Tribute to Irene Rich, 1927 Maybelline Model - Silent Film and Radio Star

Irene Rich was a glamorous actress who played Will Rogers' nagging wife in 1930s films and read radio's World War II-era "Dear John" letters.

She was a San Francisco real estate agent before she got her first movie job as an extra in Mary Pickford's "Stella Maris" in 1918.

Soon, she had graduated to starring roles in silent melodramas, usually portraying mature women of the world, and in short films with Rogers.

By the late 1920s and early 1930s, she was playing Will Rogers' wife in talkies, including "They Had to See Paris," "So This is London" and "Down to Earth."

From 1933 to 1945, she was a popular radio star, reading "Dear John" letters to introduce and close Sunday-night episodes on the Welch's Grape Juice program.

The term "Dear John" became soldiers' slang for mail from a lover breaking off a romance.

Later, Rich appeared in 21 Warner Bros. movies—including "Lady Windermere's Fan" in 1925, "Craig's Wife" in 1928 and "The Champ" in 1931. She also performed in several Broadway shows.

Actress

Born Irene Luther on Oct. 13, 1891 in Buffalo, N.Y.

Died April 22, 1988 in Santa Barbara, CA

She retired from show business after her fourth marriage, to George H. Clifford, in 1950.

— Judy Pasternak in the Los Angeles Times April 25, 1988

Mary Pickford, 1917, Poor Little Rich Girl appeared same year as Maybelline mascara's debut

Maybelline made it's leap into the public eye in 1917 when silent film star Mary Pickford ruled the industry.  American women praised Pickford for being a virtuous childlike Bride with no identity of her own.

Click below to see what Tom Lyle was up against trying to convince women to buy Maybelline, make up their eyes and flaunt beauty on the street.

Read more about the silent film industry and Maybelline as it broke into the female psyche pre WW1, in The Maybelline Story. Available in large print and for your Kindle  click.

“Once you become a star, you are always a star!” Maybelline Girl, Mae Murray, rose to fame during the silent film era and was known as "The Girl with the Bee-Stung Lips" and "The Gardenia of the Screen"

"One of the many Beautiful Stage and Screen Stars who wear and highly recommend Maybelline Beauty Aids''.

May Murray appeared in this Maybelline ad while starring with Rudolph Valentino in The Delicious Little Devil in 1919. 

Purchase this Comedy/The Delicious Little Devil (1919) DVD

The Delicious Little Devil is a silent film drama/comedy produced by Universal Film Manufacturing Company in 1919 stars Mae Murray and features a "pre-star" Rudolph Valentino. Purchase the card at Silent Cinema Inc. lobby card

Mae Murray: The Girl with the Bee-Stung Lips (Screen Classics) (Hardcover) The real-life silent screen queen of the 20s was defined, not only by her screen allure, but also by her fabrications, her fictions, her pretenses, her litigiousness and her decidedly odd behavior.

she was once "The Merry Widow," or a hardworking professional silent screen actress who got lost in her own publicity.

Mae Murray could not let go of the fantasy that Hollywood had and it destroyed any hope of her leading a normal life out of the spotlight.

 Murray's life could be the model for Norma Desmond in Sunset Boulevard.  She was a Ziegfeld Girl, a successful dancer and a successful Silent Film movie queen. 

Click on the video and enjoy Maybelline's beautiful

Movie Legend, Mae Murray.

Why is it that so many of these Silent Film Stars lives in so tragically? Mae Murray's sad ending.

When the Talkies took over many turned to Alcohol and died young like Mary Eaton.

Thank you for following the Maybelline Book Blog.

THE LORETTA YOUNG SHOW TRANSFORMED WOMEN'S ROLES.

The Loretta Young Show, put women front stage and center, and created a vehicle for Maybelline to reach a larger target market in the 1950's.

The Loretta Young Show ran from 1953 to 1961. Her trademark was to come through a door dramatically at the beginning in various high fashion evening gowns.

