Barbara La Marr - 1896-1926

Earlier this month, I met Barbara La Marr during my trip to Los Angeles. I happened upon her crypt in the Cathedral Mausoleum in Hollywood Forever (Los Angeles) while searching for Rudolf Valentino's location. What first caught my eye was the stunning stained glass window down one of the passageways. While taking a closer look, I noticed her crypt and recognized her name, though I couldn't recall her details.

The first tip-off that this was the grave of a star the lipstick kisses on the marble around her name plate. When looking for a celebrity's grave, keep an eye out for anything with kisses all over it. In Hollywood Forever, the graves of Valentino, LaMarr, Maila "Vampira" Nurmi, Douglas "Dee Dee Ramone" Colvin and others tend to have lipstick marks.

Ms. La Marr was born on July 28, 1896, as Reatha Dale Watson in Yakima, Wash. She was only 29 when she died Jan. 30, 1926. But in her short life, she lived her life to extremes. She loved fiercely and often.

According to Cecilia Rasmussen in the Los Angeles Times Hollywood Star Walk project (Sept. 30, 2007), "By age 19, she had been married three times, divorced and widowed. In her 20s, she married twice more." She was an actress, but she was also a writer, producer as well as a dancer. She was more than just the woman who was told by police that she was "too beautiful" to be out in Los Angeles on her own. Eventually she would work with the likes of Rudolf Valentino, Douglas Fairbanks, Sr., and Ray Navarro.

In 1922, she secretly gave birth to a son she named Marvin Carville La Marr. This was at "the height of her career," according to SilentHollywood.com, so "a fake adoption was rigged so that Barbara could publicly be the mother for Marvin." After her death three years later, her friend ZaSu Pitts and husband Tom Gallery adopted Marvin and renamed him Donald Gallery.

The official cause of death was listed as tuberculosis and nephritis, which is an inflammation of the kidneys and can be associated with chronic drug use, such as cocaine and heroin. She is considered the first star with a drug-related death.

Sordid circumstances or not, the Los Angeles Times noted that "thousands of fans gather[ed] outside the funeral services for actress Barbara La Marr."

The LA Times article on Feb. 6, 1926, stated:

• "Several thousand persons fought desperately with police reserves ... in front of the Walter C. Blue Undertaking Chapel"
• "Five women fainted during the melee"
• After her casket was placed in the hearse, "the crowd broke all restraint and rushed about the funeral cortege"
• "Many hundreds rushed into the funeral parlor, although all objects of attraction to the morbid had been removed"

Barbara La Marr was in at 27 films (see the list on her IMDB page), including "The Three Musketeers" (1921), "The Prisoner of Zenda" (1922) and "Strangers of the Night" (1923).

As someone who has spent a lot of time in cemeteries studying gravestones, it dawned on me tonight that old gravestones have a lot in common with silent films. Many of them have aged poorly and have fallen apart. They can be difficult to decipher. Many of them have been long forgotten due to time and progress. And a the majority of people don't appreciate their historical, cultural and personal value.

While I'm definitely a taphophile, I'm also a bit of a cinefile. I love movies. I've always loved them. I don't consider myself a true film aficionado, I do know movies. Growing up, there were few movies playing in the theaters that I hadn't seen. Today that's not the case, because I have a kid, a husband and a full-time job. But as a teen and younger, I constantly watched movies. If it was made in the 80s, odds are I've seen it.

My interest in silent films is quite recent. Honestly I don't know what started it. I'd seen the occasional silent film over the years since at least high school. I specifically remember seeing "The Phantom of the Opera" on Halloween night during my senior of high school. There was a live organist, and it was awesome. Then a few years later in college I took a film history class and watched more ("Birth of a Nation," "Potemkim" and "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari").

Actually, I do know what started it--it was my trip to Hollywood in June 2014. Of course it was.

As I mentioned before, my love affair with Hollywood has been going on for years. I would daydream about the movies and being a part of them. I didn't want to be an actor (though I have dabbled a tiny bit), I wanted to direct and write and produce. I wanted the movies to be mine. I wanted to be the movies.

While we were out in California last year, it really hit me what it was about Hollywood that I loved so much. It wasn't the TMZ-style drama or making kazillions of dollars. What inspired me were the people who made movies for the love of them. The early innovators who thought, "What if we did this and made it into something grand?" The people with vision--Mary Pickford, Charlie Chaplin, Cecil B. DeMille, Lois Weber and my favorite early filmmaker, Georges Méliès. Oh, did that man have vision!

Tonight I watched Georges Méliès' "Cinderella" (or "Cendrillon"), and it's just magical. For real, he uses lots of magic tricks. He was the master at making people "magically" appear and disappear via the wonders of editing. His work is also very theatrical. Elaborate stage sets, a dozen or more actors on the stage at a time, dancing, and the feel of something alive.

According to Archive.org, "Possibly the earliest film version of Cinderella, Cendrillion (1899) was landmark for Georges Méliès; it founded the techniques and tricks he would later master and become famous for, earning him the title of The Cinemagician." How great is that title?

