Maybelline founder Tom Lyle Williams

Showing posts with label Hollywood studio system. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Hollywood studio system. Show all posts

Carole Lombard and Fred MacMurray star in 1938 film, True Confession, introducing "Miss Typical America" Eleanor Fisher.




Here is an example of how the Hollywood Studio/Star System worked in the 1930's.  Paramount Studio's promoted True Confession, a 1937 screwball comedy film starring Carole LombardFred MacMurray, and John Barrymore, by running a "Miss Typical America" contest in a Maybelline advertisement.  The winner, Eleanor Fisher is given a small part in the film and the big teen story is splashed in True Confession magazine.

Eleanor Fisher, now Miss True Confession as well as Miss Typical America has not only become a Maybelline Model, she has a chance of becoming a Movie Star.


Eleanor Fisher and Fred MacMurray in a publicity shot for True Confessions magazine, promoting themselves, the film,  Paramount Studios, Carole Lombard and director Wesley Ruggles, which is a what it's all about in Hollywood.


This article in True Confessions Magazine, promotes make-up artist Max Factor, transforming Eleanor Fisher, from a simple school girl into a glamorous actress ready for her closeup with Carole Lombard. 

 True Confession.
Lombard's career had been flying high since the release of Twentieth Century in 1934, which had begun her friendship with Barrymore. Although Barrymore, by 1937, had become an uncontrollable alcoholic and his career was severely fumbling, Lombard personally requested him for the role of Charley Jasper.


Helen and Ken are a pretty strange couple. She is a pathological liar, and he is a scrupulously honest (and therefore unsuccessful) lawyer... See full summary »


This poster was painted by the famous Pin-Up artist Zoe Mozart, who's work was known for being glamorous and sexy, it was perfect for ad campaigns for cosmetics such as Maybelline and for Hollywood films. In 1937 Zoe was hired by Paramount Pictures to create this poster for   


Cover also painted by Zoe Mozart.  Carole Lombard appeared in the February 1938 True Confessions Magazine, which came out at the same time as the film was being shown at neighborhood movie houses.

In the end, the film was not a great success and Eleanor Fisher went back to being anonymous.  However the Hollywood Studio-Star System was great as far as publicity was concerned. Maybelline sold truck loads of mascara, the Stars added more luster to their famous names and Paramount continued to be an ever expanding movie factory. So I guess in this instance, I can't say anything bad about The System, because there's actually no such thing as bad publicity... Why?...

because it's still PUBLICITY.

SEXY GLAMOR SHOT OF MAYBELLINE MODEL MARJORIE WOODWORTH - HAND SIGNED BY HER - HAL ROACH PLAYER



I found this fabulous picture of Marjorie Woodworth on Ebay for $59.00 if you are interested please click to view.

In 1938, leggy 15 year old Marjorie Woodworth was an extra, playing a baton twirler in Twentieth Century Fox'  Alexander's Ragtime Band. In 1941 Hal Roach Studios,  groomed her to be the next Blond Bombshell...the likes of Jean Harlow, (who died in 1936.)  But in 1939 when Fox-Girl, Betty Grable with her million dollar legs, singing and dancing talent, rose to stardom, Marjorie became just another pretty face on the B-movie Queen circuit. 



Marjorie was a favorite Pin Up Girl with the Soldiers during WW ll and received telegrams and hundreds of pieces of fan mail mainly from lovesick soldiers fighting in WWII. http://www.ioffer.com/i/marjorie-woodworth-original-hal-roach-photo-broadway-ld-169023824


The Studio's called my great uncle, Tom Lyle Williams
 and asked him to do a series of Maybelline ads featuring Marjorie... hoping the PR might strengthen her fan base.  The teen-market loved her and she sold a ton of Maybelline Mascara, but that's about all that became of the big splash.


Marjorie Woodworth Personal Collection

. Click to view.  
Born: June 5th, in Los Angeles, California.Died:
 August 23, 2000 (age 77) in Inglewood, Los Angeles, California, USA.

  Hal Roach discovered what most of Hollywood already knew: Stars aren't made, they're born and even though Marjorie had that California Girl glow and exuded plenty
of sex appeal, she didn't have the talent to take
 her to the top. 

Marjorie Woodworth, 1942

Typecast only as an ingenue ruined her chances of becoming box office star. This was common with so many beautiful young starlets, caught up in the Hollywood Studio/Star System.  Marjorie resembled Alice Faye and Betty Grable, but didn't have the Star Quality the Studio needed to bank role her.
( Click to see post on Betty Grable.)


They promoted her in Movie magazines...being
 seen with Hollywood's biggest male stars...They 
spent money on her clothes, acting lessons,
 grooming, singing and dancing lessons...but
 when it didn't pay off she faded from public view.

 

Broadway Limited.



All-American Co-Ed (DVD) Comedy (1941) 53 Minutes ~ Starring: Frances Langford, Johnny Downs, Marjorie Woodworth, Noah Beery Jr., Esther Dale ~ Directed By: LeRoy Prinz Movie Poster


Today few people remember Marjorie Woodworth, but today there seems to be a serge of renewed interest.

