Monday Glamour Starter --- Anita Page

If Joan Crawford had flashed hot and burned out by 1930, she’d be Anita Page. But even if Anita had pushed harder and been luckier, she’d not likely have enjoyed forty plus years of stardom Crawford carved out. These two are perfect examples of one who delivered over a long haul, and another who couldn’t pack the gear. Anita ended up a footnote … Joan the legend. On the other hand, Anita Page lived ninety-eight years. So who was luckier in a long run? Between stardom and staying longer, give me the latter, though I’m not sure Crawford would picked the same. Anita could watch The Hollywood Review Of 1929 knowing that out of that entire, monumental cast of MGM stars, she was a last and only survivor. What a sensation, if an eerie one. To hear Page tell it, she got all of breaks from the moment she walked onto Metro's lot in 1928. Crawford had to struggle, do extra work, nameless bits, the heavens know what else, while Page merely showed up. MGM took the seventeen-year old straight to a screen test with major name William Haines and within days she was signed to play opposite him in Telling The World. Must have been some remarkable screen test she made. What other Metro player went to the head of her class so quickly? Lots have written about the transition period from silents to talk. Anita Page lived it. Her second MGM job was playing a bad girl/drunk in Our Dancing Daughters, the seminal flapper-thon that among other things, put Crawford on front burners at Metro. Anita’s on-screen dipso breakdown was altogether the product of imagination, so says she, as the teenage star had not yet permitted demon rum to cross her virgin lips. It’s the same story you get in every silent era actress interview. They never drank --- mother always chaperoned on dates --- no man touched hem of their garment, etc. Tough swallow when you consider law of the jungle MGM predators lived by. Maybe minor-age status saved Anita Page initially, none of would-be seducers wanting to go to jail after all. As to later fox amongst hounds experience, Page stripped off gloves during a 2000 interview and spilled dirt on a number of co-workers and obsessive fans. Seems Irving Thalberg was just nuts about her, wanting to leave Norma and marry Anita --- and yes, that flies in the face of everything we know of Irving, so pardon my skepticism. Nemesis Crawford put the make on our girl during one of their co-starrings, but of course, Anita wanted none of it. Various interviews suggest Joan propositioned numerous female co-workers --- but wouldn’t it be great if just one of them would surprise us and say, "Oh yeah, baby. Joanie came on to me, and lemme tell ya, it was great!" --- I mean, surely one among Crawford quarry over all those years put out. So Benito Mussolini too flipped for Page and deluged Culver City postmen with near-daily proposals of marriage for an actress he idolized, but never met. She later speculated that WWII could have been averted if only she’d gone for the deal and thus stabilized her despotic admirer. Bear in mind, this was a late-in-life interview (but what’s "late-in-life" when you’re Anita Page?).

I saw Anita Page in a Burbank restaurant some years ago. This woman who once co-starred with Lon Chaney Senior, played opposite Buster Keaton in his talking debut, appeared with Clark Gable in his very first MGM picture --- was now eating a twenty-first century cheeseburger at the Holiday Inn. What must it be like to live that long? Images here speak to miracle of a life so long lived. The tigress pose with John Mack Brown is from Our Dancing Daughters, and she may well be the best thing about this show. Lon Sr. gave Anita acting tips in While The City Sleeps, a Chaney I’ve not seen but would like to. Everyone laughs at The Broadway Melody and calls it a stiff, but in early 1929, this was a marvel of early talkie sophistication, and a willingness to watch within that context bears much reward, not least of which is Anita and Bessie Love peeling off to no purpose other than giving the pre-code audience just what it came to see. Truck-driving Clark Gable was on the ascent when starting-on-a-decline Anita paired with him in support of stars Constance Bennett and Robert Montgomery in 1931’s The Easiest Way. From here, it was thankless background work for star comedians (including Marie Dressler, shown here with Anita in Reducing) that any actress on the lot could have filled, but who’s complaining when it’s Buster Keaton at the clowning helm (here in Sidewalks Of New York)? MGM had an odd tendency to pose Buster as though he were Ramon Novarro for some of publicity stills with lead ladies, a nice effect all the same, as this was how a lot of women viewed Buster (still do --- he has a considerable distaff following today). Despite Anita effort at explanation, I still wonder what went wrong for her at Metro. Was it simple as step down after marriage to songwriter Nacio Herb Brown in 1934? Not likely, as she was out of MGM at least a year prior to that. Maybe it was a distinct Queens accent that hampered her range beyond urban settings, or maybe, like Dorothy Sebastian, Mary Nolan, Madge Evans, and so many others, she just got winnowed out. There’s only so much room at the top, after all, and an actresses’ shelf life was, then as now, a limited one. In any case, Anita’s proposed title for her autobiography, Anita Page: The Last Great Silent Star, may not be altogether justified by facts, but being around long as she was, maybe it was OK to toot the horn louder, especially when rest of the orchestra has long since filed out of auditoriums.