Colleen Moore: A Biography of the Silent Film Star

303 Pages·2012·19.73 MB·English

by  Jeff Codori

Colleen Moore
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Colleen Moore
A Biography of
the Silent Film Star
J C
EFF ODORI
Forewords by Joseph Yranski and
Judith Hargrave Coleman
McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers
Jefferson, North Carolina, and London
Uncredited photographs are from the author’s collecton.
LIBRARYOFCONGRESSCATALOGUING-IN-PUBLICATIONDATA
Codori, Jeff, 1966–
Colleen Moore : a biography of the silent film star / Jeff Codori ;
forewords by Joseph Yranski and Judith Hargrave Coleman.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-7864-4969-9
softcover : acid free paper
1. Moore, Colleen, 1900–1988. 2. Motion picture actors and
actresses—United States—Biography. I. Title.
PN2287.M695C84 2012 791.4302'8092—dc23 [B] 2012001140
BRITISHLIBRARYCATALOGUINGDATAAREAVAILABLE
©2012 Jeff Codori. All rights reserved
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form
or by any means, electronic or mechanical, i ncluding photocopying
or recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system,
without p ermission in writing from the p ublisher.
On the cover Colleen Moore’s engagement portrait, 1922
Manufactured in the United States of America
McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers
Box 6¡¡, Je›erson, North Carolina 28640
www.mcfarlandpub.com
Table of Contents
Forewords by Joseph Yranski and Judith Hargrave Coleman 1
Preface 3
1. September 1895 5
2. Port Huron, 1890–1902 7
3. Port Huron and Hillsdale, Michigan, 1905–1908 12
4. Atlanta, Georgia, 1908–1911 17
5. Chicago and Tampa, 1911–1916 23
6. November, 1916 27
7. The Bad Boy, December 1916–January 1917 30
8. April–December, 1917 37
9. Selig Polyscope, 1918 41
10. 1919 46
11. Discovering Comedy 53
12. “Dry Land; That’s All.” 60
13. August 1920 66
14. November 1920–March 1921 72
15. April–June 1921 78
16. Censorship 85
17. August 1921–December 1921 92
18. The Bitterness of Sweets (Look Your Best), March–May 1922 98
19. Forsaking All Others, September–October 1922 106
20. The Nth Commandment, November–December 1922 111
21. The Huntress, May–July 1923 120
22. The Swamp Angel (Painted People), October–November 1923 128
23. The Perfect Flapper, January–April 1924 133
24. Sally 140
v
vi TABLE OF CONTENTS
25. The Desert Flower, February–April 1925 143
26. European Tour, April–July 1925 149
27. First National, Irene 157
28. Ella Cinders, February 19–April 6, 1926 162
29. Twinkletoes, July 26–September 15, 1926 168
30. October 1926–April 1927 179
31. Break with First National, May–June 1927 188
32. New York and Arbitration, June–August 1927 197
33. October–November 1927 204
34. Oh, Kay!, April–July 1928 212
35. Colleen and Sound, August–October 1928 222
36. Why Be Good?, November 1928–January 1929 232
37. The Bel Air House and a Fairy Castle 243
Filmography 251
Chapter Notes 257
Bibliography 287
Index 291
Forewords by Joseph Yranski and
Judith Hargrave Coleman
Joseph Yranski Upon first discovering Colleen Moore when Public Television
broadcast her film Ella Cinders, I found her to be a revelation: funny, quirky, and winsome,
while displaying a remarkable sense of individuality. A decade later I met this amazing lady
at the gala opening of director King Vidor’s retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art. I
skipped all of my university classes that day in order to secure tickets. There I spoke with
her and discovered her to be remarkably gracious, yet humble, stating that “it was King’s
evening and not mine.” Later when Mr. Vidor left for a radio station interview, I was invited
to keep Colleen company. I discovered her to be an intelligent woman who blazed many
and varied paths in life: silent film actress, philanthropist, astute businesswoman, mother
and grandmother. We discussed topics that ranged from politics, art, and history to Hol-
lywood, ecology and business. Thus began a blessed 18 year friendship with the lady, a
friendship that continued until her death.
Over the years there have been many film star biographies. Some center on the private
lives of the stars, while others focus on their careers. With Jeff Codori’s, there is now a work
that traces the entire improbable course with first-hand documentation of an amazing girl
with one brown and one blue eye. She miraculously managed to parlay a six-month “payoff”
contract into a career as the number-one international female star of the 1920s. More impor-
tantly, once she had achieved her dream, Miss Moore knew when to end that aspect of her
life and go on to successfully blaze many other paths.
For nearly 30 years, Joe Yranski has been the senior film and video historian for the
New York Public Library. He has contributed to a dozen books
about various aspects of film history and nine documentary films.
R
