Sharrie Williams, speaking today, in Laguna Beach California..

This Wednesday, March 7, the Woman’s Club of Laguna Beach is hosting its monthly Chic event. Join the Woman’s Club in welcoming Sharrie Williams, author of “The Maybelline Story and the Spirited Family Dynasty Behind It.”

“The Maybelline Story and the Spirited Family Dynasty Behind It,” by Sharrie Williams, is the story of Tom Lyle Williams’ vision and founding of make-up giant Maybelline Cosmetics. Transfixed by the glamor of silent films and mail-order catalogs Tom bootstraps himself up from poverty to become something more than he’d ever thought possible. After witnessing his sister Mabel, concoct a mixture of burnt cork and Vaseline, to apply to her lashes and brows, he makes a tremendous discovery – The eyes are the key. Tom realized that the way the actresses made their eyes so compelling on screen could be easily replicated with a few ingredients in their proper ratios. The roaring “20’s” and the flapper era would provide a devoted following for the eyelash and eyebrow beautifiers that Maybelline produced by the truckload. So wanton was the demand for Maybelline products that, even through the economic nightmares of the ‘30’s, the company weathered the storm, its fortunes hitched solidly to the star of patented Maybelline glamor.


SharrieWilliams, a resident of Laguna Beach for over 30 years, will bring the story to life with a presentation using vintage Maybelline ads and family photos.

Silent Film Beauties become Maybelline models in 1920..

                            Mary Eaton

                                     Mae Murrey

Ethel Clayton.

                                   Ethel Clayton.

Ethel Clayton.

Mildred Davis.

Viola Dana.

Viola Dana.

Viola Dana.

Viola Dana.

                                         Gloria Swanson.

                                             Gloria Swanson.

A Pretty Girl is like a Melody - The Great Ziegfeld (1936) - Written by Irving Berlin for Ziegfeld Follies of 1919.

So Vintage Maybelline - Silent Film and Concert Series week, comes to a close today.   My cousin, Linda Hughes and I had fun working together, bringing these wonderful memories back to life.  Now you know why The Artist, won the Oscar for Best Picture, It was a fabulous era in film history.  

If you love Old Hollywood history, pick up a copy of
The Maybelline Story, as it mirrors everything from the 1920s and beyond.

1920's dance craze, sprang from Harlem.

 1920s dances seen in Silent Films, had interesting roots and helped Maybelline become an overnight sensation in the rebellious, Jazz Age. 

In 1923 when the Broadway show "Runnin' Wild," featured a tune called The Charleston.....

 a phenomenon was born. 

While the Charleston as a dance probably came from the "star" or challenge dances, that were all part of the African-American dance called Juba, the particular sequence of steps which appeared in Runnin' Wild, were probably newly devised for popular appeal.

The Charleston was the dance that captured the spirit of the 1920s. It was danced with wild abandon by a new generation of independen​t young flappers and Jazzbo's.

Tango sprang from the poor and the disadvantaged, in Argentina tenement blocks and on street corners, to become...

 The Dance of Love.

The 4 Horsemen of the Apocalypse - Tango Scene.

  Rudolph Valentino dancing tango.  Silent movie; sixth best grossing silent film of all time; turned Rudolph Valentino into a super star and gave him the image of the 'Latin Lover'

Harlem's increasing popularity as an entertainment district, as well as a vibrant creative center for African Americans in the 1920s and 1930s eventually saw both the creation and popularizing of Lindy Hop.

Born in the late 1920's, the Lindy Hop is the Grandfathe​r of swing dances. But it wasn't until after the opening of the Savoy Ballroom that Lindy Hop got its name and a home. At the Savoy  the Lindy Hop got hotter and hotter.

Upper and middle class white audiences were exposed to Harlem's working class entertainment, at first through white audiences attending black venues and shows in Harlem, but later through traveling shows, popular music and cinema and prompting a mainstream thirst for "black" cultural forms, like the Lindy Hop. 

My grandmother, Evelyn Boecher Williams  on the right, with her sister, Verona Boecher Stroh, are pictured here at a Halloween party in their family's ballroom, in Chicago, around, 1920. 

Nana, went on to dance with the Ballets Russes, and like so many girls in her generation.... rebelling from the straight-laced ways of Old World thinking..... hoped to become an actress/dancer, in Hollywood Silent Films.  But she met and fell in love with my grandfather, William Preston Williams and gave up her dream, to be a wife and mother.  However, she kept up her love of dancing, all her life and even taught me the Charleston and the Tango, when I was 15. 

With the wild abandon..... Jazz Age dances..... brought into 1920's culture.... epitomized in film.... it was only natural for young women to gravitate towards Maybelline.  Here is a Jazz Age Maybelline ad, that appealed to the girl ready, to Jazz it up, for a night of dancing, movie going, or just ridding in cars with boys.


My cousin, Linda Hughes, (Mabel Williams granddaughter and Maybelline's namesake,) and I, have loved working together all week, creating the

Vintage Maybelline Silent Film and Concert Series, to celebrate, THE ARTIST, winning the Oscar, for BEST PICTURE...  


We have one more day to go before it all comes to an end, so stay tuned. 

Next week the Blog will head towards Tom Lyle Williams, classic, 1940 Packard Victoria.  We hope you have enjoyed the ride so far.

Chicago's, Elaborate Movie Palaces,

 In Chicago, during the 1920s, Silent Films were no longer a little Nickelodeon business... 

