Silent Stars [Paperback]

Film scholar Jeanine Basinger offers a revelatory, perceptive, and highly readable look at the greatest silent film stars -- not those few who are fully appreciated and understood, like Chaplin, Keaton, Gish, and Garbo, but those who have been misrepresented, unfairly dismissed, or forgotten.

Included are Valentino, the Sheik, who was hardly the effeminate lounge lizard he's been branded; Mary Pickford, who couldn't have been further from the adorable little creature with golden ringlets that was her film persona; Marion Davies, unfairly pilloried in Citizen Kane; the original Phantom and Hunchback, Lon Chaney; the beautiful Talmadge sisters, Norma and Constance. Here are the great divas, Pola Negri and Gloria Swanson; the great flappers, Colleen Moore and Clara Bow; the great cowboys, William S. Hart and Tom Mix; and the great lover, John Gilbert. Basinger also includes the quintessential slapstick comedienne, Mabel Normand, with her Keystone Kops; the quintessential all-American hero, Douglas Fairbanks; and, of course, the quintessential all-American dog, Rin-Tin-Tin.An eminent film historian illuminates the stars of silent film.Acknowledgements
Introduction
Mary Pickford
Mabel and the Kops
Douglas Fairbanks
Sisters: The Talmadges, Norma and Constance
Cowboys: William S. Hart and Tom Mix
Women of the World: Gloria Swanson and Pola Negri
Rudolph Valentino
Marion Davies
Lon Chaney
John Gilbert
Flappers: Colleen Moore and Clara Bow
Rin-Tin-Tin
Coda: Garbo Talks
Bibliography
Index