Top 10 Old Hollywood Actresses That Fell Off The Map
Where'd they go? Welcome to MsMojo, and we’ll be looking at female stars of the Golden Age of Hollywood who disappeared from the silver screen or left the industry completely.
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00:00 "Let me go."
00:02 "Why should I?"
00:04 "Because I asked you."
00:06 Welcome to Ms. Mojo, and today we'll be looking at female stars of the Golden Age of Hollywood who disappeared from the silver screen or left the industry completely.
00:16 "Let's go as far as the top of the hill and see what's beyond."
00:20 Number 10. Clara Bow.
00:24 The silent film It Girl was in some of the most iconic movies of the 1920s. Her roles presented her as a modern young woman flouting traditional sexual mores and cultural norms.
00:35 She was known for her cleverness and sex appeal, but erratic behavior and scandal plagued her off-screen life.
00:42 "Why am I like this? I hate to get angry, but I just can't help it."
00:47 Although her retirement from films coincided with the emergence of talkies, it's not the reason she left. A series of betrayals and studio pressure seemingly drove her out of the business.
00:58 "They were egging you on, couldn't you realize that?"
01:01 "So that's what it was, to get me to make a show of myself."
01:04 By 1933, she had married and relocated to a ranch in Nevada. Dogged by mental health crises throughout her life, she made very few public appearances after her time in The Sun.
01:15 "If I had more time, I'd tell you about my pet fox, pet hawks, lambs, cattle, 25 dogs, and etc. But I haven't the time, so please excuse."
01:23 Number 9. Norma Shearer.
01:26 As the queen of the MGM lot, Norma Shearer wielded a lot of power at her home studio.
01:32 This was due in no small part to her status as the wife of Metro's head of production, Irving Fahlberg.
01:38 "I'm sorry you feel your triumph incomplete, madam. My husband has better sense than I. He knows where to draw the line."
01:45 But Shearer was a star in her own right. Her movies were consistent moneymakers, and her roles often pushed the boundaries of femininity on screen.
01:54 She could be virtuous and noble in one role, and liberated and messy in another.
01:59 "Believe me, I'm not missing anything from now on."
02:01 "I don't doubt it. Once a woman throws down her fences…"
02:04 "Oh, pin it on a motto and hang it where journalists can see it."
02:06 When her husband died unexpectedly in 1936, she was left to advocate for herself, and did so admirably until her eventual retirement in 1942.
02:18 Though her fame dipped after her disappearance from public life before television, her legacy has been preserved through rebroadcasts of her movies.
02:27 "Mary Haynes, what is all this?"
02:29 "Ha ha! I've had two years to grow claws, mother. Jungle reigns!"
02:34 Number 8. Mabel Normand
02:36 As a comedy star, writer, and director, Mabel Normand was a trailblazer for women in Hollywood.
02:42 However, she may be best remembered for her legendary exploits as a reckless party girl, and her proximity to some of the town's most shocking episodes.
02:52 "Normand had a knack for slapstick comedy, but bedrooms and bullet holes turned her life into a tragedy."
02:57 She was a frequent co-star of comedian Fatty Arbuckle, whose infamous legal issues rocked the industry in the early 1920s.
03:05 The whiff of scandal often surrounded her.
03:08 "At this point, she was being rescued by a third man, William Desmond Taylor, who got her into a drug clinic in the East and saved her life that way.
03:17 Although he would help ruin it later, inadvertently."
03:20 Her friend, director William Desmond Taylor, was murdered, and a later shooting committed by her chauffeur further tarnished her reputation.
03:29 Censorship crackdowns on immoral behavior both on and off screen led to her films falling out of circulation.
03:36 Her last movie was released in 1926, and she died of tuberculosis four years later.
03:42 "She was a playful, warm person, but she was reckless in some ways and took chances in a way you couldn't really separate the two."
03:51 Number 7. Frances Farmer.
03:53 "If you don't plan anything, you just let things happen to you. Well, I'm not gonna be like that.
03:57 I got ideas of how I want things to be, and I'm gonna fix 'em so I can get 'em, that's all."
04:00 Though she was discovered by Paramount at the age of 22, she grew tired of being a studio star and returned to the theater.
04:08 Frances Farmer did then come back to Hollywood, but her battles with substance use disorder and mental illness followed her,
04:15 making national headlines and forever painting her as a tragic fallen star.
04:19 "You become more and more uncooperative, less and less competent.
04:23 Resentment against you mounts in all quarters until no more parts are offered you.
04:28 In loneliness and despair, you turn to drink to blot out the raging conflicts of your mind."
