags-to-riches were especially potent, stars could offer models of successful cultural integration.

145 photos capture the stars from 1926 to 1949 -- Clark Gable, Jean Harlow, Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, Hedy Lamarr, Marlene Dietrich, Robert Montgomery, Marlon Brando, Veronica Lake -- 94 stars in all.

Movie buffs and film scholars alike often overlook the importance of makeup artists, hair stylists, and costumers. With precious few but notable exceptions, creative workers in these fields have received little public recognition, even when their artistry goes on to inspire worldwide fashion trends. From the acclaimed Behind the Silver Screen series, Costume, Makeup, and Hair charts the development of these three crafts in the American film industry from the 1890s to the present. Each chapter examines a different era in film history, revealing how the arts of cinematic costume, makeup, and hair, have continually adapted to new conditions, making the transitions from stage to screen, from monochrome to color, and from analog to digital. Together, the book’s contributors give us a remarkable glimpse into how these crafts foster creative collaboration and improvisation, often fashioning striking looks and ingenious effects out of limited materials. Costume, Makeup, and Hair not only considers these crafts in relation to a wide range of film genres, from sci-fi spectacles to period dramas, but also examines the role they have played in the larger marketplace for fashion and beauty products. Drawing on rare archival materials and lavish color illustrations, this volume provides readers with both a groundbreaking history of film industry labor and an appreciation of cinematic costume, makeup, and hairstyling as distinct art forms.

George Hurrell (1904–1992) was the creator of the Hollywood glamour portrait. Before his arrival, movie star portraits were “soft focus” and undistinguished, derivative of the Main Street USA portrait salon. The maverick artist instituted a sharp, dramatic look and captured movie stars of the most exalted era in Hollywood history with bold contrast and seductive poses. This lavishly illustrated book spans Hurrell's entire career, from his beginnings as a society photographer to his finale as the celebrity photographer who was himself a celebrity, a living legend. From 1929 to 1944 Hurrell was the “Rembrandt of Hollywood,” creating portraits of Marlene Dietrich, Norma Shearer, Bette Davis, Carole Lombard, and Joan Crawford that were a blend of the ethereal and the erotic. His photos of Jane Russell sulking in a haystack made the unknown girl a star—and without a film credit to her name. He immortalized leading males stars of the day from the Barrymores to Clark Gable to Gary Cooper. Latter photo shoots magnified the glamour of the likes of Warren Beatty and Sharon Stone. Through newly acquired photos and in-depth research, photographer and historian Mark A. Vieira, author of Hurrell's Hollywood Portraits, offers not only a wealth of new images but a compelling sequel to the story presented in his earlier book on Hurrell. Hurrell was himself a star—rich, famous, fulfilled. Then, at the height of his career, he suffered a vertiginous fall from grace. George Hurrell's Hollywood recounts, for the first time anywhere, Hurrell's return from the ashes—how movie-still collectors and art dealers pulled the elderly artist into a smoky half-world of theft and fraud; how his undiminished powers gave him a second career; and how his mercurial nature nearly destroyed it. The photographs that motivate this tale are luminous, powerful, and timeless. This book showcases more than four hundred, most of which have not been published since they were created. George Hurrell's Hollywood is the ultimate work on this trailblazing artist, a fabulous montage of fact and anecdote, light and shadow. The book includes a foreword by Hurrell's final camera subject, Sharon Stone. Some of George Hurrell's subjects: Mae West, Carole Lombard, Mary Pickford, Tyrone Power, Joan Crawford, Norma Shearer, Lon Chaney, Greta Garbo, Myrna Loy, William Powell, Bette Davis, Errol Flynn, Jean Harlow, Veronica Lake, Clark Gable, Marlene Dietrich, John Garfield, Humphrey Bogart, Gary Cooper, Fred Astaire, Rita Hayworth, Liza Minnelli, Natalie Wood, Bette Midler, Lily Tomlin, John Travolta, Farrah Fawcett, Diana Ross, Neil Diamond, Raquel Welch, Sharon Stone, Warren Beatty, and many more!

From ruby slippers to fashion runways, Adrian: A Lifetime of Movie Glamour, Art and High Fashion is a visual celebration of the life and work of the man behind some of the most memorable fashions of Hollywood's golden age. This book is a bright and vivacious look at the fashion, art and homes of one of the most celebrated fashion designers of the twentieth century. Adrian (1903-1959) designed costumes for over 150 Hollywood productions, including fabulous gowns worn by such iconic actresses as Greta Garbo, Norma Shearer, Joan Crawford, Judy Garland, and Katharine Hepburn. He then went on to found one of the most popular and influential fashion labels of the mid-twentieth century, Adrian, Ltd. He had a passion for art and interior design, as seen in his impeccably decorated homes, which he shared with his wife, Hollywood movie star Janet Gaynor, and his personal paintings and sketches. The man who created the famous ruby slippers worn in The Wizard of Oz was also the first American designer honored with a retrospective at the Smithsonian Institution, and his influence can still be felt on the runways in New York and Paris today. This is the first book on the famed Hollywood fashion and costume designer to be published with the cooperation of his family. With a foreword by the designer's son, Robin, as well as a treasure trove of never-before-seen images and anecdotes taken from Adrian's unpublished manuscript, this is the definitive book on the life of the legendary designer.

Long before a hopeful actor was given a screen test, their portraits were taken to determine the camera appeal of new faces. Silver Screen Silver Prints showcases Hollywood's invention of the glamour portrait, representing the distinctive styles of such photographers as George Hurrell, Clarence Sinclair Bull, and Ruth Harriet Louise and charting the evolution from soft-focus Pictorialism to sculptured modernist glamor. Thematic sections focus on Hollywood fashion as promoted by photography and on the development of the discernible Paramount Studios house style. Photographs of iconic actors, including Greta Garbo, Joan Crawford, and Ramon Novarro, show how the portrait camera lens shaped their most enduring images. Elizabeth Taylor, the last great star of the Hollywood studio system, who used photography strategically to guide an upward trajectory from her early days as a child actress to her long reign as an international superstar, is featured. Taken together, the photographs in this catalogue, published in connection with the 2011 Grolier Club exhibition, demonstrate the centrality of studio portraits to the film industry's star-making apparatus, especially in the two decades before the Second World War.