PAULETTE GODDARD AND "HOLLYWOOD'S PHOTOGRAPHIC ZIEGFELD" PAUL HESSE,

Paul  Hesse’s fascinating career mirrors the rise and fall of the Hollywood studio system and you can trace the history of photography through his work. His photos present Hollywood as a mythical and slightly surreal place where blemish free beauties with perfect teeth smile endlessly for our pleasure. The Hollywood fantasy that Paul Hesse helped create is still being used to sell movie tickets today but it has lost some of its luster.....
                 Old Movies Nostalgia.





Paulette Goddard best known for her film performances 

and her marriage to Charlie Chaplin and Burgess 

Meredith.  You can see the meticulous attention to detail

and use of lighting in this photograph.  Hesse  

selected his models clothing, created the scene and  

assisted in the makeup. When a Maybelline ad was 

being shot, Tom Lyle Williams, Emery Shaver and 

Arnold Anderson were also present, making sure 

Maybelline's Brand was perfectly presented.





A child fashion model - Paulette Goddard moved to Broadway as a Ziegfeld Girl, performing the elaborate Ziegfeld Follies productions. Goddard went on to become a major star of the Paramount Studios and was  one of Tom Lyle's favorite Maybelline model's throughout the 1940s.



"Glamour photography started to lose its appeal when the powerful Hollywood studio system that had been in place for decades began to crumble. Major studios were no longer interested in grooming young stars or signing long-term contracts with them." From the blog, Old Movies Nostalgia.






Charlie Chaplin and his wife Paulette Goddard.




    ANOTHER WORD FOR GLAMOUR WAS MAYBELLINE.

I argue that glamour is an enticing and seductive image that is woven around people places and things to make them seem more magnificent than they really are. It rests on a series of values including beauty, wealth, sex appeal, mobility, theatricality, dynamism and leisure. The most effective bearers of glamour in the last two hundred years have not been aristocrats or the established rich, but those, like Otero, who were outsiders who rose from nothing by sheer determination and force of personality. They captured the dreams of the masses with an aura that combined exclusivity with accessibility. In the twentieth century the major motion picture studios would learn how to manufacture this aura as a corporate product linked to consumption.
Learn more about Glamour: A History at the Oxford University Press website. Visit Stephen Gundle's faculty webpage.


Paulette Goddard

"A WOMAN'S GREATEST POSSESSION IS A 

MAN'S IMAGINATION." 

Quote by, TOM LYLE WILLIAMS.....MAYBELLINE.


Read more about Tom Lyle Williams and the  Stars who appeared in Maybelline's glamorous color ads in.....

The Maybelline Story and the Spirited Family Dynasty 

Behind It.

Maybelline's first, "Big-Screen" sex symbol, Jean Harlow.

Pioneer of the Hollywood Studio System and Star System,  Jean Harlow, a product of that System, comes alive Thomas Ince, book about her life.






Harlow in Hollywood: The Blonde Bombshell in the Glamour Capital, 1928-1937, by Darrell Rooney and Mark A. Vieira (Angel City Press).  Harlow in Hollywood is the story of how a town and an industry created her, a story that's never been told before.  Buy in on Amazon

Jean Harlow, known as the “Blonde Bombshell,” was the earliest and most popular of the sex symbols–the 1930s incarnation of Marilyn Monroe.




Thomas Ince: Hollywood's Independent Pioneer, by Brian Taves (University Press of Kentucky).

  Want to know how, when and were, the Hollywood Studio System, and Star System began?  It all started with Thomas Ince.  Buy it on Amazon.



The Maybelline Story is available on kindle, at Amazon,  and on the Nook at Barnes and Noble.   Buy it today.




More new books out about Old Hollywood and it's Stars.


John Huston: Courage and Art, by Jeffrey Meyers (Crown Archetype)



Myrna Loy: The Only Good Girl in Hollywood, by Emily W. Leider (University of California Press)


Pauline Kael: A Life in the Dark, by Brian Kellow (Viking)


Raoul Walsh: The True Adventures of Hollywood's Legendary Director, by Marilyn Ann Moss (University Press of Kentucky)


The Rise and Fall of Lou-Tellegen, by David W. Menefee (Menefee Publishing)


Spencer Tracy: A Biography, by James Curtis (Knopf)


Syd Chaplin: A Biography, by Lisa K. Stein (McFarland)

Wally: The True Wallace Reid Story, by David W. Menefee (BearManor Media)



Also just out, and so new there hasn't been time to review it is Francis X. Bushman: In His Own Words



 Tom Lyle Williams can also make claim to being a part of The Hollywood Star System, helping create Stars out of Starletts, by promoting them in his Maybelline ads.


Tom Lyle Williams,

Read his story in THE MAYBELLINE STORY AND THE SPIRITED FAMILY DYNASTY BEHIND IT.