alone, to keep pace with the fast set in Hollywood.Only the winning combination of Kathleen’s tears—real ones—and Mrs. Morrison’s determined support won over the deeply skeptical family patriarch.
That, plus a new stipulation: Kathleen’s grandmother, a staid and proper Victorian, would accompany her out west and serve as her official chaperone. Sunset Boulevard was no place for unaccompanied young ladies.
A few weeks later, Kathleen and her grandmother packed their bags and set out by Pullman car for Chicago, where they would spend a few days with Walter and Lib Howey before boarding the Santa Fe Chief for Los Angeles. On their first night in Chicago, over a celebratory outing to the College Inn—“Aunt Lib told me it was a nightclub,” Kathleen later remembered. “When I asked her what that meant, Uncle Walter said, ‘It’s a place where they don’t have lunch’ ”—Walter raised a champagne glass and offered a toast.
“Here’s to Colleen Moore”—he beamed—“the newest Griffith discovery and a future movie star.”
Kathleen raised her eyebrows.
“That’s you, baby,” Walter Howey informed his bewildered young niece. A new career demanded a new name, he explained. Something flashy, something dazzling—and something with fewer than twelve letters, which was the industry standard. “Kathleen Morrison” simply wouldn’t fit on a movie billboard. “Colleen Moore” would. Also, Colleen Moore sounded Irish, and Uncle Walter “decided the time had come for introducing an Irish actress to the movies. There was a lot of good publicity in it.”
Before Kathleen Morrison—now Colleen Moore—boarded the train for California, Uncle Walter scribbled a few words of parting advice. 5 “Dear baby,” he began, “Hollywood, where you will now be living, is inhabited by a race of people called Press Agents. The studios pay them a lot of money to think up stories about the players under contract and to persuade editors like me to print their stories. So the moral of this letter is, never believe one word you ever read about yourself.”
It was good advice. By the time she became Hollywood’s flapper queen, Colleen Moore would read a great many things about herselfthat didn’t ring true. As far as the world knew, D. W. Griffith had “discovered” Colleen one night while dining at the Howey residence in Chicago. With the approval of her mischievous aunt and uncle, the spunky sixteen-year-old had donned a maid’s outfit and tried to pass herself off as a house servant. By the time dessert rolled around, Griffith was so smitten by the Irish lass who had taken his coat and served up his potatoes that he grabbed his hostess by the arm and announced, “Mrs. Howey, you’ve just lost a maid, and I’ve gained a new movie star!” 6 It was a good story, anyway.
According to a 1921 biographical index card she filed with Goldwyn Pictures Corporation, where she made several films after Griffith shut down his West Coast operations in 1919, Colleen arrived in Hollywood standing five feet three and three-quarter inches and weighing 110 pounds. 7 She had long, reddish brown hair and dark brown eyes that didn’t do much to set her apart from the dozens of other young leading ladies who were also trying desperately to emulate the wholesome girl-next-door look that was working such wonders for Mary Pickford’s artistic career and bank account.
If Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald were setting the world on fire with their well-orchestrated apotheosis of the New Woman, Hollywood still seemed to prefer Plain Jane to Flapper Jane. What were Colleen Moore’s pastimes, according to her file card at Goldwyn Pictures? Dancing and swimming. Her hobbies? “None—plain person.” Reading interests? Blank. Ambition? “To become famous.”
Colleen didn’t become famous overnight, but between 1916 and 1923 she appeared in at least thirty-five feature-length films, almost always as a “leading lady” (playing a
That, plus a new stipulation: Kathleen’s grandmother, a staid and proper Victorian, would accompany her out west and serve as her official chaperone. Sunset Boulevard was no place for unaccompanied young ladies.
A few weeks later, Kathleen and her grandmother packed their bags and set out by Pullman car for Chicago, where they would spend a few days with Walter and Lib Howey before boarding the Santa Fe Chief for Los Angeles. On their first night in Chicago, over a celebratory outing to the College Inn—“Aunt Lib told me it was a nightclub,” Kathleen later remembered. “When I asked her what that meant, Uncle Walter said, ‘It’s a place where they don’t have lunch’ ”—Walter raised a champagne glass and offered a toast.
“Here’s to Colleen Moore”—he beamed—“the newest Griffith discovery and a future movie star.”
Kathleen raised her eyebrows.
“That’s you, baby,” Walter Howey informed his bewildered young niece. A new career demanded a new name, he explained. Something flashy, something dazzling—and something with fewer than twelve letters, which was the industry standard. “Kathleen Morrison” simply wouldn’t fit on a movie billboard. “Colleen Moore” would. Also, Colleen Moore sounded Irish, and Uncle Walter “decided the time had come for introducing an Irish actress to the movies. There was a lot of good publicity in it.”
Before Kathleen Morrison—now Colleen Moore—boarded the train for California, Uncle Walter scribbled a few words of parting advice. 5 “Dear baby,” he began, “Hollywood, where you will now be living, is inhabited by a race of people called Press Agents. The studios pay them a lot of money to think up stories about the players under contract and to persuade editors like me to print their stories. So the moral of this letter is, never believe one word you ever read about yourself.”
It was good advice. By the time she became Hollywood’s flapper queen, Colleen Moore would read a great many things about herselfthat didn’t ring true. As far as the world knew, D. W. Griffith had “discovered” Colleen one night while dining at the Howey residence in Chicago. With the approval of her mischievous aunt and uncle, the spunky sixteen-year-old had donned a maid’s outfit and tried to pass herself off as a house servant. By the time dessert rolled around, Griffith was so smitten by the Irish lass who had taken his coat and served up his potatoes that he grabbed his hostess by the arm and announced, “Mrs. Howey, you’ve just lost a maid, and I’ve gained a new movie star!” 6 It was a good story, anyway.
According to a 1921 biographical index card she filed with Goldwyn Pictures Corporation, where she made several films after Griffith shut down his West Coast operations in 1919, Colleen arrived in Hollywood standing five feet three and three-quarter inches and weighing 110 pounds. 7 She had long, reddish brown hair and dark brown eyes that didn’t do much to set her apart from the dozens of other young leading ladies who were also trying desperately to emulate the wholesome girl-next-door look that was working such wonders for Mary Pickford’s artistic career and bank account.
If Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald were setting the world on fire with their well-orchestrated apotheosis of the New Woman, Hollywood still seemed to prefer Plain Jane to Flapper Jane. What were Colleen Moore’s pastimes, according to her file card at Goldwyn Pictures? Dancing and swimming. Her hobbies? “None—plain person.” Reading interests? Blank. Ambition? “To become famous.”
Colleen didn’t become famous overnight, but between 1916 and 1923 she appeared in at least thirty-five feature-length films, almost always as a “leading lady” (playing a
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