They were big business.... that required magnificent movie houses.... to display, larger than life Hollywood extravaganzas.

In late August of 1925 the Uptown Theatre opened its doors to the people of Chicago under a marquee that proclaimed, “one of the great art buildings of the world—an acre of seats!”

The Palace Theatre opened on October 4, 1926 and featured a splendor previously unseen in Chicago - a breathtaking vision inspired by the palaces of Fontainebleau and Versailles.

As one of the first motion picture palaces whose décor was inspired by the Far East, Chicago's Oriental Theatre opened to much fanfare on May 8, 1926. 

The grandeur of The Chicago Theatre left its visitors breathless....and was called "the Wonder Theatre of the World" when it opened on October 26, 1921.

Norma Talmadge, in "The Sign on the Door." was the first film viewed at The Chicago Theatre, by over 400 guests, who paid 25 cents until 1 p.m., 35 cents in the afternoon and 50 cents after 6 p.m.

But, the little theatre, most people remember..... opened in 1914.....

when, Biograph Theatre premiered D.W. Griffith's Birth of a Nation, and continued on as a grand movie theater through the Depression, two world wars, and into the 50's and 60's.

and on the evening of July 22, 1934, gangster, John Dillinger, steped out of the Biograph theatre, where he and two girlfriends had watched, Manhattan Melodrama starring Clark Gable and Myrna Loy.

  They no sooner reached the sidewalk, when several shots killed the most prolific bank robber in modern American history and the general public's favorite, Public Enemy No. 1...... John Dillinger.

Pictured here, looking like Bonnie and Clyde's gang,

 in Chicago, around 1923, are Tom Lyle Williams on the left with his partner, Emery Shaver seated on the

 ground with his dog. Tom Lyle's sister Eva and her Fiancee Chester Haines, are on the far right. 

(not sure who the other two people are.)

Tom Lyle Williams, a simple country boy, from Morganfield Kentucky, moved to

Chicago to start a mail order buisness and unexpectidely entrupeneured, 

The Maybelline Company.   

In 1913, when he watched Silent Films at the Nickelodium... 

where he worked for $6.50 a week, it was a big deal. 

 But now, living in Chicago, where movie theatres looked like Palaces - gangsters were

 celebrities and Big City Life, was really BIG!

There was no going back to the farm!

Frank Sinatra - Chicago.

Sharrie Williams and her cousin,

 Linda Hughes, will continue,

 Silent Film and Concert Series week,

tomorrow, with Vintage Maybelline,

 Movie Stars from the 1920s.

Stay tuned, as Sharrie Williams and her cousin,
Chuck Williams aka, BB1,  finally see theirgreat-uncle, Tom Lyle Williams, 1940 Packard Victoria, next weekend.

Stunt Queen, Pearl White - a box office sensation in 1914..

The Perils of Pauline was an enormous box-office success, and made Pearl White a major celebrity; she was soon earning — in those times — the astronomical sum of $3,000 a week.

Released in 1914, The Perils of Pauline consisted of twenty episodes that used the heroine-in-jeopardy storyline to great success.  It is considered by some to be the most famous suspense serial in cinema history.

In the serials, week after week, Pauline evaded attempts on her life.  She fought pirates, Indians, gypsies, rats, sharks, and her dastardly guardian. 

The unresolved, heroine-in-danger endings left audiences wondering what would happen in the next chapter, and kept them coming back for more.  In the series, White performed many of her own stunts, and became known as the “stunt queen” of the silent film era

She was a daring, athletic, and active star, often placed in risky situations — sent aloft in a runaway balloon, trapped in a burning house, or left hanging from the side of a cliff - thus she was credited with generating the new phrase “cliffhanger.”)

At the same time, a little family living on a modest farm in Morganfield Kentucky,  watched The Perils of Pauline, at the Nickelodeon and had no idea how Hollywood film Stars, like Pearl White, would one day impact their lives. 

Mabel Williams, on the top left, with her mother Anna, seated, her sister Eva Kaye, on the ground, and two elderly aunts, pose for a picture in 1914, on..... 
                     the old Homestead in Kentucky. 

For the rest of her life, Mabel, couldn't help but cry every time she listened to, "My Old Kentucky Home."


While The Peril's of Pauline,  remained a box office smash in 1914, and My Old Kentucky Home, continued to bring tears, to Southern men and women's eyes - a young boy, named Tom Lyle Williams moved into a boarding house in Chicago with his brother Noel James, and worked for $8.50 a week at Montgomery Ward.  On the side, he sold joke gifts and risque postcards through the classifieds and dreamed of someday having his own mail order business. 

His sister Mabel arrived in Chicago, in 1915, to help with the little catalogue business and while there, concocted a mixture of coal dust and Vaseline, to enhance the color of her lashes and brows and help make them grow.  Soon, Lash-Brow-Ine, was born and a year later, it was  renamed Maybelline in Mabel Williams honor.

My cousin, Linda Hughes.....
(Mabel's grandaughter,) helped create, today's Silent Film and Concert Series post.  We are working together this week, to bring lost Silent Film history, back to life.  We hope you enjoy it and are inspired by.....

                  The Artist winning Best Picture,
           after 83 years, since Silent Film's demise.

Al Jolson - My Old Kentucky Home - A Note: He left out the word darkies, that was in the original Foster lyrics.


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              The Vintage Maybelline Docu-Blog....



    The Mabelline Story and the Spirited  
            Family Dynasty Behind It.  


                                Pick up a copy, 


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