At an afternoon tea party in the pool at Pickfair,
some of the pioneering talents of early Hollywood gathered around MARY
PICKFORD. Receiving the sugar on Pickford's right is JOHN S. ROBERTSON,
a now mostly forgotten director, who was nonetheless greatly liked and
respected for his work with Garbo, Barrymore and Pickford herself. On the
left, pouring the tea is CHARLES ROSHER, the renowned director of
photography. He was an innovator in the field of special effects and also
introduced stand-ins and dummies in action scenes, rather than risking
the safety of the stars. During his forty-year career, Rosher was awarded
two Academy Awards for his work in Sunrise (1927) and The Yearling
(1946).
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Australian ANNETTE KELLLRMAN, a swimming and diving
champion in the early 1900s, was a trailblazer long before she hit Hollywood.
Known for her performances as "The Diving Venus," Kellerman began
rebelling against the prevailing rigid dress code for swimwear. She told
the press: "I can't swim wearing more stuff than you hang on a clothesline."
In Boston, in 1907, when she introduced her own interpretation of appropriate
bathing attire (an early version of the one- piece suit), she was promptly
arrested for indecent exposure. The national uproar that followed caught
the attention of Hollywood and she soon was the subject of a documentary
featuring her swimming, diving and exercising. Before long she was
starring in movies that spotlighted her aquatic skills, beginning with
Neptune's Daughter (1914). She continued to challenge the Establishment
with daring skinny- dipping scenes. Skimpy costumes like this one
from A Daughter of the Gods (1916) made Kellerman a hot topic
for years. |
