Flappers With Sad Eyes: 20 Exquisite Sorrows
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Why are flappers so sad? You know the look: Those old Hollywood dames posing with upturned faces and big, watery eyes. Given the amount of boozing, partying, and scandal-making that went down in the roaring twenties, they had plenty to worry about — some more than others. As The Great Gatsby prepares for its final international debuts, the Cut inspects the sad-eyed portraits and hard-knock lives of iconic Hollywood flappers. Some had nothing to be sad about! Others suffered from sex scandals, drug abuse, and the unique misfortune of having a lisp in the age of “talkies.” Check out their Daisy Buchanan sorrow and rags-to-riches lives in the attached slideshow.
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Clara Bow The original "It" girl, so-called for her breakthrough role in the movie called It, where "the 'it' referred t...
Clara Bow The original "It" girl, so-called for her breakthrough role in the movie called It, where "the 'it' referred to her terrific sex appeal." Raised in an impoverished and erratic Prospect Heights household, Bow once fought off a butcher-knife attack from psychotic mother Sarah Bow before Sarah was committed to an asylum.
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Dolores Costello Drew Barrymore's grandmother was "the Goddess of the Silver Screen" until the advent of talking pictures revealed that...
Dolores Costello Drew Barrymore's grandmother was "the Goddess of the Silver Screen" until the advent of talking pictures revealed that she spoke with a lisp. She is now known as "the Goddess of the Silent Screen."
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Anita Page Born Anita Pomares to Salvadoran parents in Queens, Page was known as "the blonde Latin," famous for her natural blonde hair...
Anita Page Born Anita Pomares to Salvadoran parents in Queens, Page was known as "the blonde Latin," famous for her natural blonde hair and blue eyes. She shocked America by retiring abruptly at age 23. At age 94, she finally revealed why: MGM executives had pressured her for sexual favors. Since she'd refused, she believed she would have been blackballed anyway.
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May McAvoy and Ramon Novarro The Irish-American female lead from 1927's The Jazz Singer, the first feature-length talking motion picture, ac...
May McAvoy and Ramon Novarro The Irish-American female lead from 1927's The Jazz Singer, the first feature-length talking motion picture, actually had trouble transitioning to talkies. (In The Jazz Singer, she had no lines.) She is pictured here in 1925's Ben-Hur.
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Joan Bennett Bennett started her career a blonde flapper waif, then became a brunette femme fatale in the late thirties. In 1951, she transformed...
Joan Bennett Bennett started her career a blonde flapper waif, then became a brunette femme fatale in the late thirties. In 1951, she transformed into a gossip magnet when her third huband accused Bennett's agent of sleeping with her, then shot him.
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Constance Talmadge With sisters Norma and Natalie, she was among the first actresses to leave her footprints at Grauman's Chinese Theater. The Ta...
Constance Talmadge With sisters Norma and Natalie, she was among the first actresses to leave her footprints at Grauman's Chinese Theater. The Talmadge sisters were raised in poverty by an alcoholic father; all three suffered from substance abuse, troubled adult lives, and well-intentioned meddling from family members. Proto-Lohans, basically.
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Louise Brooks Claim to fame: popularizing the bob haircut. Other claim to fame: two broken marriages and a legendary sex life that included affai...
Louise Brooks Claim to fame: popularizing the bob haircut. Other claim to fame: two broken marriages and a legendary sex life that included affairs with studio executives, lesbian flings, and a one-night stand with "charming and tender lover" Greta Garbo.
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Lillian Diana Gish The "First Lady of American Cinema" starred in D. W. Griffith's revolutionary 1915 white supremacist film Birth...
Lillian Diana Gish The "First Lady of American Cinema" starred in D. W. Griffith's revolutionary 1915 white supremacist film Birth of a Nation. Her career spanned seven decades and her life lasted 99 years. It actually didn't seem too sad.
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Gloria Swanson The originator of Sunset Boulevard's Norma Desmond role, Swanson married six times. Her first divorce set off a legal battle in wh...