Méliès didn't just take the Cinderella story verbatim and make it frame by frame. The film the link above takes you to starts with the scene where the fairy godmother is changing the mice (really BIG ones!) into footmen. After taking care of everyone and turning an unbelievably light-weight pumpkin brought in by Cinderella into a coach, off goes Cinderella to the fancy ball. It doesn't take long for her to make an impact on the prince, which is good since, in moments, she is back at the house in her rag dress. That's when the fun begins.

Not only is Cinderella sad that she had a curfew, now the clocks themselves start mocking her! It's fantastic! It's worth watching the 6-minute piece just for that scene. God love Méliès. I know I do. I wish I could have been in one of his films. How fanciful and wonderful it would have been.

I got a little sidetracked there! What inspires me about Hollywood ... people like Méliès who poured (and pour in present tense because there are still people out there) their heart and souls into their films. The innovators, the experimenters, the ones who literally risked life and limb to make the movies. If you watch an early film with crazy stunts in it, the stunt work was done by stunt people as well as the main actors. And stunt work wasn't regulated and surrounded by safety precautions like it is today. Yes, there are people doing dangerous things in modern film, but back then, it was the Wild West. People would get trampled by horses or drown in scenes filmed on rapids.

So I found that those who inspire me most are the people of Old Hollywood. The ones who came to the desert and built it into the dream town it is today. No matter how rough the business of film is, it's still part of the dream for many people. "If I just get that one chance ...!"

I'll take you, Hollywood, the good and the bad, the glamorous and the atrocious. And damned if I don't get the thrill of "Anything's possible!" when I see that Hollywood sign up in the distance.

Silent film stars, I'm going to find you and introduce you to the people of today. You deserve to be respected and remembered. Your contributions to the make-believe world that helps keep us sane deserve to be recognized.

Starting with you, ladies. After some months on hiatus from this book, I'm back, baby. My trip this month to Los Angeles has reinvigorated me, and I'm ready to dig into the book as well as our upcoming web series, Tomb Trippin'.

See you in the stars!
Minda

I am seeking people for a focus group regarding my current book project. I call it a book project because I want it to be more than a book. I want it to branch out into presentations and awareness and even helping a related cause.

"Forever Silent" will feature the ladies of silent film (including actresses, directors, producers, etc.) and their final resting places. A second book would feature the gentlemen.

Why silent film people? It's not just because I'm interested in Old Hollywood. (Believe me, delving into this era has been FASCINATING. If you want juicy stories, jump into 1920s.) The more I research the people of this era, the more I realize how much history has been forgotten. The early Hollywood era mirrored our country. In the early 20th century, Americans were still finding their way. Women were figuring out who they were and how they fit into society. Industry was changing the world as people once knew it. World War I changed everything. Movies provided an escape and sometimes the promise of a better tomorrow. Mary Pickford showed people that if you had spirit, nothing could defeat you. Harold Lloyd both connected with audiences as the "All-American go-getter" (HaroldLloyd.com). There were crazy Wild West stunts, zany antics, slapstick and stories that showed us the best and worst of people. There were STORIES. Stories that were shared around the world. People connected in a whole new way. And celebrity, as we know it know, was born.

Yet, as important as these early films were and are, so many of them have been lost to time. A small percentage of the early films still exist. Most of the stars of the silent age of film have passed on, if not all of them. Their stories have been buried by years of technological advances that have made them seem obsolete. Why would we want to watch an old black and white movie (let alone one without audio dialogue!) when we can watch something in high definition, color, surround sound and 3-D? Even Mary Pickford wanted all of her films destroyed upon her death because she didn't want to be laughed at by future generations.

This makes me so sad. History lost to time and neglect. Does this sound familiar, taphophiles?

Gravestones and even whole cemeteries have been lost to time and neglect. Until a dedicated taphophile or group of people go in and work hard to make things right. Think of me as resetting the remembrance of an old movie star. Brushing away the dirt that has covered that once-beloved-but-now-forgotten-star for years.

Will you help me bring these people in film history back to light?

I needed a village for my first book. I interviewed people from all over about why cemeteries matter to them. Now I need people to help me fulfill the dream of these lost stars--to be remembered.

I invite you to help with the creation of this book by taking part in a focus group. It will be posted on Facebook in a private group. I will ask you questions like:

- Do silent film stars merit their own grave location book?
- Do you think there is an audience for a book on silent film stars' locations?
- Who does merit a grave location book?
- What information should be shared with each listing?
- Who are the "musts" for this book?
- What are your personal feelings about cemeteries?
- What about the people who have been cremated and scattered? What do you think of this?

I can tell you that there are a number of these stars who either have no known burial location or were cremated and scattered. Two ladies had unmarked graves for years. Florence Lawrence's grave in Hollywood Forever had no stone until actor Roddy McDowall purchased one and had it placed. Florence La Badie's grave in Green-Wood Cemetery in the Bronx was unmarked until people raised money online, and a stone was placed in April 2014. Personally, I would like to place a marker for Marie Prevost whose cremated remains are in an unknown location. To my knowledge, she has no memorial. And this makes me sad.

If anything I've written about here or in this blog has struck a chord with you, I hope you'll take part in my focus group. I'd really like your input.

Thanks for doing your part to keep history alive,
Minda
minda.epitaphsmag@gmail.com
(put "focus group" in the subject line)