''Silent Star: Colleen Moore Talks About Her Hollywood'' (1968) is silent film star

Colleen Moore Colleen Moore (born Kathleen Morrison; August 19, 1899 – January 25, 1988) was an American film actress who began her career during the silent film era. Moore became one of the most fashionable (and highly-paid) stars of the era and helped po ...

's autobiography.

Overview

The book was written after the death of her third husband, Homer Hargrave. It was likely written with the help of Moore's friend

Adela Rogers St. Johns Adela Nora Rogers St. Johns (May 20, 1894 – August 10, 1988) was an American journalist, novelist, and screenwriter. She wrote a number of screenplays for silent movies but is best remembered for her groundbreaking exploits as "The World's Grea ...

. Moore is often either identified as "me" or "Colleen Moore," indicating more than one person wrote the captions in the book's photo captions. The book covered her life from birth until the point it was written, and was a "tell-all" in that she shattered many myths that had developed around her during her film career. Among the admissions Moore made in the book was that her break in films came as a result of her uncle Walter Howey cashing in debt owed him by

D. W. Griffith David Wark Griffith (January 22, 1875 – July 23, 1948) was an American film director. Considered one of the most influential figures in the history of the motion picture, he pioneered many aspects of film editing and expanded the art of the na ...

. She described her marriage to John McCormick (1893-1961) as rocky as a result of his alcoholism. Born in

Port Huron, Michigan Port Huron is a city in the U.S. state of Michigan and the county seat of St. Clair County. The population was 30,184 at the 2010 census. The city is adjacent to Port Huron Township but is administered separately. Located along the St. Clair ...

, Moore mentions that she had known she wanted to be a motion picture star from a very young age. She wrote that she kept a scrapbook of her favorite stars and left a few pages blank at the end for her own photographs. A year later, she would donate her own scrapbooks to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, where they are currently available for viewing by researchers at the Academy's Margaret Herrick Library. In the book, Moore gave her impressions on several of Hollywood’s biggest controversies, including: *the William Desmond Taylor murder (Moore had been on a double date with Mary Miles Minter before the murder); *the

Roscoe Arbuckle Roscoe Conkling "Fatty" Arbuckle (; March 24, 1887 – June 29, 1933) was an American silent film actor, comedian, director, and screenwriter. He started at the Selig Polyscope Company and eventually moved to Keystone Studios, where he worked ...

trials (Moore's uncle Walter Howey, a

Hearst Corporation Hearst Communications, Inc., often referred to simply as Hearst, is an American multinational mass media and business information conglomerate based in Hearst Tower in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. Hearst owns newspapers, magazines, televis ...

editor, had fanned public outrage against Arbuckle); *the suicide of

Paul Bern Paul Bern (born Paul Levy; December 3, 1889September 5, 1932) was a German-born American film director, screenwriter, and producer for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, where he became the assistant to Irving Thalberg. He helped launch the career of Jean Harlo ...

, husband of Jean Harlow, (Moore attended their wedding); and *the death of

Rudolph Valentino Rodolfo Pietro Filiberto Raffaello Guglielmi di Valentina d'Antonguolla (May 6, 1895 – August 23, 1926), known professionally as Rudolph Valentino and nicknamed The Latin Lover, was an Italian actor based in the United States who starred ...

(who Moore was never too impressed by). While she provides no information that wasn't already known about these scandals, she does recount her feelings about the events at the time. The book also spends some time constructing and tour of her dollhouse for charity before the Second World War. The dollhouse is currently on display at the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago.Marjory Adams, "Star of the 'Doll House'", ''The Boston Globe'', March 24, 1968, page 28A ''Silent Star'' was published by Doubleday & Company in 1968. The book 262 pages with many photographs and is currently out of print.

Footnotes

References

Colleen Moore research/history project pageColleen Moore's Fairy Castle

Bibliography

*Jeff Codori (2012), ''Colleen Moore; A Biography of the Silent Film Star'
McFarland Publishing
(Print , EBook ).

External links

The Colleen Moore Project
{{Authority control Autobiographies 1968 non-fiction books Doubleday (publisher) books