American Arcade Card. Photo: Evans, Los Angeles. Capture: Mack Sennett Comedies.
Sennett Bathing Beauties or Mack Sennett's Bathing Beauties was a bevy of women performing in bathing costumes assembled by film producer Mack Sennett. They appeared in comedy short subjects, in promotional material, and in promotional events such as Venice Beach beauty contests from 1915 to 1928.
Mack Sennett was the brilliant founder of the Keystone Studios which saturated early Hollywood with slapstick. Physical comedy could more than compensate for silent films’ lack of dialogue. Sennett gave Charlie Chaplin, Roscoe 'Fatty' Arbuckle, and Mabel Normand their first breaks, and was the originator of slapstick routines such as pie-throwing and car-chases, as seen in the Keystone Cops films. The Keystone Cops were a group of wildly incompetent policemen. Sennett was also responsible for the concept of "Bathing Beauty". Sennett came up with the idea in 1914 when he was desperate for a way to differentiate his Keystone comedies from the rest of the oversaturated laugh market. About his idea for the Bathing Beauties, Sennett said: "One morning as I went through the Times, in my tub, I noticed a three-column picture on Page One of a pretty girl who had been involved in a minor traffic accident. The picture made the front page for two obvious and attractive reasons. The young lady's knees were showing." Beginning in 1915, Sennett assembled the original trio of Bathing Beauties assembled which consisted of Evelyn Lynn, Cecile Evans, and Marie Prevost. When the Bathing Beauties made their rounds in Hulu-Hula Land (1917), the mix of outraged letters from moral groups and massive ticket sales told Sennett that he was doing something just right. Over the next decade, hundreds of aspiring starlets paid their dues as Mack Sennett Bathing Beauties, starting at twelve dollars a week.
Many of the Sennett Bathing Beauties remained nameless. Not individually featured or named, many of these young women ascended to significant careers of their own, including Marie Prevost, Phyllis Haver (the original ‘Roxy’ in the first screen adaption of 'Chicago'), Juanita Hanson, Virginia Fox (wife-to-be of famed Fox producer Daryl F. Zanuck), and Carole Lombard, whom Sennett called “a scamp and a mad-cap.” Other notable Bathing Beauties include Claire Anderson, Marion Aye, Alice Day, Polly Moran, Madeline Hurlock, Myrtle Lind, Vera Reynolds, Mary Thurman, Thelma Hill, Thelma Parr, Marvel Rea, Harriet Hammond, Evelyn Francisco, Vera Steadman, Josephine Cogdell, Elinor Field, and Ora Carew. Two of those often named as Bathing Beauties later distanced themselves from the appellation: Mabel Normand and Gloria Swanson. Normand was a featured player, and her 8-minute film The Water Nymph (Mack Sennett, 1912) may have been the direct inspiration for the Bathing Beauties. Although Gloria Swanson worked for Sennett in 1916 and was photographed in a bathing suit, she was also a star and "vehemently denied" being one of the bathing beauties. In the 1920s, Sennett's Bathing Beauties remained popular enough to provoke imitators such as the Christie Studios' Bathing Beauties (counting Raquel Torres and Laura La Plante as alumnae) and Fox Film Corporation's "Sunshine Girls" (counting Janet Gaynor as an alumna). Various Sennett Beauties toured the country, putting on “revues” almost wholly composed of Beauties Walking Around While Bathing-Suited, with a little “shimmy dance” to spice it up. The police shut down one Atlanta revue for obscenity. The Sennett Bathing Beauties continued to appear through 1928. Anne Helen Peterson at Lapham's Quarterly: "As the 1920s drew to a close, the allure of the Bathing Beauty began to fade. Or, more precisely, as the masses slowly began to adopt the Beauties’ mode of dress, both on the beach and off, they became less of a novelty. From the start, the Bathing Beauties had wrapped their breasts “like mummies,” and while their bathing costumes may have shown off their knees, they all had dropped waists. Their costumes may have been for bathing, but they were clear antecedents to the flapper fashions that would soon blaze across the Western World."
Sources: Anne Helen Petersen (Lapham's Quarterly), Wikipedia, and IMDb. And check-out: www.facebook.com/Mack-Sennetts-Bathing-Beauties-368639123...
And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.
Tags: Bathing Beauty Bathing Beauty Pin-Up Mack Sennett Silent Actress Movie Star Hollywood Star Film Cinema Cine Kino Picture Screen Movie Movies Vintage Postcard Postkarte Carte Postale Cartolina Tarjet Postal Postkaart Briefkarte Briefkaart Ansichtskarte Ansichtkaart Arcade Evans Mack Sennett Comedies Beach California
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American Arcade Card. Photo: Evans. Los Angeles. Capture: Mack Sennett Comedies.
