1929 Vintage Large Hand Signed De Mirjian Photograph Jazz Age Pin - Up Lili Damita
Item History & Price
| Reference Number: Avaluer:15251673 | Size: 11" x 14" |
| Country/Region of Manufacture: United States | Subject: Lili Damita |
| Original/Reproduction: Original | Modified Item: No |
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ITEM: This is a large format, vintage and original, hand printed and hand signed Broadway theatre portrait photograph from De Mirjian Studios. Signed in white ink by the photographer, this sultry photo is of European silent film star Lili Damita. Damita appeared on the silent screen for both German and French films and was eventually lured to Hollywood by Samuel Goldwyn in 1928, but not before making a brief stop in New York City where she appeared in two theatrical productions. This classic roaring twenties jazz age portrait appears to date to her first stage appearance in the musical comedy “Sons O’Guns” that ran from 1929-1930. This is an all-around exceptional old theatre artifact that comes from the personal collection of Lili Damita’s estate.
Measures 11" x 14" on a glossy double weight paper stock.
Photographer's signature in bottom middle. Photographer's ink stamp on verso.
CONDITION: Very good condition with some edge/corner wear and light, a tear in the upper left, general storage/handling wear. Please use the included images as a conditional guide.
Guaranteed to be 100% vintage and original from Grapefruit Moon Gallery.
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Lili Damita (July 10, 1904 – March 21, 1994) was a French actress who appeared in 33 movies between 1922 and 1937.
Born Liliane Marie-Madeleine Carré in Blaye, France, she was educated in convents and ballet schools in several European countries, including France, Spain andPortugal. At 14, she was enrolled as a dancer at the Opera de Paris.
By the age of 16, she was performing in popular music halls, eventually appearing in the Revue at the Casino de Paris. She also worked as a photographic model. Offered a role in film as a prize for winning a magazine beauty competition in 1921, she appeared in several silent films before being offered her first leading role in Das Spielzeug von Paris (1925) by Hungarian-born director Michael Curtiz. She was an instant success, and Curtiz directed her in two more films: Fiaker Nr 13 (1926) and Der Goldene Schmetterling (1926). Damita continued appearing in German productions directed by Robert Wiene (Die Grosse Abenteuerin; 1927), G.W. Pabst (Man Spielt nicht mit der Liebe; 1926), and British director Graham Cutts (The Queen Was in the Parlour; 1927).
In 1928, at the invitation of Samuel Goldwyn she went to Hollywood, making her American debut in a film titled The Rescue. Leased out to various studios, she appeared with stars such as Gary Cooper, Maurice Chevalier, Laurence Olivier, Cary Grant, and James Cagney. Her films included the box office successes The Cock-Eyed World(1929), the semi-silent The Bridge of San Luis Rey (1929), and This Is the Night (1932).
In 1935, she married a virtual unknown who would become Hollywood's biggest box office attraction, Errol Flynn, with whom she had a son, Sean Flynn (born 1941). Following the marriage, she retired from the screen. The couple divorced in 1942. (Barbara Hershey portrayed her in the TV film My Wicked, Wicked Ways [1985] based on Errol Flynn's autobiography.)
While living in Palm Beach, Florida, Damita married Allen Loomis, a retired Fort Dodge, Iowa dairy owner, and spent part of each year living there.
During the Cambodian Civil War (Khmer Rouge Reign), her son Sean Flynn was working as a freelance photo journalist under contract to Time magazine when he and fellow journalist Dana Stone went missing on the road south of Phnom Penh, Cambodia, on April 6, 1970. Although Damita spent an enormous amount of money searching for her son, he was never found, and in 1984 he was declared legally dead. DNA testing was conducted on remains found in Cambodia and turned over to the U.S. embassy in March 2010. However, the results, released June 30, 2010 by JPAC, showed the remains were not those of Sean Flynn.
