The Silver Screen Oasis

Runnin Wild is a great biography, a real page turner, I don't think I've read of a worse beginning, even though Hollywood had it's fair share of hard luck cases, Clara's was just awful. I'd like to know what you think when you've read it all, Fernando, you can PM me if you don't want to give away the drift of her life.

Nancy, I would highly recommend Runnin Wild, it's by David Stenn who did a great biography of Jean Harlow too.

Sadly both books are available in Spanish in Knitty:

"Los Asesinos del Emperador-El ascenso de Trajano, el primer emperador hispano de la historia " (The Emperor's murderers-Trajan's ascent, the first hispanic emperor of the History) by Santiago Posteguillo.

"La Judía de Toledo" (The Jewess of Toledo) by Lion Feuchtwanger (this one was published in Germany in the 1950s, maybe there is an edition in English available somewhere).

I'm curious too, they sound good!

Poor Clara.

thanks, Nando!!!!

Wilkommen my friends....and yes poor, poor Clara...I got to 1923 when she began appearing in films.

Truth is stranger than fiction, it's felt like that reading Clara's story.

She had quite an awful life when it comes to her parents. Depressing.

And how people treated her once she came to Hollywood, plenty of them had rough beginnings but hers was rougher than most and she was rejected in the most because of it.

Amazon.co.uk has knocked the price of some kindle books down to as little as 20p. I've just bought the newly published Richard Burton diaries for £3 when the hardcover is £25. I don't know whether it's the same in the US but it's worth checking out

I'll take a look, we have some books as low as 99 cents, most classics are in the 2.99 range, but I will go online and look to see if there are any specials.

I remember at Xmas last year Amazon released lots of titles at 99p, best sellers, old classics, biographies, history books etc. I bought enough to get by with for 6 months.

I am currently reading It Took Nine Tailors, the autobiography of Adolphe Menjou. It's fascinating to read about the shooting of some fabulous pictures such as Chaplin's A Woman of Paris. The film took 8 months to be shot! And Menjou describes the length that Chaplin went through to get what he wanted. The book is witty and gives an opportunity to witness film-making in the teens in New York. It's a highly recommended reading to anybody interested in silents.

He was in so many important films in the heyday of Hollywood, starting I think with A Woman Of Paris, it's difficult to get hold of here but I'll enquire with the library when it reopens, perhaps they'll have a copy somewhere. A great title for the man's memoires.

I borrowed my copy from my filmbook library. Perhaps yours has got one as well? I hope so.

I would be interested as well. I have really come to respect Menjou's acting in the last couple of years, strangely enough, from having seen A Woman of Paris, which is just a superb film, maybe Chaplin's best (perhaps only in my opinion) and Menjou gives a very very nuanced performance in it. I'll try an inter-library loan to see if I can find it, online I just found that one of the colleges nearby has a copy.