Saturday, May 17, 2014

Who art thou?

One of the purposes of this blog is to make sure that the wonderful actors and actresses of the silent film era are not forgotten. Some of their films may be lost, but as long as we keep sharing pictures and stories about them, we can do our best to keep them alive a hundred years later.

Which brings me to a big pet peeve of mine. I hate when I see a mislabeled picture of a silent star, or one where they aren't even named at all. I actually woke up in the middle of the night to argue with someone about a picture that was supposedly of Evelyn Nesbit. I could not seem to stress enough that the girl in the picture was NOT Evelyn and it drove me nuts that they would not believe me. My own fault for getting so worked up, but anyway...

I have been guilty on a couple of occasions of posting a picture of a silent film star I wasn't totally familiar with and it ended up not being them at all. Cases that come to mind are Helen Holmes and Elsie Mackay, mainly because there were other actresses or personalities from that time with the same names. However, I quickly remedy the situation because like I said, it is a pet peeve of mine to mislabel a picture.

The place I see this happening the most is on Pinterest. Now, Pinterest is a great site to find wonderful and sometimes rarely seen pictures of silent film stars. It is also the place where people mislabel the holy hell out of the pictures. I could spend all day fixing the tags on these pictures, but I have not yet gone completely insane (yet).

Here are some examples. See if you can guess the CORRECT name of the star in the picture. (If not, no worries...I put the answers at the bottom!)


I love this picture! But, sadly, this lovely lady is NOT Dolores Costello.

I normally despise colorized pictures, but this one isn't too bad. However, it is NOT Bessie Love.

How someone thought this was Clara Bow is beyond me.

A photograph taken by Alfred Cheney Johnston, the best! This however is NOT Billie Dove as the photo was captioned.

Someone was WAY off when they labeled her as being Theda Bara.

No excuse for mislabeling a picture with the actress's autograph on it! This is NOT Lottie Pickford.

No one can seem to get this gal's name right! This is NOT a picture of Mae Murray.

I have seen this picture numerous times with claiming that is Clara Bow in the picture. It is NOT Clara Bow. I actually do not know who this gal is, I just know it is NOT the It Girl.

A gentleman among us! However, he is NOT Ramon Novarro.

This is NOT America's Sweetheart, Mary Pickford.

And last but not least, this is one glamorous looking lady.  However, she is NOT Lupe Velez.

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Answers
1. Madge Bellamy
2. Anita Page
3. Theda Bara
4. Ruth Etting
5. Myrna Loy
6. Corinne Griffith
7. Madge Bellamy
8. Mystery Girl
9. Francis X. Bushman
10. Marion Davies
11. Katy Jurado

4 comments:

  1. Are these people on crack? I can understand maybe not knowing some of the people but some are so easy to see. I knew Theda Bara, I knew Myrna Loy and I knew all of them were not the ones as they are listed on Pinterest. I agree with you that people should be really certain about the pictures before they put a name to the picture. I knew the one was not Ramon Novarro-he was never that muscular so I thought it might be Frances X or Thomas Meighan (Spelling??) . It is sad that Ms. Griffith's name is right there and still whoever placed it on Pinterest got it wrong. I can't believe the last one either for 2 reasons-so far away from good ole Lupe and amazing picture of Katy Jurado. Now I wonder who the mystery girl is who is definitely NOT Clara Bow-lol

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    Replies
    1. I am sure I annoy people when I go around correcting their descriptions on Pinterest but it really drives me NUTS!

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  2. Knowing that someone thought that Francis X. Bushman was Ramon Novarro gave me a good laugh. These people no doubt mean well, and accuracy doesn't go for much nowadays (did it ever?), but some on! I'm sure they mean well. ;)

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