Singers and Actors: Colleen Moore

 

Max Pollak

  1886 - 1970 (biography)

c. 1925  

drypoint and color aquatint 

16 7/8 x 12 1/8" platemark 

pencil, lower right 

Pr. Pr. (printer's proof; only around 8 impressions printed) 

pencil titled in lower left, editioned lower center; annotated "Printed a. 8" along bottom sheet edge; red Friedl Pollak Collection stamp in lower left 

 

cream laid 

published 

artist 

23889 

$400.00 

One of the many performers Max Pollak captured throughout the 1920s and '30s, this portrait of actress Colleen Moore (1899 - 1988) captures the glamor of one of the highest paid silent-film stars in American history. Born in Port Huron, Michigan, Moore's family moved to Georgia and Pennsylvania before settling in Tampa, Florida, in 1911. Moore was drawn to acting from a young age, and when she turned fifteen, her uncle arranged a screen test for her at Chicago's Essaney Studios with famed director D.W. Griffith. She then moved with her mother and grandmother to Hollywood, California, where she made her first appearance in The Bad Boy in 1917. This led to a successful decade of roles, ranging from extras to starring parts for the next decade. At the height of her career, she was earning $12,500 a week - around $250,000 in today's money.

When "talkies" became the next big thing, Moore's career stalled, and she ultimately retired in 1934. Undeterred, Moore became interested playing the stock market - to great success. This allowed her to found a television production company in the 1960s with frequent co-star King Vidor; she would also write How Women Can Make Money in the Stock Market in 1969. A secondary lifelong passion of Moore's was building elaborate, fantastic dollhouses, one of which, known as the Fairy Castle, is now a part of the permanent collection of Chicago's Griffin Museum of Science and Industry.

Though relatively unknown today, Moore's career was one of the brightest in Hollywood's early days and she was for her talent and generosity, using her earnings to donate to charities throughout Los Angeles. She is also credited with being one of the starlets to popularize the iconic "bob" haircut. F. Scott Fitzgerald would write of her, "I was the spark that lit up Flaming Youth, Colleen Moore was the torch."