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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14:15 ♪