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Silent Stars
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by Jeanine Basinger
Wesleyan University Press
Due/Published
November 2000, 510 pages,
paper
ISBN
0819564516
New in paper (F00) Basinger offers a look at the greatest silent film stars -- not those few who are fully appreciated and understood, like Chaplin, Keaton, Gish, and Garbo, but those who have been misrepresented, unfairly dismissed, or forgotten. Included are Valentino, who was hardly the effeminate lounge lizard he's been branded; Mary Pickford, who couldn't have been further from the adorable little creature with golden ringlets that was her film persona; Marion Davies, unfairly pilloried in Citizen Kane; the original "Phantom" and "Hunchback," Lon Chaney; the beautiful Talmadge sisters, Norma and Constance. Here also are the great divas, Pola Negri and Gloria Swanson; the great flappers, Colleen Moore and Clara Bow; the great cowboys, William S. Hart and Tom Mix; and the great lover, John Gilbert. Basinger also includes the quintessential slapstick comedienne, Mabel Normand, with her Keystone Kops; the quintessential all-American hero, Douglas Fairbanks; and, of course, (not to be outdone) the quintessential all-American dog, Rin-Tin-Tin. "Basinger is the perfect guide to movies, passionate, savvy, discerning, funny, not only in love with her subject, but able to convey the reasons for her enthusiasm." -- Los Angeles Times "Basinger's fascinating, evocative and at times provocatively revisionist 'Silent Stars' measures the distance between celebrity and fame, and restores key early movie idols to their proper depth of field . . . She has hunted down and screened hundreds of extant silent movie prints . . . This buttresses her critical insights, allowing her to report in meticulous and convincing detail how each star's films present more sides and talents than we were aware of." -- New York Times Book Review Contents Acknowledgments
Introduction
Mary Pickford
Mabel and the Kops
Douglas Fairbanks
Sisters: The Talmadges, Norma and Constance
Cowboys: William S. Hart and Tom Mix
Women of the World: Gloria Swanson and Pola Negri
Rudolph Valentino
Marion Davies
Lon Chaney
John Gilbert
Flappers: Colleen Moore and Clara Bow
Rin-Tin-Tin
Coda: Garbo Talks
Bibliography
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