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Silent Players
A Biographical and Autobiographical Study of 100 Silent Film Actors and Actresses
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" From his unique perspective of friendship with many of the actors and actresses about whom he writes, silent film historian Anthony Slide creates vivid portraits of the careers and often eccentric lives of 100 players from the American silent film industry. He profiles the era's shining stars such as Lillian Gish and Blanche Sweet; leading men including William Bakewell and Robert Harron; gifted leading ladies such as Laura La Plante and Alice Terry; ingénues like Mary Astor and Mary Brian; and even Hollywood's most famous extra, Bess Flowers. Although each original essay is accompanied by significant documentation and an extensive bibliography, Silent Players is not simply a reference book or encyclopedic recitation of facts culled from the pages of fan magazines and trade periodicals. It contains a series of insightful portraits of the characters who symbolize an original and pioneering era in motion history and explores their unique talents and extraordinary private lives. Slide offers a potentially revisionist view of many of the stars he profiles, repudiating the status of some and restoring to fame others who have slipped from view. He personally interviewed many of his subjects and knew several of them intimately, putting him in a distinctive position to tell their true stories.
Press Reviews:
His frank observations about the personalities of these actors, along with their recollections of silent filmmaking, creates a kind of meta-portrait of celebrity itself—its grandeur and its foolishness. -American Cinematographer
Slide's approach, focusing on talented and vibrant personalities, differentiates this work from others chronicling the silent film era. -American Reference Book Annual
Anthony Slide is an authority on silent films. -Beverly Hills Courier
The grand master of silent film scholarship. -Choice
Slide sets the standard for film research that other writers can study and emulate. -Daily Variety
One writer who possesses the special insight necessary to any intelligent discussion of the silent movie is Slide. -Films in Review
A fascinating, entertaining, and occasionally poignant work that invites the reader into the fabulous work of art, industry, and experimentation that was Hollywood in the 1910s and 1920s. -Library Journal
Our preeminent historian of the silent film. -Lillian Gish
Slide profiles 100 silent film stars—57 of whom he knew personally—including such well-known names as Mary Astor, Lillian Gish, and Harold Lloyd. -Los Angeles Times
Most cinemabilia collectors concentrate on films and personalities from the 1930's on, but there are other, more serious students of cinema interested in the earlier silent period, and they will welcome film historian Anthony Slide's Silent Players. -Massillon (OH) Independent, Hartford (CT) Courant
Slide uses the lives of 100 stars to capture some of the diverse and creative charm of the period before sound was introduced to movies. -Register of the Kentucky Historical Society
Immensely entertaining. -Sight & Sound
If you love learning about the movies, you'll truly enjoy a classic in its own right. -WTBF Radio
See the publisher website: University Press of Kentucky
> From the same author:
The Silent Feminists (2022)
America's First Women Directors, Rowman & Littlefield Edition
Subject: Silent Cinema
The Encyclopedia of British Film (2021)
Dir. Brian McFarlane and Anthony Slide
Subject: Countries > Great Britain
Magnificent Obsession (2018)
The Outrageous History of Film Buffs, Collectors, Scholars, and Fanatics
Subject: Sociology
A Special Relationship (2015)
Britain Comes to Hollywood and Hollywood Comes to Britain
Subject: History of Cinema
It's the Pictures That Got Small (2014)
Charles Brackett on Billy Wilder and Hollywood's Golden Age
Dir. Anthony Slide
Subject: Director > Billy Wilder
Hollywood Unknowns (2012)
A History of Extras, Bit Players, and Stand-Ins
Inside the Hollywood Fan Magazine (2010)
A History of Star Makers, Fabricators, and Gossip Mongers
Subject: On Films > Movie magazines
De Toth on De Toth (1997)
Putting the Drama in Front of the Camera
by Andre De Toth and Anthony Slide
Subject: Director > André De Toth
> On a related topic:
Eighty Silent Film Stars (2012)
Biographies and Filmographies of the Obscure to the Well Known
Subject: Silent Cinema
Silent Film Performers (2012)
An Annotated Bibliography of Published, Unpublished and Archival Sources for More Than 350 Actors and Actresses
by Roy Liebman
Subject: Silent Cinema
From Silents to Sound (2009)
A Biographical Encyclopedia of Performers Who Made the Transition to Talking Pictures
by Roy Liebman
Subject: Silent Cinema
The Strong, Silent Type (2003)
Over 100 Screen Cowboys, 1903–1930
by Buck Rainey
Subject: Silent Cinema
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