Lili Damita died of Alzheimer's disease on March 21, 1994, in Palm Beach, Florida, aged 89. She was interred in the Oakland Cemetery in Fort Dodge, Iowa, her second husband's hometown.
— Biography From: Wikipedia
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John de Mirjian, Manhattan, NY
Biography By: David S. Shields
This Broadway glamour photographer's short but brilliant heyday lasted six years, from 1922 until his death in a speeding roadster alongside a mysterious woman in 1928. An extravagant personality given to gambling and womanizing, de Mirjian brooked no criticism of his taste or resistance to his desire, throwing temper tantrums during photo shoots if sitters failed to follow his directions. In February 1927, Olga, his wife of a little over one year, sued for divorce, citing repeated physical abuse and being forced to labor at her husband’s studio around the clock. In her court testimony she revealed that the photographer cleared $25, 000 annually, making his one of the most lucrative studios in the city.
One reason for his financial success was his arrangement with Earl Carroll, impresario of "The Vanities, " to photograph publicity for his revue, a show that pushed the envelope in the theatrical display of female flesh. In 1925 de Mirjian became a photographic celebrity when actress Louise Brooks sued to stop his distribution of risqué photos taken of her in 1923. Brooks in the court claimed that a nude shoot was the publicity price every girl new to Broadway must pay. De Mirjian testified, "Have I not photographed a thousand others wearing maybe a shoe, maybe a hat, maybe a shawl. . . and not only the girls of the shows but the women of society as well.”
The bulk of de Mirjian’s risqué photography appeared in two magazines of the mid-1920s: Art Lovers and Artists and Models. Modeled on Edwin Bower Hesser's successful Arts Monthly Pictorial begun in 1922, these soft paper monthlies featured shots of semi-nude showgirls in artistic poses. In 1925 de Mirjian was supplying imagery for both magazines. It is interesting to observe that the Schubert Brothers, who sponsored the annual "Artists and Models" girlie revues on Broadway were rivals of Earl Carroll, de Mirjian's principle employer. Yet their appreciation of de Mirjian's mastery of drape shots and nudes overrode their disinclination to patronize an artist in the hire of a rival. Besides showgirls in drapes and society women in stylish dishabille, de Mirjian had a particular talent for "two-shots, " portraits showing the interaction, usually romantic, of two persons.
His career ended spectacularly on September 24, 1928, when his Peerless roadster careened off the Jericho Turnpike, running the length of Long Island, going 70 miles an hour. His passenger, a married actress, Mrs. Gloria Christy, survived and told authorities she was his half-sister. She was not.
John's brother, Arto de Mirjian, who had assisted in the studio, took over the business. He kept it a going concern until 1950, surviving debt proceedings in the early 1930s and a merger with Nasib, the vaudeville and dance photographer. Arto de Mirjian continued the studio's documentation of Broadway productions and achieved in portraiture an expertise equal to that of his brother. He remained an active photographer in New York until about 1950 when he sold his archive to the Culver Service, moved to California, and set up a studio in the Hilton Hotel in Los Angeles.
NOTES: NYT (9-25-1928), 23; Private Correspondence Arto de Mirjian, Jr.; "Wife Sues De Mirjian, " NYT (2-3-1927), 14. David S. Shields/ALS
Specialty:
For such a temperamental figure, de Mirjian's visual style is strikingly free of shadow. He based his vocabulary of poses on that of Alfred Cheney Johnston and, like Johnston, specialized in the portraiture of women. De Mirjian's showgirl pictures are flooded with light.
His portraits, male and female, dramatize personality. He liked extravagant dress and sitters with a daring spirit, so his photographs are among the most striking visually of the 1920s. He did occasional production photography, usually of the revues. His more risqué imagery--showgirl nudes and draped model photos--were staples of the underground sex magazines of the period. Next to Hollywood photographer E. B. Hesser, he was the most widely published celebrant of celebrity flesh of the jazz age.
— Biography By: David S. Shields c/o Broadway (dot) CAS (dot) SC (dot) edu
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