Seraphic Secret

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

Friday Photos: The Not So Glamorous Family

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Jean Harlow as Hollywood wanted her to be seen.

Hollywood’s Golden Age, from the 20’s to the late thirties, was a dream factory.

And glamour was the dream that was sold in every frame of every film. Studios tightly controlled the image of the stars they groomed and promoted, presenting them as glittering jewels, untouched and unsullied by the daily concerns of ordinary life.

When Mickey Rooney informed MGM chief L.B. Mayer that he was going to marry a young starlet named Ava Gardner, Mayer’s anger was incandescent. Rooney was destroying the Andy Hardy brand. Never mind that Rooney was notorious for partying with high-priced call girls, Mayer understood that the carefully cultivated image of a clean living American boy was the reality for millions of movie fans.

Fans imagined their favorite stars as immaculate beings from heaven. And nothing could more quickly dispel this fantasy than the reality of a star with all too human parents.

Here are a few photos the studios did not want the public to see.

Harlean Harlow Carpenter AKA Jean Harlow with her mother, Jean.

 

Colleen Moore, a huge star during the silent era, famous for her Bob haircut.

 

Moore with her grandmother.

 

Mary Pickford as the public knew her.

 

Mary with her mother Charlotte Hennesy, a brilliant and forceful businesswoman who helped guide Mary’s career.

 

For her fans, the Garbo mystique is a transcendental experience.

 

But Garbo with her all too human mother Anna, a jam factory worker, shatters the Garbo spell—in a profoundly touching manner.

 

Gary Cooper, the dream of romantic bliss for millions of female fans.

 

Interesting to note that Coop, under the protective wing of Alice, his elegant, British born mother, still looks like a romantic leading man.

Karen and I wish all our friends and relatives a lovely and inspirational Shabbat.

 

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Comments

  1. They’re all great photographs, but the one that really leaps out is of Greta Garbo with a genuine, unforced smile.  Not something you see too often.

  2. Mary Pickford never seemed to smile. Why is that?
    Garbo looks happy with her mom.
    Colleen Moore — what a cutie! There were some Moore’s on my mother’s side of the family. I wonder if we’re related? 😀
    And Jean Harlow… well, she seems to be leaving court. Not some place a starlet would be!

  3. To me those photos make the star look more “normal”. Wonder if any of these mothers were domineering to the point the star went crazy – or hopped on a freight train.

    …and the stories Mickey Rooney could tell today….

    • Bill:

      Harlow’s mother dominated her daughter’s life. Bill Powell, Harlow’s boyfriend for a while, hired a dteective who discovered that Harlow’s mother and her gigilo husband were robbing Jean blind. Powell realized that he’d never be able to pry Jean away form her mother and broke it off with Jean.

      Rooney’s autobiography is quite a read, but I’m sure after he passes and a full bio is published we’ll learn a lot more.

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