Hollywood in the 1920s: stars, scandals and the end of silent films

When were the first silent films produced?

On 24 August 1891, American inventor Thomas Edison, who had already seen success with the telegraph and light bulb, stretched science that little bit further when he successfully manufactured the Kinetograph (a motion picture camera) and the Kinetoscope (a peep-hole motion picture viewer). The financial potential of Edison’s inventions, which built on innovations such as the Lumière Brothers’ Cinématographe, was quickly realised. And so the silent era began, and flourished through the turn of the century, a world war, and into the 1920s.

“You’ve got various kinds of technological innovations that make the mass transportation of cinema possible,” says cultural and literature historian Sarah Churchwell on an episode of the HistoryExtra podcast. “That exploded in the early 1920s.”

People flocked to watch these silent films. It is important to note that this definition of ‘silent’ can be misinterpreted: in the earliest days, screenings were accompanied by a phonograph recording of music; then as movie theatres became more established, pianists and organists were hired to play during the film. In some of the larger cities, a full orchestra would provide the score.

Edison dominated the industry, owning most of the patents to motion pictures and receiving fees from those who wished to screen films in the United States. This influence only increased further when he founded the Motion Picture Patents Company. Often referred to as the Edison Trust, it had strict rules: those screening a film could only use patented equipment, run for no more than 20 minutes, and were unable to show film credits.

Soon, there was pushback to Edison’s tactics. Smaller companies, such as Majestic Films and Famous Players, successfully fought him on his strict laws, and his company was sold in 1918. What’s more, until this point many movies had been made around New York and Chicago, but from around 1908 filmmakers began relocating to southern California, drawn to the cheaper land and a climate that allowed for filming to carry on all year around. This prompted a monumental change as the world’s film capital moved from Fort Lee, in New Jersey, to the west coast of the US and a spot that would become Hollywood.

What was the reaction to the move to California?

Until the film companies showed up and replaced a landscape of rolling fields and orchards with sprawling studio lots and sets, Hollywood was a farming town.

Film historian Mark Glancy discussed this transformation on the HistoryExtra podcast, saying it was “far flung from the rest of the United States at the turn of the century. Los Angeles was a small city then and it was several days travelling time from the east coast.”

Not every local was excited to be so near to the magic of the movies, either. Resentment simmered as the area of Los Angeles changed, and there was a lot of anger towards the most visible faces of the industry – the stars. Some shops and cafes began displaying signs declaring, ‘No Dogs or Actors Allowed’.

That did not dissuade swathes of people from making the move. Hollywood was quickly becoming the place to be if you wanted to be make it in film. American actors such as Gloria Swanson (b1899), Mary Pickford (b1892), and Clara Bow (see below) would make their names in the silent films of the 1920s, joined by the likes of Gary Cooper (b1901) John Gilbert (see below) and the British actor Charlie Chaplin (b1889).

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Before this move, Glancy said the film industry was “much more disparate and spread-out”, but at Hollywood it became “much more centralised around several companies”. These included Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Paramount Pictures, 20th Century Fox and Warner Bros.

What were the characteristics of silent films?

Since the pictures playing out on screen did not have sound, other elements had to be utilised in order to keep audiences entertained. Films produced in this era often featured intertitles – a card with words on it that punctuated the action – to narrate plot points or provide occasional piece of dialogue.

The acting was far more emphatic too, as expressions were vital in understanding what feelings the actors were portraying. Compared to the subtleties and nuances of screen acting today, there were far fewer differences between acting in a film than on a stage in the theatre, where there was a need to emote to the back of the room. In the 1950 hit Sunset Boulevard, the embittered and deluded silent-film star Norma Desmond (played by Gloria Swanson) captures this when she declares: “We didn’t need dialogue. We had faces!”

The scandals that rocked 1920s Hollywood

Among the most infamous of the sensational news stories that came out of Hollywood was the murder, in 1922, of William Desmond Taylor. The director of dozens of silent films was found dead in his Los Angeles bungalow, with bullet wounds in his back. What’s more, a group of actors, actresses and studio executives were present at the scene, rummaging through Taylor’s belongings. The murder, which remains unsolved to this day, became a nationwide cause célèbre.

The previous year, another death had rattled the industry: model and actress Virginia Rappe had fallen ill at a party held by Roscoe ‘Fatty’ Arbuckle – the highest-paid film star in the country, with a $3 million contract with Paramount – and died four days later. The cause was a ruptured bladder and secondary peritonitis, which Rappe’s close friend Bambina Maude Delmont testified was the result of a violent sexual assault by Arbuckle.

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The story spread around Hollywood, and Delmont toured the country sharing stories of great evils in the film industry. Statements such as these enlightened the public to the sordid details of some on the silver screen, so much so that by the mid-1920s, Hollywood’s scandals were regularly making daily features in newspapers.