Sennett Bathing Beauties or Mack Sennett's Bathing Beauties was a bevy of women performing in bathing costumes assembled by film producer Mack Sennett. They appeared in comedy short subjects, in promotional material, and in promotional events such as Venice Beach beauty contests from 1915 to 1928.
Mack Sennett was the brilliant founder of the Keystone Studios which saturated early Hollywood with slapstick. Physical comedy could more than compensate for silent films’ lack of dialogue. Sennett gave Charlie Chaplin, Roscoe 'Fatty' Arbuckle, and Mabel Normand their first breaks, and was the originator of slapstick routines such as pie-throwing and car-chases, as seen in the Keystone Cops films. The Keystone Cops were a group of wildly incompetent policemen. Sennett was also responsible for the concept of "Bathing Beauty". Sennett came up with the idea in 1914 when he was desperate for a way to differentiate his Keystone comedies from the rest of the oversaturated laugh market. About his idea for the Bathing Beauties, Sennett said: "One morning as I went through the Times, in my tub, I noticed a three-column picture on Page One of a pretty girl who had been involved in a minor traffic accident. The picture made the front page for two obvious and attractive reasons. The young lady's knees were showing." Beginning in 1915, Sennett assembled the original trio of Bathing Beauties assembled which consisted of Evelyn Lynn, Cecile Evans, and Marie Prevost. When the Bathing Beauties made their rounds in Hulu-Hula Land (1917), the mix of outraged letters from moral groups and massive ticket sales told Sennett that he was doing something just right. Over the next decade, hundreds of aspiring starlets paid their dues as Mack Sennett Bathing Beauties, starting at twelve dollars a week.
Many of the Sennett Bathing Beauties remained nameless. Not individually featured or named, many of these young women ascended to significant careers of their own, including Marie Prevost, Phyllis Haver (the original ‘Roxy’ in the first screen adaption of 'Chicago'), Juanita Hanson, Virginia Fox (wife-to-be of famed Fox producer Daryl F. Zanuck), and Carole Lombard, whom Sennett called “a scamp and a mad-cap.” Other notable Bathing Beauties include Claire Anderson, Marion Aye, Alice Day, Polly Moran, Madeline Hurlock, Myrtle Lind, Vera Reynolds, Mary Thurman, Thelma Hill, Thelma Parr, Marvel Rea, Harriet Hammond, Evelyn Francisco, Vera Steadman, Josephine Cogdell, Elinor Field, and Ora Carew. Two of those often named as Bathing Beauties later distanced themselves from the appellation: Mabel Normand and Gloria Swanson. Normand was a featured player, and her 8-minute film The Water Nymph (Mack Sennett, 1912) may have been the direct inspiration for the Bathing Beauties. Although Gloria Swanson worked for Sennett in 1916 and was photographed in a bathing suit, she was also a star and "vehemently denied" being one of the bathing beauties. In the 1920s, Sennett's Bathing Beauties remained popular enough to provoke imitators such as the Christie Studios' Bathing Beauties (counting Raquel Torres and Laura La Plante as alumnae) and Fox Film Corporation's "Sunshine Girls" (counting Janet Gaynor as an alumna). Various Sennett Beauties toured the country, putting on “revues” almost wholly composed of Beauties Walking Around While Bathing-Suited, with a little “shimmy dance” to spice it up. The police shut down one Atlanta revue for obscenity. The Sennett Bathing Beauties continued to appear through 1928. Anne Helen Peterson at Lapham's Quarterly: "As the 1920s drew to a close, the allure of the Bathing Beauty began to fade. Or, more precisely, as the masses slowly began to adopt the Beauties’ mode of dress, both on the beach and off, they became less of a novelty. From the start, the Bathing Beauties had wrapped their breasts “like mummies,” and while their bathing costumes may have shown off their knees, they all had dropped waists. Their costumes may have been for bathing, but they were clear antecedents to the flapper fashions that would soon blaze across the Western World."
Sources: Anne Helen Petersen (Lapham's Quarterly), Wikipedia, and IMDb. And check-out: www.facebook.com/Mack-Sennetts-Bathing-Beauties-368639123...
And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.