Gloria Swanson The originator of Sunset Boulevard's Norma Desmond role, Swanson married six times. Her first divorce set off a legal battle in which her husband accused her of adultery with thirteen men. Later relationships included marriage to a French aristocrat and a disastrous, well-chronicled affair with a Kennedy.
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Mary Nolan Fired from the Ziegfeld Follies after public scandal involving an affair with a married blackface comedian accused of beating her, Nol...
Mary Nolan Fired from the Ziegfeld Follies after public scandal involving an affair with a married blackface comedian accused of beating her, Nolan cycled through a series of stage names (one of which was "Bubbles") before adopting "Mary Nolan" for her Hollywood career. Nolan and the comedian Frank Tinney both suffered from breakdowns in the years after their scandal. Both of their careers fell apart.
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Barbara Stanwyck After getting her start in the Ziegfeld Follies, Stanwyck was a Broadway star in the twenties, then crossed over to movies in th...
Barbara Stanwyck After getting her start in the Ziegfeld Follies, Stanwyck was a Broadway star in the twenties, then crossed over to movies in the thirties. Her first husband died of septic poisoning on an ocean liner. Her next two marriages ended in divorce. It's not all bad news, though: At age 45, Stanwyck had a famous May-December relationship with a 22-year-old co-star. In his memoir, the co-star said she dumped him.
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Pola Negri A famous femme fatale, Negri's career began as a ballet dancer in her native Poland. She acted in Polish, German, and American si...
Pola Negri A famous femme fatale, Negri's career began as a ballet dancer in her native Poland. She acted in Polish, German, and American silent films. Her two marriages were to a European count and a Georgian prince.
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Joan Crawford The iconic actress landed her first Hollywood contract with MGM in 1925. She was as famous for her roles as for her ambition ... an...
Joan Crawford The iconic actress landed her first Hollywood contract with MGM in 1925. She was as famous for her roles as for her ambition ... and for her damning role in daughter Christina's eventual memoir Mommie Dearest.
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Mary Pickford "The girl with the curls" was at the height of her fame called "the best known woman who has ever lived, the woman w...
Mary Pickford "The girl with the curls" was at the height of her fame called "the best known woman who has ever lived, the woman who was known to more people and loved by more people than any other woman that has been in all of history." Her salaries broke records and her career set precedents for acting contracts and celebrity practices to this day. During World War I, she auctioned a single lock of her hair for $15,000.
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Virginia Bradford The Memphis-born actress lived 95 years and was married four times.
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Norma Talmadge Though she was raised in poverty with her two sisters, Norma Talmadge eventually married millionaire producer Joseph Schenck, with...
Norma Talmadge Though she was raised in poverty with her two sisters, Norma Talmadge eventually married millionaire producer Joseph Schenck, with whom she founded a production company. The marriage ended in divorce, however. When she died at age 63, she had been married three times.
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Joan Bennett Though her husband shot her agent for allegedly having an affair with Bennett, the actress always maintained that she never strayed....
Joan Bennett Though her husband shot her agent for allegedly having an affair with Bennett, the actress always maintained that she never strayed.
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Ethel Shutta Shutta got her start as a child vaudeville actress, then appeared in the Ziegfeld Follies. Her voice was a frequent radio presence a...
Ethel Shutta Shutta got her start as a child vaudeville actress, then appeared in the Ziegfeld Follies. Her voice was a frequent radio presence alongside her band leader husband's, George Olsen. Her eyes are sad, anyway.
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Constance Talmadge Each of the three Talmadge sisters filled a different Hollywood niche. Constance specialized in tomboy roles; Norma was a glam...
Constance Talmadge Each of the three Talmadge sisters filled a different Hollywood niche. Constance specialized in tomboy roles; Norma was a glamourpuss; and Natalie famously married Buster Keaton (perhaps at the behest of studio executives) only to be routinely humiliated by him. He said she was bad at sex.
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A Woman in a Feathered Headdress We don't know who she is, but her story is probably sad, too.
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