At an afternoon tea party in the pool at Pickfair,some of the pioneering talents of early Hollywood gathered around MARYPICKFORD. Receiving the sugar on Pickford's right is JOHN S. ROBERTSON,a now mostly forgotten director, who was nonetheless greatly liked andrespected for his work with Garbo, Barrymore and Pickford herself. On theleft, pouring the tea is CHARLES ROSHER, the renowned director ofphotography. He was an innovator in the field of special effects and alsointroduced stand-ins and dummies in action scenes, rather than riskingthe safety of the stars. During his forty-year career, Rosher was awardedtwo Academy Awards for his work in Sunrise (1927) and The Yearling(1946).
| Australian ANNETTE KELLLRMAN, a swimming and divingchampion in the early 1900s, was a trailblazer long before she hit Hollywood.Known for her performances as "The Diving Venus," Kellerman beganrebelling against the prevailing rigid dress code for swimwear. She toldthe 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 appropriatebathing attire (an early version of the one- piece suit), she was promptlyarrested for indecent exposure. The national uproar that followed caughtthe attention of Hollywood and she soon was the subject of a documentaryfeaturing her swimming, diving and exercising. Before long she wasstarring in movies that spotlighted her aquatic skills, beginning withNeptune's Daughter (1914). She continued to challenge the Establishmentwith daring skinny- dipping scenes. Skimpy costumes like this onefrom A Daughter of the Gods (1916) made Kellerman a hot topicfor years. |
