He was a founding member of United Artists and The Motion Picture Academy. was the first action hero and an astute businessman. The film was one of the first to portray an open lesbian character.ĭouglas Fairbanks Sr. She would star in the seminal film Pandora’s Box in 1929. Bored with Hollywood, Brooks travelled to Europe and formed a creative partnership with German director GW Pabst. Soon, she was playing the female leads in comedies starring W.C. Brooks made her screen debut in 1925 in the film The Street of Forgotten Men. She advanced to the Ziegfied Follies and was noticed by producer Walter Wanger, who signed her to a five-year contract. Brooks began in her career in 1922 as a dancer, joining the Denishaw modern dance company.
Mary Louise Brooks was born Novemin Cherryvale Kansas. The coming of sound and the studios combined efforts to jettison the high-priced talent slowed Negri’s career and pushed her to only being an occasional actress. Negri became one of the most popular actresses of her era but it was short-lived. She signed a large contract with Paramount and arrived in New York to great fanfare in 1922. Several films followed that continued building on her popularity and Hollywood beckoned. In 1918, Lubitsch convinced UFA, the biggest German film studio at the time, to make large-scale film with Negri as the lead. She moved to Germany and met director Ernst Lubitsch. Negri’s film debut came in 1914 in the film Slave to Her Senses. After recovering, she was accepted into the Warsaw Imperial Academy of the Dramatic Arts. Negri was accepted in the Warsaw Imperial Ballet Academy at a young age and a bout with pneumonia forced a premature end to that endeavor. Born Barbara Chalupec Januin Lirno Poland.