Early Screen Vamp Betty Compson The Female Vintage 1924 Production Photograph NR
Item History & Price
| Reference Number: Avaluer:3830620 | Size: 8" x 10" |
| Original/Reproduction: Original | Country/Region of Manufacture: United States |
| Sitter: Betty Compson & Warner Baxter |
Thanks toall our eBay bidders! We are honored to be your one-stop, 5-starsource for vintage pin up, pulp magazines, original illustration art, decorative collectibles and ephemera with a wide and always changingassortment of antique and vintage items from the Victorian, ArtNouveau, Art Deco; Mid-Century Modern eras. All items are 100%guaranteed to be original, vintage, and as described. Please feel freeto contact us with any and all questions about the items and ourpolicies and... please take a moment to peruse our other great eBaylistings. All sell no reserve!
ITEM: This is a 1924 vintage and original gelatin silver studio proof photograph of early Hollywood screen beauty, Betty Compson, in a scene with Warner Baxter used to promote the Paramount silent drama, The Female. Compson is pictured here as the perfect jazz-age flapper - cute and sassy. Sadly, The Female is a lost silent film, making this a scarce Hollywood that is sure to please.
Measures 8" x 10" on single-weight glossy paper stock.
Ink stamp on verso.
CONDITION: Near-fine condition with scattered handling, edge and corner wear. Please use the included images as a conditional guide.
Guaranteed to be 100% vintage and original from Grapefruit Moon Gallery.
••••••••••••••••••••
A mining engineer's daughter, blond, blue-eyed Betty Compson began in show business playing violin in a Salt Lake City vaudeville establishment for $15 a week. Following that, she went on tour, accompanied by her mother, with an act called 'the Vagabond Violinist'. Aged eighteen, she appeared on Alexander Pantages Theatre Circuit, again doing her violin solo vaudeville routine, and was spotted there by comedy producer Al Christie. Christie quickly changed her stage name from Eleanor to Betty. For the next few years, she turned out a steady stream of one-reel and two-reel slapstick comedies, frequently paired with Roscoe 'Fatty' Arbuckle.
In 1919, Betty was signed by writer/director George Loane Tucker to co-star opposite Lon Chaney as Rose in The Miracle Man (1919). The film was a huge critical and Financial success and established Betty Compson as a major star at Paramount (under contract from 1921 to 1925). One of the more highly paid performers of the silent screen, her weekly earnings exceeded $5000 a week at the peak of her career. She came to own a fleet of luxury limousines and was able to move from a bungalow in the hills overlooking Hollywood to an expensive mansion on Hollywood Boulevard. From 1921, Betty also owned her own production company. She went on to make several films in England between 1923 and 1924 for the director Graham Cutts.
During the late 1920's, Betty appeared in a variety of dramatic and comedic roles. She received good reviews acting opposite George Bancroft as a waterfront prostitute in The Docks of New York (1928), and was even nominated for an Academy Award for her portrayal of a carnival girl in The Barker (1928). She gave a touching performance in The Great Gabbo (1929), directed by her then-husband James Cruze, as the assistant of a demented ventriloquist (Erich von Stroheim), with whom she is unhappily in love. That same year, she appeared in RKO's first sound film, Street Girl (1929) and was briefly under contract to that studio, cast in so-called 'women's pictures', such as The Lady Refuses (1931) and Three Who Loved (1931).
The stature of her roles began to diminish from the mid-1930's, though she continued to act in character parts until 1948. Betty's personal fortunes also declined. This came about primarily as a result of her marital contract to the alcoholic Cruze, whom she had divorced in 1929 . For several years, Cruze had failed to pay his income tax and Betty (linked financially to Cruze) ended up being sued by the Federal Government to the tune of $150, 000. This forced her to sell her Hollywood villa, her cars and her antiques. In later years, Betty Compson developed her own a cosmetics label and ran a business in California, producing personalised ashtrays for the hospitality industry.
- IMDb Mini Biography By: I.S.Mowis
••••••••••••••••••••
Warner Leroy Baxter (March 29, 1889 – May 7, 1951) was an American film actor from the 1910s to the 1940s. Baxter became known for his role as the Cisco Kid in the 1928 film In Old Arizona, for which he won the Academy Award for Best Actor at the 2nd Academy Awards. He frequently played womanizing, charismatic Latin bandit types in Westerns, and played the Cisco Kid or a similar character throughout the 1930s, but had a range of other roles throughout his career.
Baxter began his movie career in silent films with his most notable roles being in The Great Gatsby (1926) and The Awful Truth (1925). Baxter's most notable talkies are In Old Arizona (1929), 42nd Street (1932), Slave Ship (1937) with Wallace Beery, Kidnapped (1938) with Freddie Bartholomew, and the 1931 ensemble short film, The Stolen Jools. In the 1940s, he was well known for his recurring role as Dr. Robert Ordway in the Crime Doctor series of 10 films.For his contributions to the motion-picture industry, Baxter has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
Biography: Wikipedia
**************
00212
