Saturday, December 10, 2011

Reflections: Mary Nolan


2 comments:

  1. Mary Nolan -- one of those interesting, tragic figures from the end of the silent era. Here are some notes I wrote about her for an old post:

    Mary Nolan, whose real name was Imogen Robertson, had been a Ziegfeld girl performing under the stage name "Bubbles Wilson." But she had the misfortune to fall in love with married comedian Frank Tinney who routinely abused her and finally beat her so savagely, she landed in the hospital.

    She also landed in the tabloids, which battered her reputation nearly as savagely.

    Robertson/Wilson fled the United States, and after two years working in the German film industry, returned to work under the name Mary Nolan. She made a handful of fine movies at the end of the Silent Era, including Tod Browning's
    West Of Zanzibar and Desert Nights with John Gilbert, but she didn't adjust well to the demands of sound and was soon out of work. She developed a heroin habit and died penniless at the age of forty-two.

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  2. Sweet photography. I couldn't resist rotate my screen, it's even better :-)

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