Esther Ralston

The Tragedy of Hollywood Star Lupe Velez

June 5, 2018 by Robert J. Avrech 2 Comments

The lives of Hollywood stars are too frequently tragic tales of absent fathers, cruelly ambitious mothers, and madly dysfunctional families.

Mexican-American actress, Lupe Velez (July 18, 1908 – December 13, 1944) “The Mexican Spitfire” was a beautiful, passionate, emotionally fragile woman best known for a series of 1930’s B movies in which she plays a delightfully scatter-brained character who speaks broken English punctuated by rapid fire bursts of Spanish.

Silent Star Esther Ralston: Why Do All My Husbands Want to Kill Me? Part III

August 7, 2014 by Robert J. Avrech 5 Comments

Esther Ralston, at the height of her fame in the 1920s, she was known as The American Venus.

To read Part I, please click here.

To read Part II, please click here.

Broke, with her second marriage in shambles, and blacklisted by studio boss L.B. Mayer — Esther wouldn’t trade amorous favors for movie roles — Esther Ralston flees to New York in 1939 to rebuild her shattered career.

Silent Star Esther Ralston: Why Do All My Husbands Want to Kill Me? Part II

July 11, 2014 by Robert J. Avrech 19 Comments

Part I here.

Esther Ralston was blessed with a lovely, melodic voice, thus it’s something of a puzzle why Paramount dropped Esther’s option in 1929.

Esther was a rising star who, between 1924 and 1929, starred or co-starred in twenty-five films. She was a natural for talkies.

But the mystery is soon cleared up as Esther explains:

Silent Star Esther Ralston: Why Do All My Husbands Want to Kill Me? Part I

July 3, 2014 by Robert J. Avrech 13 Comments

Esther Ralston, at the height of her Hollywood stardom in the 1920's. — Esther Ralston, at the height of her Hollywood stardom in the 1920’s.

They called her, the American Venus.

She lived in a Hollywood mansion with a staff of servants. Her chauffeur drove a limited edition limousine. But she ended her days in a trailer park in Ventura, California.

Friday Fashion: Turban Time in Hollywood

January 6, 2012 by Robert J. Avrech 14 Comments

When asked to define the essence of Hollywood glamour, the multi-talented director Edmund Goulding replied:

“It’s the magnetism that changes the current of every movie fan’s life and persuades a girl that she must have a dress like the one Joan Crawford wore in her last picture. It’s the mesmerism that induces a boy to spend his last penny on a dress suit so that he can take his best girl out in the same style in which Clark Gable escorted Myrna Loy.”

Perfect.

As a child growing up in Brooklyn, my maternal grandmother, Genia Keiler, referred to “fancy head shmattes,” or as we know it: The Turban.

We don’t see many turbans anymore, except on the heads of murderous jihadis.

But there was a time in Hollywood when the simple turban was transformed into an object of high glamour.