Even Charlie Chaplin, perhaps the most famous face from the silent film era, was caught up in the maelstrom. Although beloved for his moustachioed and dishevelled character, The Tramp, he had a highly controversial personal life. Two of his four wives were under 18 years old when he married them; the divorce document compiled for his second, Lita Gray, provided damning accounts of his abusive behaviour and seduction of her whilst she was underage.

Beyond individual accounts, the wider lifestyle in the 1920s industry shaped the Hollywood lifestyle as we might imagine it today. While outwardly supportive of Prohibition, many successful actors spent their high wages on drugs and alcohol behind closed doors. Soon, newspapers were brandishing stories of actors being admitted to sanatoriums and some, including Wallace Reid and Barbara La Marr, died from addiction.

Scandals did not do Hollywood’s reputation any favours, and soon actors had ‘moral turpitude clauses’ included in their contracts. According to Forbes, the movie studio Universal outlined this as “anything tending to degrade you in society or bring you into public hatred, contempt, scorn or ridicule, or tending to shock, insult or offend the community or outrage public morals or decency”.

What happened when the pressure became too much?

Away from the scandals and headlines, the pressures of living a Hollywood life were tricky for anyone to contend with, let alone the performers who entered the film industry at a young age or those who never got their big break.

In 1932, the 24-year-old actress Peg Entwistle ended her life by jumping from the ‘H’ of the Hollywood sign. She had been struggling to get roles and RKO Pictures had not renewed her contract. A hiker discovered her body and found a note in her purse that read: “I am afraid I am a coward. I am sorry for everything. If I had done this a long time ago, it would have saved a lot of pain.”

Jean Harlow, feted as the original ‘blonde bombshell’, similarly died at a young age. Her mother had been a failed actor, so pushed Jean to become one in her place. Her original name was Harlean Carpenter, but took her mother’s name in her career. She went to the Hollywood School for Girls, but left at 16 when she eloped with 23-year-old Charles McGrew. They divorced just two years later, just as her career was taking off.

Over the next decade, Harlow starred in 43 films. Meanwhile, tragedies and issues plagued her private life: her second husband, MGM executive Paul Bern, was presumed to have taken his own life; and she divorced her third, Harold Rosson, within a year. It was when she was about to get married for the fourth time that she became dangerously ill. Her drinking, and already weakened state caused by meningitis and scarlet fever during childhood, led to Harlow being diagnosed with uremic poisoning. She died at the age of 26.

Did the rise of the ‘talkies’ kill the careers of silent stars?

There is a belief that many film stars, like John Gilbert, watched on helplessly as their time in the spotlight was snatched away as the ‘talkies’ took over.

Certainly, it was a different artform to contend with: for one, directors could no longer talk as the cameras rolled, so there was less guidance than during filming in the silent era.

However, Mark Glancy told HistoryExtra that the belief we have about this transition is largely a myth perpetuated by blockbuster films like Singing in the Rain (1952). “This idea that Lina Lamont [a silent film star played by Jean Hagen], with her screeching voice, was typical of silent stars who couldn’t survive the transition to talkies.”

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It did “ruin a few careers”, he adds, “but it wasn’t the kind of overwhelming change that it’s sometimes portrayed to be.”

What other challenges did Hollywood in this era face?

Beyond the strains within the Hollywood machinery itself, the film industry was not immune to factors outside of the California hills. The most damaging was the stock market crash on in October 1929, which brought about the Great Depression and ruined millions of people in the US. Film investors were among them.

Abram F Myers, chairman of the Allied States Association of Motion Picture Exhibitors, said in a 1932 edition of Film Daily: “The motion picture business is neither depression-proof nor fool-proof.”

The situation only became worse. In March 1933, President Franklin D Roosevelt issued Proclamation 2039 – the order to stop all banking transactions immediately. This was the case for a week, and, in response, film studios cut the salaries of most of their production workers by 50 percent. When the banks reopened, the cuts remained, leading many film industry employees to feel that they had been taken advantage of. Trade unions formed in response: the Screen Writers Guild in April 1933, followed by the Screen Actors Guild.

In 1954, the Screen Writers Guild approved to form a national union for a broader cohort of writers across not only film, but television and radio too. They then formed two separate bodies, becoming the Writers Guild of America, West and Writers Guild of America, East. These unions still exist today.

What is the legacy of this period in Hollywood’s history?

Within a decade, Hollywood transformed from a small farming town to the centre of tabloid speculation and scandal.

A place where dreams were made, and crushed, Hollywood had a pull like no other. It is no wonder this golden age continues to hold such fascination nearly a century on – after all, people still flock to the bright lights today. Some will make it while others fall short; a sad history that has repeated itself and will continue to do so, as long as actors grace the silver screen.