Judith Hargrave Coleman I first met Colleen Moore, film star, as she greeted me
at the great hall of her Fairy Castle. I was five years old.
She married my father, a widower with two children, my brother and I, and we all
lived happily together in that Fairy Castle.
One of the many things I learned from Colleen Moore, film star, was her gift of taking
on any challenge.
One challenge was becoming a film star ... and she did. But then she accepted another
challenge ... knowing when to leave the cameras behind and move on.
1
2 FOREWORDS BY JOSEPH YRANSKI AND JUDITH HARGRAVE COLEMAN
And move on she did, by creating the Fairy Castle with the help of her artist friends
in Hollywood.
She went on tour with the Castle all over America, once again touching the lives of so
many, but in a different way. She touched their lives by giving them, for a brief time, a
glimpse of a make-believe world, untouched by a troubled country dealing with the Great
Depression. An imaginary world of fairy tales, princesses, floating stairways, with Christmas
every day.
Another challenge was Colleen Moore, mother and housewife, community service
leader and fund raiser.
After becoming a widow, she once again moved on; she wrote three books, traveled
the world with old friends, gathering new friends as she went along. She then built a house,
entertained the famous and not so famous. Not to tell her stories but to sit back and listen
to theirs.
She said to me, shortly before she died, “Life’s been good to me ... I’ve had it all.”
I will always remember her as that magical lady coming to meet me in the grand hall of
her Fairy Castle, not as Colleen Moore, film star, but as Colleen Moore, mother. My mother!
Judy Coleman, Moore’s daughter, lives in California.
Preface
Colleen Moore is an actress who should be better remembered than she is. Today, if
she is recalled at all, it is usually as the quintessential film flapper. Her vibrant, beaming
smile, geometric bobbed hairstyle and slim figure are iconic. When the economy went south
in the early 1930s, the flapper as a social figure was considered irrelevant. Colleen’s place in
the pantheon of film actresses was supplanted because she was so strongly associated with
flappers; forgotten is the fact that flapper roles were a small portion of the characters she
played throughout her career. Even if the characterization of Colleen as a flapper was accu-
rate, she would still be worthy of note for having opened the door for the likes of Clara
Bow, Joan Crawford and Louise Brooks.
In fact, Colleen had been working her way up the ladder of motion pictures before
her sudden, explosive fame, playing the part of Patricia Frentiss in Flaming Youth. Her
earlier film roles covered the full spectrum from drama to comedy, from innocent girl to
sophisticated city girls. Colleen had grown up as one of the first generation of a world in
which motion pictures were ubiquitous, and when the art form was still in its infancy she
had already decided to become a star. She had not been drafted into films from the stage
or discovered at a druggist’s soda fountain. As a favor to a relative, she was given a six-
month contract, and she spun that into a successful career.
This biography is an examination of Colleen’s silent film career, from her arrival in
Hollywood to the end of her affiliation with First National Pictures, the studio that made
some of her most important and influential films, with a brief look at her foray into talking
films before she retired. In addition to a survey of her career, this book covers her childhood,
her upbringing and her life. One cannot understand the choices she made in her career
without understanding her life and the times in which she lived. Colleen is one of the few
actresses who found sudden fame and did not let it go to her head. With the support of
her family, she managed to keep the screen persona “Colleen Moore” seperate from the
woman she was born, Kathleen Morrison. In this biography, she is referred throughout her
childhood as “Kathleen” until her arrival in Hollywood, when she became “Colleen.” I hope
it does not cause confusion.
In the late 1960s Colleen wrote her autobiography, Silent Star(Doubleday, 1968), which
has been the most used resource for people writing about her and is often combined with
newspaper clippings from her scrapbooks (36 scrapbooks, Colleen Moore Collection, Acad-
emy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, Margaret Herrick Library). A third resource is a
short authorized The Story of My Life, written by Colleen shortly after the completion of
Irene for release to the press in 1926. Of these, Silent Star is perhaps the most valuable
resource, being the closest thing to a diary she left. The autobiography has the virtue of
being an honest account of her feelings during important events in her life, though it suffers
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