Seraphic Secret

Robert J. Avrech: Emmy Award winning screenwriter. Movie fanatic. Helplessly and hopelessly in love with my wife since age nine.

Esther Ralston

Friday Photos: True Hollywood Confessions

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“Love is a publicity stunt, and making love – after the first curious raptures – is only another petulant way to pass the time waiting for the studio to call.”
—Louise Brooks

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The Tragedy of Hollywood Star Lupe Velez

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Lupe Velez by George Hurrell

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.

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

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

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

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Esther Ralston, 1920s.
Esther Ralston, 1920s.

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:

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

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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.

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