Social Register Locator & Observer
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Social Register Locator & Observer WINTER 2019 58 SOCIAL REGISTER OBSERVER WINTER 2019 Social Register Icon and Silent Star Still Speaking The Life of Colleen Moore, the World’s Most Famous Flapper By Pippa Biddle ocial Register, arguably all that trouble.” It is true that after insisted that she was born in 1902. Like the most provocative movie breaking out of the “nice girl” mold, much that is lost to time, we will prob- of 1934, declared on its Colleen was cast as a troublemaker. ably never know which account is true. posters that “High society Whether embodying the flapper or The young Kathleen moved fre- wasn’t high enough for this orchestrating a raucous gag, she always quently. She lived in Atlanta and Schorus girl!” Colleen Moore plays the had a thing for stealing scenes and get- Pennsylvania before her parents set- role of Patsy Shaw, a wild working-class ting laughs. But the Colleen Moore seen tled her, and her brother Cleeve, in girl who upsets the stuffy social order in theaters across America was not, she Tampa, FL, in 1911. In Tampa, the when a spoiled son falls in love with her said, the whole her. From the beginning, young girl grew into an aspiring actress. – to the great frustration of his family. Colleen Moore was a business run by a She would go to the Bijou Theater on Chaos, expectedly, ensues. What remains young girl, then woman, named Kathleen Fridays after school and the Strand of the film is as mesmerizing as her life. Morrison, who at the height of her career Theater, which would later premiere On the front flap of her memoir, earned a million dollars a year from her the movie, Social Register, on Saturday Silent Star: Colleen Moore Talks about films on the eve of the Depression. afternoons. When she wasn’t watching Her Hollywood (1968), author F. Scott Colleen Moore was born Kathleen the newest films, she was writing fan Fitzgerald is quoted as writing, “I was Morrison on August 19 in Port Huron, letters and building scrapbooks full of the spark that lit up Flaming Youth. MI, to Agnes Kelly Morrison and Charles cutout pictures of Mary Pickford and Colleen Moore was the torch. What Morrison. We know, as did all of her fans, J. Warren Karrigan, dreaming about get- little things we are to have caused that she was born with heterochromia, ting in front of the camera herself. one blue eye and one brown eye, because It was an exciting time for film. By they remained that way her entire life. 1915, production companies had flocked Left: Original and rare “Social Register” (1934), movie window card with Strand Theatre premiere Her birth year, however, is an unknown. to Southern California for its reliable sun dates. From Social Register archives. While census records show a girl with and mellow weather after trying Florida her name, born to parents with her par- and Cuba, but discovering hurricane ent’s names, on August 19, 1899, Colleen season. “Hollywood” was forming—not WINTER 2019 SOCIAL REGISTER OBSERVER 59 would attract strong crowds. “Moore,” because it would fit on a marquee. With a new name and a contract, the newly dubbed “Colleen” packed her bags and boarded a train with her grandmother, who would stay with her in Hollywood, and mother, who would remain just long enough for her to settle in. Her parents had decided that a big family move wasn’t necessary. Her school was to send her coursework, and in six months she’d be home in her own bed. They had yet to realize that the little girl who wanted to be on the silver screen had just taken her first steps on the road to stardom. In many ways, the first few years of Colleen’s career are a typical stardom story, at least for the time. Girl wants to act, girl gets a break through family connections, and she manages to make the most of it. Most of the actresses she worked alongside had followed a similar trajectory. The number of people there as a favor to someone else, she remem- bered, was astonishing. It was as if all of Hollywood was stocked with powerful people’s favorite nieces. As the fresh young faces without experience but with contracts to fulfill, it was normal for actresses like Colleen to be assigned roles without having any say in the process. And so, she accumulated bit parts and spent all day at the studio even if she didn’t have a job, just in case Above: Original autographed letter reaching out to Kathleen arrived in Hollywood in they’d need her for something. Gradu- a theatre owner, and signed by Colleen Moore, on 1917, but her big break had nothing to ally, she was picked for bigger