Maybelline capitalized on Loretta Young's fashionable image.... with a series of ads that illustrated her persona..... and affirmed postwar ideas, that true happiness, was possible, within the domestic/heterosexual

sphere of the middle-class home.

The Lorette Young, TV series, worked through the image of the glamorous Hollywood star, and would forever remain a phenomenon of 1950s television, the period in which the Hollywood studio system that had created larger-than-life stars came to a close.

Her program ran in prime time on NBC for eight years, the longest-running prime-time network program hosted by a woman up to that time.

In 1988, she was awarded the Women in Film Crystal Award. for outstanding women who, through their endurance and the excellence of their work, have helped to expand the role of women within the

entertainment industry.

Young was married to actor Grant Withers from 1930 to 1931. After that she was involved in affairs with Spencer Tracy and Clark Gable and in 1935 had Gable's child, a daughter.

View video of "The Loretta Young Show" US TV series (1953--61.)


Read all about Maybelline's influence on Women's culture in the 1950s, in my book, The Maybelline Story and the Spirited Family Dynasty Behind It.

Glamour during the Golden Age of Hollywood.

Maybelline was synonymous with Hollywood Glamour in the 1930s.

Before and After Maybelline ad, with Paulette Goddard.

Carole Lombard, one of Tom Lyle's favorites.

Betty Grable, Maybelline Star.

Paulette Goddard, a personal friend of T L Williams.

Gloria Swanson, a Maybelline model from the 1920s.

Jean Harlow, another Maybelline model, Tom Llye, helped groom.

Marion Valle' brought fashion and Maybelline together.

Maybelline box, in the 1930s.

Black and white Maybelline ads, appeared in all the Hollywood gossip magazines.

Typical Maybelline ad found in Photoplay.

Tom Lyle Williams, with his son Tom Lyle Jr in 1934.

Read all about the Golden Age of Hollywood in The Maybelline Story and the Spirited Family Dynasty Behind It. 

Happy 2012 from Sharrie Williams and The Maybelline Story

Happy New Year!!!!  I'm starting 2012 off with Erte's fabulous, 1920's Art Deco illustrations, and pictures of the most beautiful girls in the world!!!

I found this incredible Fresco painted in 1927, on a wall at the Hassayampa Inn, in down town Prescott, Arizona.  It captures the Erte, Art Deco era, just as women were coming out of their shell and making a statement, by wearing Maybelline for the first time. 

Between 1915–1937, Erte designed over 200 covers for Harper's Bazaar, and his illustrations appear in

 such publications, as Illustrated London News, Cosmopolitan, Ladies' Home Journal and Vogue.  Interesting fact, Lash-Brow-Ine and Maybelline, first appeared in these magzines at the same time.       

His delicate figures and sophisticated, glamorous designs are instantly recognisable, and his ideas and art still influence fashion into the 21st century. His costumes, programme designs, and sets were featured in the Ziegfeld Follies of 1923.

Tom Lyle Williams also captured the spirit of Art Deco, in his exquisite, Lash-Brow-Ine, and Maybelline Ads in the 1920s. This one features Gloria Swanson,

the Queen of Silent Films, Art Deco Era.

Erte Clip, click on Video

Stay tuned this week, for more interesting, vintage Hollywood news.   Wishing all  my followers, from the 99 countries, who have checked into the Maybelline Blog, a Happy, Healthy and Prosperous 2012!!! 

MISTY ROWE STARRING IN GOODBYE NORMA JEAN 1976

Misty Rowe as Marilyn Monroe

filmed at my father Bill Williams home in 1975, at Casa de Guillermo, Palm Springs California.

My father, Bill Williams with Misty Rowe, Ernie Quarantello, and his cousin Noel A. Williams.  Taken during the filming of Goodbye Norma Jean, at Bill's Palm Springs estate, Casa de Guillermo. 

Lot's more history on the filming of the movie in 1975 in earlier posts.  Several classic 1940 cars were brought in, to portray the era. 

Scroll down for never before seen, private family pictures, taken while shooting the film.

Look under my archives and Labels for more posts I've done on the film Goodbye Norma Jean.