Dear Reader,
Research for my forthcoming novel, Sunshine: The Golden Age of Hollywood, Book Two.
Marie Meyer (January 17, 1899 – May 24, 1956) was a barnstorming pilot who ran the Marie Meyer Flying Circus in the 1920s. She participated in the Flying Circus as a pilot, a wing-walker and a parachutist.
📸 Marie wing-walking in 1924.
Clara Bow’s thirty-fourth movie was The Runaway, a melodrama produced between January 26, 1926 and February 27, 1926, and released on April 5, 1926.
Clara played Cynthia Meade, a movie star who erroneously assumes that she has murdered someone and consequently flees to Kentucky.
William Powell featured in the picture which, sadly, is now regarded as lost.
17th February 1802
From the Old Bailey website, my ancestors Thomas Brereton and his wife, Sarah, victims of grand larceny.
SUSANNAH SMITH was indicted for feloniously stealing, on the 22nd of January, a sheet, value 7s. and a blanket, value 4s. the property of Thomas Brereton.
SARAH BRERETON sworn – I am the wife of Thomas Brereton, who keeps a house in Rose and Crown-court, Shoe-lane: On Friday, the 22nd of January, about six o’clock, I was called out into the court, and met them bringing the prisoner back, she was a stranger to me; the things were brought back by Catharina Rowley.
CATHARINA ROWLEY sworn – I am a neighbour of Mrs. Brereton’s; I had been out, and coming home, in consequence of what Mrs. Young told me, I took the prisoner by the shoulder, and took from her a blanket and sheet, which I gave to Mrs. Brereton; it was pinned round her waist under a great long red cloak; she d – d (degraded) me for a b – h (bitch), and told me she had got none but her own property.
ELIZABETH YOUNG sworn – I lodge in Mr. Brereron’s house: On Friday, the 22nd of January, I met the prisoner about half past five in the afternoon, in Shoe-lane, I was going home; she said she had been in sits, and asked me to be so kind as to give her a drop of water; I took her to the door, and she said she was so faint, she could not stand, and followed me up stairs, and said, nothing would bring her too, unless it was a raw pickled herring, or a cucumber; I told her I was a stranger, and did not know where they hold them, and I gave her some porter that stood upon the table; then she said nothing would do but cold water; I told her I had none in the house, I would go down in the kitchen, and get her some; when I had got down stairs, I perceived her running out at the street-door; I had some mistrust, and I ran out after her, and stopped her, then she d – d (degraded) me, called me a b – h (bitch), and said, if I did not leave her alone, she would murder me; then I called out for assistance, and Catharina Rowley came up, and took the sheet and blanket from her.
Mrs. Brereton. These are my property; they were in Elizabeth Young’s room; it is a ready furnished room.
Young. I turned up the bed with these things upon it, while she was in the room.
Prisoner’s defence. I had been after a place; I was taken violently ill, and this woman pressed me very hard to go home with her, which I accordingly did; I asked her if she would have any thing to drink; she said she did not care if she did; I gave her a shilling, and she fetched a pot of porter; I was there three quarters of an hour, and she pressed me to come and see her the next Sunday; I asked her to see me part of my way home, and when we had got down the stairs, she said she must go back again, and she came out again with something in her hand; I did not see what it was; and when she had got into the court, she fell a screaming, and said, I had robbed her.
Q. (To Young.) Did she give you a shilling? – A. No.
Q. That you say, upon your oath? – A. Yes; and she had no porter, except some that my husband had left at dinner.
The prisoner called two witnesses, who gave her a good character.
GUILTY , aged 28. Transported for seven years.
London Jury, before Mr. Recorder.
Madeleine Carroll’s movie breakthrough arrived in 1927 with The Guns of Loos (released in 1928). A silent war film produced in Britain, the plot centres on a blind World War One veteran who returns home to run his family’s industrial empire.
Madeleine Carroll was selected from 150 applicants to play the role of Diana Cheswick, and her selection attracted a lot of media interest at the time.
Personal note: my ancestor Albert Charles Bick died on the first morning of the Battle of Loos. He was gassed by his own generals.
Madeleine Carroll was very quick to lend her name to health and beauty products. Health and beauty became a major theme in her life, as we shall see in future posts.
This item is from The Tatler, 14 December 1927, before the release of her first movie, The Guns of Loos.
Along with a number of other newspapers, The Sketch (28 December 1927) featured promotional photographs of Madeleine Carroll for her first movie, The Guns of Loos, and remarked that along with her B.A. from Birmingham University, stage career, promotional endorsements and a year spent teaching, she’d been signed to make more movies. She was 21, determined, focused and going places.
Hedy Lamarr was born Hedwig Eva Maria Kiesler on November 9, 1914 in Vienna, Austria-Hungary. From an early age, she developed a fascination for acting and inventing, two interests that dominated her life. She made her movie debut in Money on the Street a 1930 Austrian-German romantic-comedy, appearing as an extra.
After appearing as an extra in Money on the Street, Hedy Lamarr featured in three more German movies, all comedies: Storm in a Water Glass, The Trunks of Mr. O.F., a critique on capitalism, and No Money Needed. Hedy moved up the bill with each production. It was 1932 and she was about to make the movie that would transform her life…
1933 was a pivotal year for Hedy Lamarr. She made her fifth movie, Ecstasy (more about that in the future) and, on 10 August 1933 in Vienna, against her parents’ wishes, she married Friedrich Alexander Maria Mandl, an Austrian arms dealer with ties to Benito Mussolini and Adolf Hitler. The marriage was not a success (understatement).
November 1933 and Virgina Cherrill’s on-off affair with Cary Grant is still on-off. Virginia, the Blind Flower Girl in Charlie Chaplin’s City Lights, has escaped to Britain to be away from Cary Grant while Grant, determined to marry Virginia, has followed her. To complicate matters, Randolph Scott, Grant’s housemate, has arrived in London to “keep an eye” on Grant.
In London, Virgina is appearing in modest movies and stage productions. Nevertheless, as an actress and “society girl” she is constantly invited to London’s high society parties.
To the media, Virginia stated that she’s never had a part as good as the Blind Flower Girl, and she never would. Her acting career would remain low-key. Meanwhile, Cary Grant was on the brink of a major breakthrough in Hollywood.
At this time, there’s a Great Gatsby air to Virginia Cherrill and Cary Grant’s lives. He is obsessed with her, and she seems content to drift from one low-key role to another, from one high society party to the next one. And like the Great Gatsby, you know it’s going to end in tears.
The 1970s Mastodon Mega Movie Poll
Round One
Serpico 46% v 54% Murder on the Orient Express
All the President’s Men 83% v 17% The Great Gatsby
Saturday Night Fever 42% v 58% Grease
M*A*S*H 94% v 6% California Suite
Close Encounters of the Third Kind 29% v 71% Alien
The French Connection 66% v 34% Shaft
Cabaret 47% v 53% Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory
The Taking of Pelham 123 95% v 5% Charley Varrick
Jaws 73% v 27% Eraserhead
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As ever, thank you for your interest and support.
Hannah xxx
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