04:34 These scandals, her conservatorship under her domineering mother, and the various indignities she suffered after her very public breakdowns halted her career.
04:43 A 1982 biopic starring Jessica Lange illuminated the tragedy of her life decades later,
04:49 although people who knew Farmer deny the movie's assertion that Farmer underwent a lobotomy.
04:54 "I was able, in a kind of a grim and very lonely battle, to find this faith for myself or re-find it and to hang on to it.
05:04 And it eventually led me out of the hospital."
05:08 Number 6. Gloria Swanson
05:11 "Alright, Mr. DeMille, I'm ready for my close-up."
05:13 In some ways, Billy Wilder's moody and suspenseful Sunset Boulevard allowed Gloria Swanson to play a highly fictionalized version of her own story.
05:22 Like Norma Desmond, the reclusive relic of the silent era, Swanson had once been at the very top of the Hollywood food chain.
05:30 She failed to successfully make the transition to talkies and left Hollywood in the late 30s.
05:36 "Those idiot producers. Those imbeciles. Haven't they got any eyes? Have they forgotten what a star looks like?
05:43 I'll show them! I'll be up there again, so help me!"
05:46 While she never totally left the spotlight, making a few appearances on stage and on the radio,
05:52 her star had all but faded when she returned to Hollywood for Sunset Boulevard.
05:56 The revival didn't last long. She made a few major films afterward, but her status as one of Hollywood's great fallen goddesses remains.
06:05 "Used to be in silent pictures. Used to be big."
06:08 "I am big. It's the pictures that got small."
06:14 Number 5. Louise Reiner
06:17 "In Paris I was a big success because they liked my voice. In London I was a big success because they liked my singing.
06:23 But in America to be a big success, I need 20 gallons of milk and my seeds in it!"
06:28 For such a record breaker, Louise Reiner is rarely talked about outside of the most rarified cinephile circles.
06:35 The German-born actress made history not only as the first actor to win two Oscars,
06:40 but also the first person to win two Oscars in back-to-back years.
06:45 "I could not help calling you and congratulating you. Wonderful, Flo. Never better in my whole life.
06:54 I'm so excited about my new plan."
06:57 MGM thought she might be the next Greta Garbo, and that might have happened,
07:02 if not for a series of disappointments that led to her leaving the film business in 1938.
07:07 Disenchantment with Hollywood, poor career advice, and the death of producer Irving Fahlberg,
07:13 her champion at the studio, cut her film career short.
07:16 She left the movie business and returned to Europe, making only three film appearances between 1939 and 2003,
07:24 and taking sporadic roles on television.
07:27 "It all didn't fit quite in what I wanted to do in life, and I needed to leave to save myself."
07:38 Number 4. Tippi Hedren.
07:40 "Back in your gilded cage, Melanie Daniels."
07:43 "What did you say?"
07:46 "I was merely drawing a parallel, Miss Daniels."
07:49 Considering Alfred Hitchcock discovered her in a TV commercial,
07:52 it's a wonder Tippi Hedren took to film acting as quickly and as confidently as she does in The Birds.
07:58 Modeled after Hitchcock's ideal of the cool blonde,
08:01 Hedren underwent an extensive and increasingly torturous mentorship
08:06 by the master of suspense that effectively ended her career.
08:09 Years after his death, Hedren revealed that Hitchcock kept her under contract,
08:14 effectively disallowing her from taking roles with anyone else after she denied his advances.
08:20 "He said, 'I'll ruin your career.' I said, 'Do what you have to do. I'm gone.'
08:26 And he did. He did ruin my career."
08:30 Unable to cash in on her fame and higher profile roles,
08:33 Hedren's career stalled out as a result.
08:36 She continued to work, but never again in the caliber of movies she made with Hitchcock.
08:40 "Well, nothing's going to bother you at Land's End.
08:43 It's the quietest spot on the whole island.
08:45 Just the wind and the surf, and the birds."
08:48 #3 Shirley Temple
08:50 At the height of her career, Temple was Hollywood's biggest box office draw.
08:54 The curly hair cutied tapped, sang, and cried her way into the hearts of Depression-era moviegoers
09:00 with a series of charming song and dance movies.
09:03 "I'm telling you, what's going on around here?"
09:08 Although she had the makings to transition into teenage and adult roles,
09:12 Temple realized she had lost her passion for making movies.
09:15 She married and retired from films in 1950 at the ripe old age of 22.
09:20 "What's that over there?"
09:22 "Blue Mesa."
09:24 "Can't we go there?"
09:26 "It's not as close as it appears, Miss Thursday."