Tags: Bathing Beauty Bathing Beauty Pin-Up Mack Sennett Silent Actress Movie Star Hollywood Star Film Cinema Cine Kino Picture Screen Movie Movies Vintage Postcard Postkarte Carte Postale Cartolina Tarjet Postal Postkaart Briefkarte Briefkaart Ansichtskarte Ansichtkaart Arcade Evans Mack Sennett Comedies Beach California
© All Rights Reserved
American Arcade Card. Photo: Evans. Los Angeles. Capture: Mack Sennett Comedies.
Sennett Bathing Beauties or Mack Sennett's Bathing Beauties was a bevy of women performing in bathing costumes assembled by film producer Mack Sennett. They appeared in comedy short subjects, in promotional material, and in promotional events such as Venice Beach beauty contests from 1915 to 1928.
Mack Sennett was the brilliant founder of the Keystone Studios which saturated early Hollywood with slapstick. Physical comedy could more than compensate for silent films’ lack of dialogue. Sennett gave Charlie Chaplin, Roscoe 'Fatty' Arbuckle, and Mabel Normand their first breaks, and was the originator of slapstick routines such as pie-throwing and car-chases, as seen in the Keystone Cops films. The Keystone Cops were a group of wildly incompetent policemen. Sennett was also responsible for the concept of "Bathing Beauty". Sennett came up with the idea in 1914 when he was desperate for a way to differentiate his Keystone comedies from the rest of the oversaturated laugh market. About his idea for the Bathing Beauties, Sennett said: "One morning as I went through the Times, in my tub, I noticed a three-column picture on Page One of a pretty girl who had been involved in a minor traffic accident. The picture made the front page for two obvious and attractive reasons. The young lady's knees were showing." Beginning in 1915, Sennett assembled the original trio of Bathing Beauties assembled which consisted of Evelyn Lynn, Cecile Evans, and Marie Prevost. When the Bathing Beauties made their rounds in Hulu-Hula Land (1917), the mix of outraged letters from moral groups and massive ticket sales told Sennett that he was doing something just right. Over the next decade, hundreds of aspiring starlets paid their dues as Mack Sennett Bathing Beauties, starting at twelve dollars a week.
Many of the Sennett Bathing Beauties remained nameless. Not individually featured or named, many of these young women ascended to significant careers of their own, including Marie Prevost, Phyllis Haver (the original ‘Roxy’ in the first screen adaption of 'Chicago'), Juanita Hanson, Virginia Fox (wife-to-be of famed Fox producer Daryl F. Zanuck), and Carole Lombard, whom Sennett called “a scamp and a mad-cap.” Other notable Bathing Beauties include Claire Anderson, Marion Aye, Alice Day, Polly Moran, Madeline Hurlock, Myrtle Lind, Vera Reynolds, Mary Thurman, Thelma Hill, Thelma Parr, Marvel Rea, Harriet Hammond, Evelyn Francisco, Vera Steadman, Josephine Cogdell, Elinor Field, and Ora Carew. Two of those often named as Bathing Beauties later distanced themselves from the appellation: Mabel Normand and Gloria Swanson. Normand was a featured player, and her 8-minute film The Water Nymph (Mack Sennett, 1912) may have been the direct inspiration for the Bathing Beauties. Although Gloria Swanson worked for Sennett in 1916 and was photographed in a bathing suit, she was also a star and "vehemently denied" being one of the bathing beauties. In the 1920s, Sennett's Bathing Beauties remained popular enough to provoke imitators such as the Christie Studios' Bathing Beauties (counting Raquel Torres and Laura La Plante as alumnae) and Fox Film Corporation's "Sunshine Girls" (counting Janet Gaynor as an alumna). Various Sennett Beauties toured the country, putting on “revues” almost wholly composed of Beauties Walking Around While Bathing-Suited, with a little “shimmy dance” to spice it up. The police shut down one Atlanta revue for obscenity. The Sennett Bathing Beauties continued to appear through 1928. Anne Helen Peterson at Lapham's Quarterly: "As the 1920s drew to a close, the allure of the Bathing Beauty began to fade. Or, more precisely, as the masses slowly began to adopt the Beauties’ mode of dress, both on the beach and off, they became less of a novelty. From the start, the Bathing Beauties had wrapped their breasts “like mummies,” and while their bathing costumes may have shown off their knees, they all had dropped waists. Their costumes may have been for bathing, but they were clear antecedents to the flapper fashions that would soon blaze across the Western World."
Sources: Anne Helen Petersen (Lapham's Quarterly), Wikipedia, and IMDb. And check-out: www.facebook.com/Mack-Sennetts-Bathing-Beauties-368639123...
And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.
