not the total disaster Myrna believed it to be. “She told me it wasn’t bad—that it must have been the projection machine that made it seem so jumpy.” Rambova then offered Myrna a role in the picture she was producing, to be titled What Price Beauty? The title echoes the name of a tremendously popular Broadway play from 1924, What Price Glory? Written by Maxwell Anderson and Laurence Stallings for a Broadway production produced by Arthur Hopkins, the World War I drama had been a success in New York before being adapted for the screen and turned into a major 1926 Fox film. 16
After a single screening, What Price Beauty? was pulled and would not be officially released and distributed by Pathé until 1928. Though the reasons for the delay can only be guessed at, Valentino’s sudden death in 1926 surely had something to do with it, since his estate was being contested. He had financed the film via his manager and estate executor, George Ullman, and the production ran way over budget. Just who owned the rights may have been unclear. Rambova’s unpopularity in the Hollywood movie world must also have played a part. She had trouble finding a distributor while she was still in Hollywood. After their very public divorce, and Valentino’s sensational demise, no major studio wanted to get near the work of his former wife, a reputed harridan. Following Valentino’s death, the press mocked Rambova’s film, in most cases before even seeing it.
But publicity for What Price Beauty? brought it some positive attention in the summer and fall of 1925, before the Valentino divorce and near the time of the actual shooting of the picture. The Los Angeles Times , in an article that included pictures from the production, called the movie “a rather adroit answer to the critics who have made the assertion that Miss Rambova has been influencing too much the career of her husband. It is . . . her declaration of independence.” And what a resounding declaration it was. “Some of the sequences,” reported the Times , “incline to be quite ultra and fantastic.” 17
With Parisian taste, a penchant for the avant-garde, and the experience of designing the outré sets and costumes for Nazimova’s Salome behind her, Rambova decided to indulge her adventurous proclivities to the hilt in this picture, her sole independent cinematic venture, which unfortunately has not survived. The designer Adrian Gilbert, later known simply as Adrian, had come to Hollywood with the Valentinos to create costumes for their failed project The Hooded Falcon , but he stayed on to work on What Price Beauty? He would soon be launched as a rising star among Hollywood designers. Natacha gave him carte blanche on her picture, which she wrote as well as produced. A satire of the beauty industry, What Price Beauty? starred Nita Naldi, the voluptuous, flashing-eyed, dark-haired veteran of many temptress roles, as a vamp who vies with a country girl for the love of the manager of a beauty parlor. In a dream sequence the heroine dreams she’s in a surreal beauty parlor where she must choose among several different types of women, represented by different models wearing various wild Adrian getups. Myrna played the “intellectual vamp.” Natacha supplied a wig, giving her a short blonde “do” with bangs that formed points on her forehead, pixie style. Adrian created turtle-necked, formfitting red velvet pajamas for her tall, slender form, adding a sarong at the waist, long sleeves, and a fur-trimmed train. Natacha also oversaw Myrna’s makeup. “She slanted my eyes and—unquestionably—that bizarre role was the beginning of my artistic career.” 18
Although Myrna’s part in the dream sequence was small, media attention now came her way. Images of her wearing her What Price Beauty? costume, captured in still photos taken by Henry Waxman, became the basis of a picture spread in the September 1925 issue of the fan magazine Motion Picture . “There’s a great
After a single screening, What Price Beauty? was pulled and would not be officially released and distributed by Pathé until 1928. Though the reasons for the delay can only be guessed at, Valentino’s sudden death in 1926 surely had something to do with it, since his estate was being contested. He had financed the film via his manager and estate executor, George Ullman, and the production ran way over budget. Just who owned the rights may have been unclear. Rambova’s unpopularity in the Hollywood movie world must also have played a part. She had trouble finding a distributor while she was still in Hollywood. After their very public divorce, and Valentino’s sensational demise, no major studio wanted to get near the work of his former wife, a reputed harridan. Following Valentino’s death, the press mocked Rambova’s film, in most cases before even seeing it.
But publicity for What Price Beauty? brought it some positive attention in the summer and fall of 1925, before the Valentino divorce and near the time of the actual shooting of the picture. The Los Angeles Times , in an article that included pictures from the production, called the movie “a rather adroit answer to the critics who have made the assertion that Miss Rambova has been influencing too much the career of her husband. It is . . . her declaration of independence.” And what a resounding declaration it was. “Some of the sequences,” reported the Times , “incline to be quite ultra and fantastic.” 17
With Parisian taste, a penchant for the avant-garde, and the experience of designing the outré sets and costumes for Nazimova’s Salome behind her, Rambova decided to indulge her adventurous proclivities to the hilt in this picture, her sole independent cinematic venture, which unfortunately has not survived. The designer Adrian Gilbert, later known simply as Adrian, had come to Hollywood with the Valentinos to create costumes for their failed project The Hooded Falcon , but he stayed on to work on What Price Beauty? He would soon be launched as a rising star among Hollywood designers. Natacha gave him carte blanche on her picture, which she wrote as well as produced. A satire of the beauty industry, What Price Beauty? starred Nita Naldi, the voluptuous, flashing-eyed, dark-haired veteran of many temptress roles, as a vamp who vies with a country girl for the love of the manager of a beauty parlor. In a dream sequence the heroine dreams she’s in a surreal beauty parlor where she must choose among several different types of women, represented by different models wearing various wild Adrian getups. Myrna played the “intellectual vamp.” Natacha supplied a wig, giving her a short blonde “do” with bangs that formed points on her forehead, pixie style. Adrian created turtle-necked, formfitting red velvet pajamas for her tall, slender form, adding a sarong at the waist, long sleeves, and a fur-trimmed train. Natacha also oversaw Myrna’s makeup. “She slanted my eyes and—unquestionably—that bizarre role was the beginning of my artistic career.” 18
Although Myrna’s part in the dream sequence was small, media attention now came her way. Images of her wearing her What Price Beauty? costume, captured in still photos taken by Henry Waxman, became the basis of a picture spread in the September 1925 issue of the fan magazine Motion Picture . “There’s a great
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