09:29 "Are you anxious to return to the fort, Lieutenant?"
09:31 She lived a quiet life out of the public eye for several years until the late 50s,
09:36 when she began appearing on television.
09:38 In the late 60s, she began a long-time career as a U.S. diplomat.
09:42 "But the best job of my whole life was as U.S. ambassador to the Republic of Ghana in West Africa."
09:48 "Why?"
09:49 "It was substantive. I did everything. I think I used everything I'd ever known."
09:54 Number two, Hedy Lamarr.
09:56 "I was different, I guess. Maybe I came from a different planet, who knows?"
10:02 "But whatever it is, inventions are easy for me to do."
10:07 Hedy Lamarr was not an ordinary star.
10:09 During the height of her film career, she was credited as an inventor of a radio guidance system
10:14 that is the basis for modern technology like Wi-Fi.
10:17 "You couldn't jam it because you'd only jam a split second of it in a single frequency."
10:22 "So frequency change, frequency hop, frequency hop, frequency hop."
10:27 "That concept, secure radio communications, was brilliant."
10:32 In her later years, she became known as one of the industry's biggest recluses,
10:36 making her last film in 1958.
10:39 She made few public appearances afterward.
10:41 She became increasingly protective of her image,
10:44 even taking legal action against people for what she thought were attempts to cash in on her fame.
10:49 "She actually sued us for using Hedy Lamarr, too close to Hedy,
10:56 and they said, 'This is ridiculous, we'll go to court, we'll fight it.'
10:59 I said, 'No! She's beautiful. See if you can get a meeting.'"
11:04 By the 1980s, she communicated to her closest friends via telephone,
11:08 and lived out the last two decades of her life in almost total seclusion.
11:13 Before we unveil our top pick, here are a few honorable mentions.
11:17 Priscilla Lane, one of Hitchcock's stars who mostly retired after six years in Hollywood.
11:22 "You're tired, that's all that's the matter with you. Get some sleep, you'll be fine."
11:27 "I'm gonna sleep, alright? I'm so tired."
11:32 Mae West, the body blonde disappeared from the screen after years of censorship battles.
11:38 "What are you trying to do, scare me, Dan?
11:41 Well, when I need protection, I'll write you a letter."
11:45 Louise Brooks, she helped popularize the image of the flapper before leaving fame behind.
11:50 "To be a great actress, you must know what you're doing.
11:53 When I write my little piece, I know exactly what I'm doing.
11:56 When I acted, I hadn't the slightest idea what I was doing.
12:00 I was simply playing myself, which is the hardest thing in the world to do."
12:04 Anne Dvorak, married her co-star against studio wishes, damaging her career.
12:09 "They got Nick. I see it all now.
12:11 He stole a car, pulled a job, and then took us out for a ride,
12:14 and tried to shoot his way out when they got him."
12:16 "Well, it might be murder."
12:17 "If it is, they'll stop at nothing to get us."
12:19 Diane Varcy, an Oscar nominee for her first movie, she left Hollywood to study poetry.
12:24 "You have a talent. Those stories were a good start.
12:28 Now, where do you go from here?"
12:30 "Well, that's what I hope to find out from you."
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12:47 Number 1. Greta Garbo
12:50 "I want to be alone."
12:52 "Where have you been?
12:54 I suppose I can cancel the Vienna contract."
12:57 "I just want to be alone."
12:59 When Garbo uttered her most famous film line, she wasn't acting.
13:03 And she wasn't kidding either.
13:05 The Swedish silent star came to Hollywood in 1925 to work for MGM.
13:10 After the failure of her final film, 1941's Two-Faced Woman,
13:15 she tired of Hollywood and announced her retirement.
13:18 "I'll give you five minutes to change your clothes and make that plane."
13:20 "I'm going swimming."
13:21 "How dare you interfere with my plans!"
13:23 "What about my plans?"
13:24 She was possibly the biggest star in Hollywood at the time.
13:27 For her to quit at the height of her fame was a shock.
13:30 As she was later quoted, she felt she'd "made enough faces in front of a camera."
13:35 While not exactly a recluse, she led a guarded and private life,
13:39 intentionally keeping her circle of friends very small.
13:42 After her retirement, she lived nearly 50 years in semi-solitude.
13:47 "And so let me remember you with love and loyalty."
13:53 "Till memory is no more."
13:56 Which Hollywood actress do you miss the most?
13:59 Let us know in the comments.
14:01 "You don't know how much I've missed all of you."
14:04 "And I promise you I'll never desert you again."
14:07 Do you agree with our picks?
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