Front Row Dress Circle

When you watch those old movies from the 30’s and 40’s have you ever wondered how on earth those goddesses of the screen managed to look as though they were made in heaven?

It was all in the make up and lighting of course, and the make up artistes and lighting technicians from the Golden Years pioneered and set the standard for the techniques used today. Only, I reckon they did it better back then. Why…? because stars like Greta Garbo, Marlene Dietrich and Betty Grable were made to look like stars, like perfection. These days, the stars, and all their physical faults, tend to make it onto the big screen in the name of reality. Back then no publicity still of a star was ever released until it has passed through the various studio dept’s responsible for making the stars look perfection itself. Techniques such as airbrushing were developed very early on in Hollywood; this is why stars like Adolphe Menjou and  Bette Davis looked relatively line-free in their photo’s well into middle/old age.

These days our favourite actors and actresses are photographed in a way that would never have been allowed back in the old days…

* Many actors of the past such as Fred Astaire, Adolphe Menjou, Rita Hayworth and Mae West all wore hairpieces in their films.

* Rita Hayworth (real name Margarita Carmen Cansino) on arrival in Hollywood in the very late 30’s actually had a hairline that reached almost down to her eyebrows. She underwent long sessions of painful and primitive electrolysis to raise her hairline and reveal that lovely forehead in her grooming-period as a starlet with Columbia Studios.

* Joan Crawford put herself through a punishing exercise regime, had her back upper teeth extracted and lost a lot of weight, in order to transform herself from the pudgy star of the early 30’s films to the sleek and sophisticated goddess we all loved in the late 30’s and 40’s.

* Stunning Austrian actress Hedy Lamarr (above; Ziegfeld Girl, 1941; Samson and Delilah, 1949)  had very pale, almost pure white skin and black hair - in order to photograph her properly technicians designed special lighting for her complexion. A special light was aimed at her chin to chisel it whilst more subtle lighting was aimed at her forehead and cheeks in order to sculpt her face. No wonder she looked so wonderful.

* When the very first platinum blonde, Jean Harlow, first dyed her hair a whiter shade of pale, lighting technicians had to design new methods in order to accommodate the stark white hair absorbing the light on screen.

* Virginia Mayo actually had crossed eyes; though you never really noticed it in her films unless you reeeaally look hard. This was disguised by Hollywood magic. In the 60’s and 70’s they never bothered hiding such faults, this is why actors like Karen Black (Trilogy of Terror) came out looking like the silent’s comic actor Ben Turpin in her films.

* British actor Herbert Marshall had a wooden leg due to his service in WWI. This was disguised in his films.

* Marilyn Monroe actually had very short legs though you would never know it from the way she was photographed.

* Richard Burton had very badly acne-scarred skin on his face.

* Ginger Rodgers had a gingery hairy face; Elizabeth Taylor had arms covered in dark hair; Joan Crawford, Kate Hepburn, Doris Day and Ginger Rogers (again) all had faces covered in freckles…though you would never know it!

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