At THE DAWN of the Silver Screen it was women who were the fabulous film stars; they pumped out romance, glamour, and sex, and were very handsomely paid for it. Male stars were popular, yes, but not legendary - it was the comedy kings who claimed the crowns; Chaplin, Keaton, Fatty Arbuckle.
IN THE 1920's there were four glorious female stars in Hollywood Heaven: all imported from Europe. Adored by their fans, rich and famous, all were acquainted with Hollywood's most nimble lesbian Lothario - the writer Mercedes de Acosta.
THEY WERE Alla Nazimova, Pola Negri, Greta Garbo and Marlene Dietrich.
Nazimova was the first to come to Hollywood, in 1916, under contract to Metro pictures (later MGM.) Arriving in New York in 1906 she quickly became an immensely successful stage actress in New York,specializing in the plays of Chekov and Ibsen. Jewish-Russian, born in The Crimea in 1879, Nazimova was 5'3" tall, with remarkable violet blue eyes and a shock of black curly hair. Spending much of her childhood in Switzerland she was fluent in French, German and Russian - and on arriving in the USA learned English in 3 month ! She was a superbly dramatic and dedicated actress, fiery and emotional: overwhelmingly popular with New York audiences to whom she was always known as "Madame."
PURPORTEDLY "married" to the British actor Charles Bryant (they never actually were) Madame became part of a wide artistic lesbian circle which included not only the fearsomely active Mercedes de Acosta but also Bessie Marbury the 15 stone theatrical agent and her partner Elsie de Wolfe. The actress and producer Eva le Gallienne, the rich society hostesses Anne Vanderbilt and Anne Morgan. Left: Madame in 1906
YET OF THESE FOUR today Nazimova is the least known. Garbo and Dietrich broke the Sound barrier in the late 1920s; the undulating Pola Negri remains in Hollywood textbooks as the femme fatale of the Silents who married a European prince; many of their silent films survive because of their subsequent fame. Of Nazimova's many silent films - only a handful, Stronger than Death made in 1920 , Camille made in 1921 with Rudolph Valentino and Salome in 1922 have made it through. Of her stage performances, for which she was primarily most famous and often billed as "Nazimova the Unforgettable", only fading photographs remain.
IN 1919 MADAME, earning $13,000 a week spent $65,000 on a rambling Spanish House, 8080 Sunset Boulevard; way out of town, edging onto the hot and dusty Hollywood countryside. Parting with as much again she remodelled the interior and landscaped the gardens with orange groves and cedars, flowering mimosas and hibiscus, loquat and bamboo. There was a fabulous swimming pool made in the shape of the Black Sea; scandalously it boasted underwater lights, a first in Hollywood ! She called her house "The Garden of Alla."
The House and Swimming Pool 1920
THE CREAM OF HOLLYWOOD CAME to party at The Garden of Alla. Chaplin, Fatty Arbuckle, Dorothy and Lilian Gish, Theda Bara, Gloria Swanson. Tom Mix and Buster Keaton to name a few. Madame had an international guest list; minor royalty and globe trotting opera singers visited 8080 Sunset Boulevard and splashed happily in the pool consuming quantities of illegal alcohol and listening to first rate dance bands under the warm starlit night skies of California. with Madame - who sang Russian folk songs by the pool and talked of the European actresses Ellen Terry and Eleanora Duse. June Mathis the writer, Lilyan Tashman, known preferrers of women - were favourite guests. Dorothy Arzner, the only woman to make it into Talkie Hollywood as a director met and had a short fling with Madame. Left:Dorothy Arzner.
DAGMAR Godowsky, the daughter of Leopold Godowsky the musician said of Madame ;
"(She).. moved through your life like the moon, controlling your moods and quite often going behind a cloud...the Nazimova story was a script she herself had written as a starring vehicle. We were all her supporting players."
LIKE THE forest fires which sometimes swept down from the dry hills drama was no stranger to The Garden. In 1921, after a visit to New York Madame towed back a "protégée," a tall thin actress called Jean Acker, 26 years old, part Cherokee, who had a preference for mannish tailored suits. Soon straying from Madame Jean Acker started an affair with Grace Darmond, another Metro starlet; one evening when the three were at a dinner party to celebrate the end of a film a handsome young wannabe-a-film star Italian actor who worked part time as a gardener approached the women and introduced himself......already smarting from Jean Acker's defection Madame was brusque and sent him away loftily calling him a "lounge lizard." Hollywood - and Madame - was appalled when 8 weeks later Jean Acker abandoned both of her women and married this small part bit player! The marriage was unhappy; it was said to have never been consummated, the motives of all parties have never been satisfactorily explained. The "lounge lizard's" name was Rudolph Valentino.