Tags: Bathing Beauty Bathing Beauty Pin-Up Mack Sennett Silent Actress Movie Star Hollywood Star Film Cinema Cine Kino Picture Screen Movie Movies Vintage Postcard Postkarte Carte Postale Cartolina Tarjet Postal Postkaart Briefkarte Briefkaart Ansichtskarte Ansichtkaart Arcade Evans Mack Sennett Comedies Beach California
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American postcard by Max B. Sheffer Card Co., Chicago (M.B.S.C.Co.). Photo: Mack Sennett Production / First National. Mabel Normand as Suzanna in Suzanna (F. Richard Jones, 1923).
Mabel Normand (1892-1930) was a popular American silent film comedienne, in particular in her films with Charlie Chaplin. But alcohol, drugs, and scandal wrecked her career and TBC killed her at a young age.
Mabel Normand was born in New York City in 1892. She grew up in extreme poverty. Normand was a model before her career as an actress. She became an actress in 1910 at the Eastcoast, at Vitagraph and Biograph. In 1912, director Mack Sennett discovered her and took her to his new studio, Keystone in California. At the start, Normand was primarily portrayed in films as a beautiful woman, but soon her talent for comedy was spotted. She became a highly popular comedienne in shorts with Charlie Chaplin and Fatty Arbuckle. Normand even defended Chaplin before Sennett, when the latter was initially not convinced of Chaplin's acting qualities. In 1916, Normand opened with Sennett her own company at Culver City, as a subsidiary of Triangle. When Triangle collapsed in 1918 it also took down Mabel's company and also caused Sennett to lose Keystone. In 1918 also the affair of Normand with Sennett ended,
Mabel Normand got a new contract with Samuel Goldwyn. Yet her popularity and health declined. Normand became unhappy and became addicted to alcohol and drugs. Director William Desmond Taylor noticed this and tried to help her. This led to a relationship. In 1922, William Desmond Taylor was killed, 15 minutes after Normand left the house. Since the murder was never unraveled, Normand was suspected by the police. There was also speculation that Normand's cocaine sellers may have been involved, as Taylor had repeatedly helped her to get off her drug addiction and wanted to file charges against her suppliers. Many suspects of the murder are known but despite a confession of actress Margaret Gibson on her deathbed, the case is still open. Brownlow & Kobal in their book 'Hollywood: The Pioneers' claim there is no real proof of Normand's drug addiction and the idea that Taylor was murdered by drug dealers was invented by the studio for publicity purposes.
Mabel Normand became involved in another scandal when her driver Joe Kelly (also an ex-criminal) shot one of Normand's lovers with Normand's gun. Normand was hated by the media and in 1923, she decided to end her career. Still, she got a second chance when Hal Roach Studios offered her a contract in 1926. She received a lot of publicity, but her scandals from her past resurfaced and Normand's career was now definitively destroyed. In 1930, Mabel Normand died of tuberculosis at the age of 37. She was married in 1926 to actor Lew Cody (1884-1934), with whom she had appeared in the film Mickey (1918). Cody died four years after Normand because of a heart attack.
Sources: Wikipedia (Dutch, and English), and IMDb.
And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.
Tags: Mabel Normand Mabel Normand American Actress Actrice Hollywood Movie Star Film Star Cinema Cine Film Kino Picture Screen Movie Movies Filmster Star Vintage Postcard Carte Postale Cartolina Tarjet Postal Postkarte Postkaart Briefkarte Briefkaart Ansichtskarte Ansichtkaart M.B.S.C. Suzanna 1923 Mack Sennett Mack Sennett First National
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Vintage postcard by Estalante, no. 280. Photo: Mack Sennett Comedies. Collection: Marlene Pilaete.
Today, the last part of our 2020 quiz in which Marlene Pilaete a.k.a. La Collectionneuse lets us guess: Who's that lady?
Marlene selected 16 rare postcards from her collection for us. And yes, it's really difficult. So, Marlene helps us with one clue: all the ladies in the quiz have appeared in Hollywood films... And the actress to identify on this postcard is the one sitting on her bed and lacing her shoes, at the extreme left of the postcard.
Thanks for all your guesses. Tomorrow, 27 November, we will make a special La Collectionneuse post at European Film Star Postcards with all the cards, and the next day Marlene will finally reveal who the 16 ladies are. But first, you can guess who this lady at the left is.
Bob
Tags: Actress Actrice Film Star Cinema Cine Kino Film Picture Screen Movie Movies Filmster Star Vintage Postcard Carte Postale Cartolina Tarjet Postal Postkarte Postkaart Briefkarte Briefkaart Ansichtskarte Ansichtkaart Estalante Mack Sennett Comedies Mack Sennett
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