parts in December 17, 1924, on her personal stationery. From Social Register archives. do with her acting. As she would later which she was able to build her acting say, it was one of two gifts from her uncle, chops and hone her comedic timing, Chicago newspaperman Walter Howey. something she would become known for just the place, but the fantasy, too. Bigger In exchange for pulling political even when playing dramatic roles. movie houses fought for the spare change strings on behalf of D.W. Griffith, Howey It was an era when machines in working-class people’s pockets, push- got his beloved niece a six-month movie ran, conveyor belts turned, and stars ing out small theaters. Movies were contract with Griffith’s Triangle Film were manufactured more often than silent, of course, but they came out con- Corporation. As a parting gift, he gave discovered. stantly and in enormous volume, always the young Kathleen Morrison one more The road had bumps, of course. offering a fresh face and a new romantic thing—a stage name: Colleen Moore. Hollywood was new and production lead to swoon over. “Colleen,” because a good Irish name companies had a propensity to be 60 SOCIAL REGISTER OBSERVER WINTER 2019 short-lived. Money flooded in and then up, but embodying dried up, and Colleen often had to get the flapper aesthetic creative, especially after her six-month that she would help contract was terminated early as Grif- to popularize took a fith’s business began to go under. Her bit longer. When, in first starring role, the titular character a 1922 interview for in Little Orphant Annie (1918), an early Motion Picture Maga- version of the iconic Annie film and play, zine, reporter Gordon wasn’t even for Griffith’s Triangle Film Gassaway asked if she Corporation, but for Selig Polyscope. was a flapper, already a Selig would itself become insolvent burgeoning movement shortly before Little Orphant Annie was among women her released. It was absorbed by the Film Fox age, her answer was Corporation, and the cogs of Hollywood straightforward. kept on turning. All Colleen could do “Well, I don’t roll was continue taking one step at a time, a my stockies, I don’t reel of film tucked under her arm. swear—much, and I do The Victorian Era had ended in 1901 not smoke cigarettes and the Edwardian period had been cut or a pipe or anything. short by the outbreak of World War I, I don’t drink cock- but the strict constraints both periods tails, and you know my put on women took longer to slough off. mother won’t let me By 1920, young women across the coun- bob my hair, so I guess try were sick of the long hair and longer I don’t qualify.” hemlines older generations demanded, She had started and the scissors started coming out. tucking her long hair Since age 16, Colleen had been under, though, mimicking the short Above: “The Perfect Flapper” (1924). Starring Colleen Moore with her iconic Flapper bobbed playing adult romantic roles, but her hairstyle that, according to a June 27, hairstyle. perceived (and, according to her, real) 1920, New York Times article, had a innocence is what they were trying to way of making women more “kittenish, bottle up and sell, even as she approached playful”—it granted freedom. would play on repeat throughout their and hit her twenties. As society was shift- It was in 1923 that Colleen signed seven-year marriage. ing, she was still portraying an ideal of her contract with First National as one And, with her mom’s encourage- womanhood that was rapidly being left of eight leading players. She had already ment, a quick turnaround from her 1922 behind. earned respect on set for her comedic insistence that she was against short hair, In that vacuum, the flapper girl work, but now she would have more say Moore bit the bullet and chopped off her emerged. The term “flapper” originated in what she worked on, what was filmed, long curls before a screen test for Flaming in Great Britain as young women began and what ended up on the cutting room Youth. Whereas before she’d be feign- wearing rubber galoshes left open to flap floor—a power amplified by the fact that ing the look of the time, now she was as they walked. Flapper girls deviated scripts in the silent film era were mostly embracing it. “I felt as if I’d been emanci- from society’s norm, dressing in their own rough outlines with huge opportunities pated,” she later wrote. “It was becoming. style, including short dresses and bobbed for improvisation. More important, it worked.” haircuts, their faces heavily made up with She also married John McCormick The 1923 film Flaming Youth would lipstick, rouge, and mascara.