THE DRAMA CONTINUED. Metro Pictures had just engaged a new young and very talented woman designer for a film Aphrodite with Madame as the star; the film was never made but when the designer met Madame they clicked instantly and an affair followed! Natacha Rambova (she was actually Winifred Shaughnessy) designed some of her best work for the sets and costumes for Camille in 1921......forgiving Valentino Madame chose him to play Armand opposite her Marguerite Gautier.
AMAZINGLY A YEAR later Valentino eloped again - this time with Natacha Rambova ! Since he had only obtained a Mexican divorce from Jean Acker which was not recognised in California he was imprisoned briefly for bigamy ! Valentino had married two of Madame's exgirlfriends ! Right: Madame in Camille.
RUDOLPH VALENTINO became the first male superstar, the original box office platinum, the Romantic hero, bulging masculine sex appeal. And it was after his overwhelming rise to success that started the slow slide of the female star into second place as the compulsory sex/wifely interest. A position wherewith a few exceptions, she remains in the Film Industry even to today. Madame has the dubious honour of feeling the first grim pinch. Camille had been released before The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse ( the film which catapulted Valentino to fame) - and he had been given a second billing to Madame. After The Four Horsemen it was "Starring Valentino" written in bright lights where Camille was playing - "with Nazimova" in second place ! It was the
beginning of the end. Left: Madame and Valentino in Camille.
MADAME NOW over 40, did not have her contract renewed by Metro; anxious to produce and direct her own movies she lost money heavily on Salome - and opted to return to New York and rebuild her stage career- which she did. Never a woman of business sense she seized an idea to remodel "The Garden of Alla " into a Hotel with 27 bungalows to be built in the capacious grounds; being assured by her business advisor that it would provide her an income for life. But she was bitterly disappointed; more and more money was invested, most stolen by her manager and advisor, who then vanished.
IN 1925 with creditors hassling her, she sold up. The Hotel was renamed "The Garden of Allah," and reopened in 1927 with a mighty 18 hour poolside party, prohibition no problem!
BUT FROM HERE on it was downhill for 8080 Sunset Boulevard. Yet there was always a notoriety which brought the artistic and the funlovers; a rakish bohemian atmosphere left over from
Madame's time, which remained until its eventual bulldozing in 1959. The Garden of Allah became raffish, immoral, scandalous. The privacy of the bungalows in the extensive grounds attracted sex and sleaze. It would witness drunkenness, robbery, murder and suicide.
ALWAYS A PLACE of transience; stars on the up stayed in its secluded bungalows where no house detective lurked; when they had made it to stardom they moved out ! But it was popular with visitors to Hollywood; in the 30s Olivier and Jill Esmond his first wife who was also known to prefer women, Laughton and Elsa Lanchester, Talullah Bankhead were some of many who enjoyed the all night parties, valued their privacy, and ignored the pimps and the prostitutes. Picture right; Madame and Valentino in Camille
WRITERS moved in, less vulnerable to the Morals Clauses of the Studio's Contracts and the glare of the squeaky clean fan magazines. The Algonquin Round Table pack with Dorothy Parker and Robert Benchley stayed at The Garden of Allah when they were in Hollywood to earn a fast buck. Lillian Hellman - the author of The Children's Hour, Scott Fitzgerald.
IN 1939 after a last New York stage appearance as mother to an 18 year old Montgomery Clift, her hair grey and cut "schoolboy fashion", Madame herself moved back into Bungalow 24 with her last lover Glesca Marshall. Now by no means rich she looked for small parts in the movies of the time to pay the bills; she can be seen as Tyrone Power's mother in the remake of Blood and Sand (1941); an aristocratic European lady in In Our Time (1944) with Ida Lupino, as a Polish immigrant in Since You went Away (1944) with Claudette Colbert. Sadly for us she refused David O Selsnick's offer of Madame Defarge in The Tale of Two Cities !
AND VISITORS STILL came to No. 24 - including Madame's goddaughter, the starlet Nancy Davis, soon to become Nancy Reagan.
IN 1936 Madame had suffered from a breast cancer and underwent a mastectomy; the cancer did not return but her demanding and energetic lifestyle of wealth, stardom, the stage, Hollywood and the movies; cigarettes and alcohol and rich living, had weakened her health; after a coronary thrombosis she died in Hollywood in 1945 aged 67.
HER ashes are interred in Forest Lawn Memorial Park, Glendale. Where The Garden of Allah once entertained its customers is a modern Supermarket.
1879 - 1945
Thanks to:
"Nazimova - a Biography" by Gavin Lambert
"The Sewing Circle" by Axel Madsen
"The Garden of Allah" by Sheila Graham
Videos of both" Camille" and "Salome" can be bought on the web but in VHS NTSC only
From Old Dyke 9, February MMI
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