electric washing machines had reached their limit. By the late twenties, when advertisers told them that their cars and washing machines were outdated and needed to be replaced, the working class simply couldn’t afford to buy new ones. Unbought goods languished on the shelves. Factories cut their production. Workers were laid off by the millions. With consumer demand hitting new lows, America’s economy simply stopped functioning.
Young flappers in 1927. Three years later, in the wake of the Great Crash, the flapper slipped out of sight and into memory.
Still, Black Tuesday loomed large in the national imagination. A dramatic and singularly identifiable event, it struck many people as chiefly responsible for ushering out the abundance and frivolity of the 1920s and for ushering in a new era of scarcity.
With the passing of the Jazz Age came the passing of the flapper. The world of the 1930s—a world of breadlines, industrial strikes, Father Coughlin’s radio rants, Huey Long’s demagoguery, the mounting specter of European fascism, the serious work of those sober young New Dealers in Washington, D.C.—made the cocktail-drinking, cigarette-smoking, Charleston-dancing flapper an unaffordable excess. There were more important things to talk about. America moved on to other topics.
For the Hollywood flappers, the real crash had happened almost two years earlier. It was on October 6, 1927, during intermission at the New York City premiere of The Jazz Singer , that Walter Wanger—the Paramount executive who gave Louise Brooks her start in the motion pictures—raced to the lobby to make a long-distance call to his boss, Jesse Lasky, in California. “Jesse, this is a revolution!” he cried. Hundreds of moviegoers had just watched Al Jolson sing. Scratch that. Heard Al Jolson sing.
Others had tried and failed. Who would have thought it would be those Warner Brothers—Harry, Sam, Jack, and Albert—who would figure out how to synchronize sound and film? The Warner brothers were about as dysfunctional a family as ever existed. Harry had once chased Jack around the studio lot with a lead pipe, threatening to kill him. They were anything but professionals. But they’d just rendered every other studio obsolete. Overnight.
Thousands of nervous film stars lined up to take voice tests. Would they pass muster? Were they washed up, finished, kaput? Clara Bow and Colleen Moore soldiered on. They made a few talkies—and not bad ones at that. Clara even starred in a film with Kay Francis, Lois Long’s former New York City roommate.
But their careers never survived into the new decade. It wasn’t so much that the talkies killed them. More likely, the 1930s killed the public’s taste for actresses typecast as flappers.
Facing more sober times, as well as mounting pressure from thedecency lobby, the big film studios voluntarily cleaned up their act, adopted Will Hays’s Motion Picture Production Code of 1930, and banished sexual themes and imagery from the silver screen. It would be another thirty years before Hollywood would so freely depict carnal desire.
C LARA’S GOOD LUCK ran out early on. 1 Too trusting, too eager for affirmation, she lavished much of her income on hangers-on, including her father, who squandered more than his share on a string of bad business deals. Her affair with a married man ended in an embarrassing public scandal when his wife sued Clara for damages. Clara settled out of court, but Paramount seized her escrow account of $55,000 and counting, citing noncompliance with the morality clause in her contract.
Things got worse in 1931 when her former secretary, Daisy De Voe, went on trial for stealing large sums of Clara’s jewelry and cash. As a parting shot, De Voe published a book chronicling Clara’s alleged sexual exploits. All of Hollywood was agog. Rumor even had it that the flapper queen had entertained the entire University of Southern California football team in her bedroom. It wasn’t
Young flappers in 1927. Three years later, in the wake of the Great Crash, the flapper slipped out of sight and into memory.
Still, Black Tuesday loomed large in the national imagination. A dramatic and singularly identifiable event, it struck many people as chiefly responsible for ushering out the abundance and frivolity of the 1920s and for ushering in a new era of scarcity.
With the passing of the Jazz Age came the passing of the flapper. The world of the 1930s—a world of breadlines, industrial strikes, Father Coughlin’s radio rants, Huey Long’s demagoguery, the mounting specter of European fascism, the serious work of those sober young New Dealers in Washington, D.C.—made the cocktail-drinking, cigarette-smoking, Charleston-dancing flapper an unaffordable excess. There were more important things to talk about. America moved on to other topics.
For the Hollywood flappers, the real crash had happened almost two years earlier. It was on October 6, 1927, during intermission at the New York City premiere of The Jazz Singer , that Walter Wanger—the Paramount executive who gave Louise Brooks her start in the motion pictures—raced to the lobby to make a long-distance call to his boss, Jesse Lasky, in California. “Jesse, this is a revolution!” he cried. Hundreds of moviegoers had just watched Al Jolson sing. Scratch that. Heard Al Jolson sing.
Others had tried and failed. Who would have thought it would be those Warner Brothers—Harry, Sam, Jack, and Albert—who would figure out how to synchronize sound and film? The Warner brothers were about as dysfunctional a family as ever existed. Harry had once chased Jack around the studio lot with a lead pipe, threatening to kill him. They were anything but professionals. But they’d just rendered every other studio obsolete. Overnight.
Thousands of nervous film stars lined up to take voice tests. Would they pass muster? Were they washed up, finished, kaput? Clara Bow and Colleen Moore soldiered on. They made a few talkies—and not bad ones at that. Clara even starred in a film with Kay Francis, Lois Long’s former New York City roommate.
But their careers never survived into the new decade. It wasn’t so much that the talkies killed them. More likely, the 1930s killed the public’s taste for actresses typecast as flappers.
Facing more sober times, as well as mounting pressure from thedecency lobby, the big film studios voluntarily cleaned up their act, adopted Will Hays’s Motion Picture Production Code of 1930, and banished sexual themes and imagery from the silver screen. It would be another thirty years before Hollywood would so freely depict carnal desire.
C LARA’S GOOD LUCK ran out early on. 1 Too trusting, too eager for affirmation, she lavished much of her income on hangers-on, including her father, who squandered more than his share on a string of bad business deals. Her affair with a married man ended in an embarrassing public scandal when his wife sued Clara for damages. Clara settled out of court, but Paramount seized her escrow account of $55,000 and counting, citing noncompliance with the morality clause in her contract.
Things got worse in 1931 when her former secretary, Daisy De Voe, went on trial for stealing large sums of Clara’s jewelry and cash. As a parting shot, De Voe published a book chronicling Clara’s alleged sexual exploits. All of Hollywood was agog. Rumor even had it that the flapper queen had entertained the entire University of Southern California football team in her bedroom. It wasn’t
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