curvy, petite five-foot-two or transform the sauciness of my freckled face with its turned-up nose into the demure perfection of a Mary Pickford.”
Either Colleen would have to tap into a new aesthetic ideal or her days in pictures were numbered. “That was where my brother Cleve came in,” she later wrote. “Cleve, and a man named Warner Fabian.”
Cleve was now attending Santa Clara College in Northern California, and on the weekends he often came to visit Colleen—usually in the company of a different college girlfriend. Colleen had never met women like this before. “They were smart and sophisticated,” she remarked, “with an air of independence about them, and so casual about their looks and clothes and manners as to be almost slapdash. I don’t know if I realized as soon as I began seeing them that they represented the wave of the future, but I do know I was drawn to them. I shared their restlessness, understood their determination to free themselves of the Victorian shackles of the pre–World War I era and find out for themselves what life was all about.”
Around the same time, someone loaned Colleen a copy of author Warner Fabian’s best-selling novel Flaming Youth , a second-rate knockoff of an F. Scott Fitzgerald flapper tale. When First National—Colleen’s new studio—bought the rights to Flaming Youth , she knew she wanted the lead role.
The question was, how? Flappers didn’t ask, “Papa, what is beer?” They didn’t dress like Victorian debutantes or spend hours combing their long, curly hair. They hardly had any hair.
Colleen’s mother had the answer. Without any particular qualifications as a hairdresser, she picked up a pair of household scissors, walked over to her daughter, and, “whack, off came the long curls.” Sculpting Colleen’s hair into a Dutch bob, she instantly transformed her into the archetype of the collegiate flapper. Colleen breezed through her screen test and won the part. The movie, in turn, became a blockbuster hit. And Colleen Moore became one of the highest-grossing actresses in Hollywood, to the tune of $10,000 per week.
Hollywood had discovered the flapper.
“I was the spark that lit up Flaming Youth,” Scott Fitzgerald wrote in the wake of the film’s success. 10 “Colleen Moore was the torch.”
Famed director D. W. Griffith (seated) and screen legends Douglas Fairbanks and Charlie Chaplin (first and second from left) and Mary Pickford (far right).
21
O H , L ITTLE G IRL , N EVER G ROW U P
B Y THE TIME Kathleen Morrison—rechristened Colleen Moore—hopped the Santa Fe Chief for Los Angeles, the film industry had traveled a long road from guardian of Victorian morality to purveyor of youth culture.
In its first two decades, the motion picture industry left a lot to be desired. 1 For one, the technology was bad. Rudimentary film projectors caused moving images to flicker and pulse. The film often came apart and crumbled after only a few screenings. Because projectionists still rotated the reels by hand, screen images often moved at erratic speeds.
But the problem wasn’t just with the machinery. The plotlines were weak. Short clips featured everyday people engaged in mundane or humorous activities. Juggling. Running. Swimming. Sleeping. It didn’t take long for people to realize that they could watch their husbands and wives do the very same things—but in real life, and for free. Somewhat more engaging, though salacious, were short takes like What Happened on 23rd St., NYC (the answer: The wind blew a woman’s skirt over her head); What Demoralized the Barber Shop (the answer: A woman’s skirt got snared on a foreign object and revealed some skin); and The Pouting Water Model , featuring a nude young woman with her back to the camera.
Around 1895, Alfred Clark, an early director, thought it might be a good idea to stage dramatic productions for film. His early short, The Execution of Mary, Queen of Scots , starred a male actor
Either Colleen would have to tap into a new aesthetic ideal or her days in pictures were numbered. “That was where my brother Cleve came in,” she later wrote. “Cleve, and a man named Warner Fabian.”
Cleve was now attending Santa Clara College in Northern California, and on the weekends he often came to visit Colleen—usually in the company of a different college girlfriend. Colleen had never met women like this before. “They were smart and sophisticated,” she remarked, “with an air of independence about them, and so casual about their looks and clothes and manners as to be almost slapdash. I don’t know if I realized as soon as I began seeing them that they represented the wave of the future, but I do know I was drawn to them. I shared their restlessness, understood their determination to free themselves of the Victorian shackles of the pre–World War I era and find out for themselves what life was all about.”
Around the same time, someone loaned Colleen a copy of author Warner Fabian’s best-selling novel Flaming Youth , a second-rate knockoff of an F. Scott Fitzgerald flapper tale. When First National—Colleen’s new studio—bought the rights to Flaming Youth , she knew she wanted the lead role.
The question was, how? Flappers didn’t ask, “Papa, what is beer?” They didn’t dress like Victorian debutantes or spend hours combing their long, curly hair. They hardly had any hair.
Colleen’s mother had the answer. Without any particular qualifications as a hairdresser, she picked up a pair of household scissors, walked over to her daughter, and, “whack, off came the long curls.” Sculpting Colleen’s hair into a Dutch bob, she instantly transformed her into the archetype of the collegiate flapper. Colleen breezed through her screen test and won the part. The movie, in turn, became a blockbuster hit. And Colleen Moore became one of the highest-grossing actresses in Hollywood, to the tune of $10,000 per week.
Hollywood had discovered the flapper.
“I was the spark that lit up Flaming Youth,” Scott Fitzgerald wrote in the wake of the film’s success. 10 “Colleen Moore was the torch.”
Famed director D. W. Griffith (seated) and screen legends Douglas Fairbanks and Charlie Chaplin (first and second from left) and Mary Pickford (far right).
21
O H , L ITTLE G IRL , N EVER G ROW U P
B Y THE TIME Kathleen Morrison—rechristened Colleen Moore—hopped the Santa Fe Chief for Los Angeles, the film industry had traveled a long road from guardian of Victorian morality to purveyor of youth culture.
In its first two decades, the motion picture industry left a lot to be desired. 1 For one, the technology was bad. Rudimentary film projectors caused moving images to flicker and pulse. The film often came apart and crumbled after only a few screenings. Because projectionists still rotated the reels by hand, screen images often moved at erratic speeds.
But the problem wasn’t just with the machinery. The plotlines were weak. Short clips featured everyday people engaged in mundane or humorous activities. Juggling. Running. Swimming. Sleeping. It didn’t take long for people to realize that they could watch their husbands and wives do the very same things—but in real life, and for free. Somewhat more engaging, though salacious, were short takes like What Happened on 23rd St., NYC (the answer: The wind blew a woman’s skirt over her head); What Demoralized the Barber Shop (the answer: A woman’s skirt got snared on a foreign object and revealed some skin); and The Pouting Water Model , featuring a nude young woman with her back to the camera.
Around 1895, Alfred Clark, an early director, thought it might be a good idea to stage dramatic productions for film. His early short, The Execution of Mary, Queen of Scots , starred a male actor
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