GLORIA SWANSON - Sunset Boulevard - Maybelline.

Paramount Star, Gloria Swanson, rocketed to stardom and was one of the most sought-after actresses in Hollywood. 

She appeared in Lash-Brow-Ine and Maybelline Ads during the Silent Film Era.

Gloria Swanson, endorsed Lash-Brow-Ine and Maybelline in the 1920's - acting as a role model for young women wary of appearing vain in public... just as women got the vote and Prohibition was enacted. 

During her heyday, audiences went to her films not only for her performances, but also to see her wardrobe. Frequently ornamented with beads, jewels, peacock and ostrich feathers, haute couture of the day or extravagant period pieces, one would hardly suspect that she was barely five feet (1.52 m) tall. Her fashion, hair styles, and jewels were copied around the world. She was the screen's first clothes horse and was becoming one of the most famous and photographed women in the world.

Best rememberd as Norma Desmond, in Sunset Boulevard - the greatest film ever made, about old Hollywood - Gloria Swanson, stands as an icon.

Many of the lines from the film have become pop-culture mainstays, and are often used to describe Swanson herself; among them: "The Greatest Star of them all," "I am big; it's the pictures that got small," "We didn't need dialogue, we had faces."

Click on video to see the last scene

 in Sunset Boulavard.

"All right, Mr. DeMille, I'm ready for my close up."

.Read more about Gloria Swanson and Maybelline, in - 
 The Maybelline Story.

Maybelline Targets the Flapper in the 1920's with film star Phyllis Haver.

       Why did Tom Lyle choose Phyllis Haver as a
                            Maybelline Model?

Phyllis Haver was one of the magic names during the Silent Film era and an original Mack Sennett bathing beauty.

The Sennett Bathing Beauties were pin-up girls for the doughboys during the First World War...... Phyllis Haver, starred in a series of top films and was known as the Nation's blond-darling during the teens and twenties of the twentieth century.  

"Her hair is a curly mass of golden corn silk. Her eyes are cerulean blue. Her teeth are perfect pearls. Her coloring is a Fort Valley Peach Festival," described a magazine writer of Haver. Other descriptions were, "Phyllis Haver's smile is coquettish and charming," "5' 6", 125 Ibs.," "picture of health," "skin like satin," and "her smile like peaches and cream  in her heyday.

Haver appeared on the covers of  Photoplay, Screenland. Motion Picture. Pathe Sun. Picture Play. and The Police Gazette.   She graced the cover of the sheet music, Singapore Lil, theme song for the Pathe motion picture production. Sal of Singapore, in which she starred. She, also, adorned calendars, matchbook covers, and postcards.

 I think you can see why Tom Lyle wanted Phyllis Haver as a Maybelline Model!  He wanted to target the Flappers in the 1920's and Phyllis Haver was had sex appeal.  

The Balloonatic (1923)  Catch a glimpse of Phyllis Haver with Buster Keaton in The Ballonaic, Click below.

http://www.archive.org/details/TheBalloonatic

She stared in Chicago a 1927 comedy-drama silent film produced by Cecil B. DeMille and directed by Frank Urson.

Phyllis Haver was in the ranks of Greta Garbo, Clara Bow, Colleen Moore, Delores Del Rio, Norma Talmadge, Conrad Nagel, Gloria Swanson, Wallace Beery, Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks, Norma Sheerer and Lon Chaney.

In 1924 She played on Broadway in Laurence Stallings and Maxwell Anderson's gritty WWI comedy-drama What Price Glory?  Haver played Shanghai Mabel.

She appeared in Up in Mabel's Room released in 1926, If there was ever a star with the kind of sex appeal Maybelline wanted to exude during the Roaring 20's Haver had it!

Stay tuned next week for more Maybelline Models, including "Sex Symbol" Jean Harlow and "It Girl" Clara Bow.

Cosmetic Kid Sharrie Williams interview on First Business - Chicago.

http://www.firstbusinessnews.com/videos.php?video=eca774c5ec2c4929991783061e0037e2

Please check out Sharrie Williams interview on First Business, called The Cosmetic Kid. 

All suntanned and ready to roll, The Cosmetic Kid, author Sharrie Williams digs into her Birthday cake.  "I'm ready for my closeup Mr. DeMille." - Gloria Swanson Wantabee.

Read more about Sharrie and the Maybelline family in her book The Maybelline Story and the Spirited Family Dynasty Behind It.  You can now buy an autographed copy of her book on maybellinestory.com. 

Sharrie will be signing books at Book Soup in Hollywood on Sunset Blvd on Feb 23 at 7:00 pm.

Sharrie will be at the Desert Classic Concourse d'Elegance Feb. 27th in La Quinta California showing their fathers classic Clenet Series 1. 

Sharrie is Tom Lyle Williams - founder of the Maybelline Co.'s great niece and Miss Maybelline Evelyn Williams granddaughter.