Dareos, the (Somewhat) Soothsayer of Hollywood

If you were an actor in the 1920s, or just hung around with them, chances are that someone would eventually drag you along to visit a fortune teller or psychic.  Early Hollywood was a superstitious lot, and there were plenty of people willing to exploit it:

There are all kinds of soothsayers and prophets.  There are sincere ones, no doubt – and equally doubtlessly, ruthless charlatans…[the] good people of movieland, in no small degree, believe what the hocus-pocus peddlers tell them!  [1]

The most famous of the “hocus-pocus peddlers” was Dareos, about whom there is maddeningly little on the internet.  Photoplay investigates:

This Dareos’ full name, by the way, is George Dareos.  He has a rambling suite of rooms in a two-story building, over a branch bank in Ocean Park – a beach town near Hollywood.  He is listed in the phone book as “Dareos, George, psychoanalyst”, but he tells you frankly that he just senses things about his clients…

“[I] lived for a long time in the East and in Europe.  My people thought I was going to be a lawyer, but I didn’t want to.  It was in 1916 that I first took up this psychic work…[I] went into a fortune-teller’s tent, and…I had told his fortune instead of him telling me mine.” [2]

The only other background I could find is by Irving Shulman, in his book Jackie: The Exploitation of a First Lady (and you know there must be a dearth of info if I’m using Shulman):

[M]any of these stellar people were clients of George Dareos, formerly butler to a Hollywood star addicted to frequent consultation with a Pasadena medium.  After Dareos compared his earnings as a manservant with the medium’s takings, he decided to set himself up as a seer.

Which of these stories are true?  Who knows?  At any rate, Dareos’ prophetic skill was legend in and around Tinseltown; he advised Pola Negri, Charles Chaplin, Mae Murray, Mabel Normand, and a multitude of the cinema elite.

[photo courtesy http://vintage-spirit.blogspot.com/]

One of his more infamous clients was Valentino, as noted in Dark Lover: The Life and Death of Rudolph Valentino by Emily W Leider:

[H]e sought advice from a crystal-ball-gazing Santa Monica seer, Dareos, who told a reporter that Valentino had come to him in a confused state, confessing his undying love for Mrs Valentino [Natacha Rambova] and begging for a glimpse into the future.  Dareos foretold that the separated couple would never be reconciled… “I told him he was born to have many romances and that he should never get married.”

We’ve established his reputation, but the question remains: how was his accuracy? 

Let’s test it ourselves!  In the aforementioned Photoplay article, Dareos predicts the future for some big names.

Tom Mix:

“Tom Mix should be careful.  I predict that Tom Mix will be ruined if he’s not careful.  If he doesn’t watch out, some day a bolt will strike him like lightning out of the blue!” [3]

[photo courtesy Wikipedia]

Well, Mix wasn’t exactly ruined, but something did strike him – the aluminum suitcase he was traveling with, forever to be known as the “Suitcase of Death”:

On the day he died, Mix was driving north from Tucson in his beloved bright-yellow Cord Phaeton sports car.  He was driving so fast that he didn’t notice – or failed to heed – signs warning that one of the bridges was out on the road ahead.  The Phaeton swung into a gully and Mix was smacked in the back of the head by one of the heavy aluminum suitcases he was carrying in the convertible’s back seat.  The impact broke the actor’s neck and he died almost instantly.  ["On This Day in History" Oct 12 1940 -- History.com]

Constance Talmadge:

“Constance Talmadge – I told her she has many wonderful things yet to come – I predict a brilliant marriage for her, one that will last.” [4]

[photo courtesy The Fabulous Birthday Blog]

Notoriously unlucky in love, Dutch married four times, the last of which finally did last (for 25 years).  She had no children.

Joan Crawford:

“There’s talk that she and young Fairbanks will marry, but I don’t see that.” [5]

Uh...

[photo courtesy bridalbox.org]

Finally, Richard Dix:

A year ago, Dareos told Dix that within five years the star would marry one of the most important society women in America…[c]heck that on your calendar for 1932, fans! [6]

[photo courtesy Silents Are Golden]

Dix married San Francisco socialite Winifred Coe in October 1931.  The marriage produced a daughter, but was over by July 1933.

So our friend Dareos was about as intuitive as a Magic 8 Ball.  Didn't seem to hurt him though; he remained one of the most visible and oft-consulted psychics -- the Sidney Sheldon of his time -- well through the silent era and beyond:

Meet Rex Larbow Bell, the son and heir of Clara Bow…the unusual middle name is the suggestion of George Dareos, local astrologer, who is widely consulted by film folk, and who is a close friend of Clara and Rex [Bell].  According to Dareos, Larbow is an Indian name…[Harrison Carroll, “Behind the Scenes in Hollywood”, Rochester Evening Journal, Jan 3 1935]

Franklin D Roosevelt’s election fo the much debated “third term” is a certainty, in the opinion of George Dareos, noted Hollywood astrologer for many of moviedom’s noted…he declares he is a theosophist, the reincarnation of a great sociologist from the far distant past…[l]ooking ahead 50 years, Dareos forecasts a change of site for the Vatican from Rome to some place in Spain. [“Hollywood Astrologist Sees Roosevelt Triumph”, Valley Star-Monitor-Herald (Texas), Oct 20 1940]

Some years ago, George Dareos, world-famous psychic, told us he predicted that Hayley Mills would marry a man old enough to be her father…[a]ccording to present Hollywood whispers, George Dareos’ predictions appear to be coming true.  She has been guarding a romantic secret, one that involves a man of 57. (Mills was 22 at the time of the article). [TV and Movie Screen Magazine, June 1967]

The last mention of Dareos I could find was a prediction he made about Elvis Presley in 1969 (excerpted in Private Elvis by May Mann):

Elvis can live to be over 70 years of age if he stays away from private planes…Elvis, after his fortieth birthday…will stand a symbol of honesty and good character…[h]e will one day head a magnificent producing company, and hire other stars to appear in pictures he will produce (besides the ones he will star in), he will make a great success…

After that, the trail goes cold.  Aside from a Diane Arbus photograph (which I could not find in good enough resolution to reproduce here), nothing.  Very strange for a man who seemed such a ubiquitous part of Hollywood’s gold-plated façade. It’s as if he simply vanished.  (I wonder if he foresaw it?)

---

[1--6] Harry Lang, "Exposing the Occult: Hocus-Pocus in Hollywood", Photoplay, December 1928

Jobyna Ralston and the Fickle Finger of Fame

One thing that’s both wonderful and painful about having so many issues of Photoplay at one’s fingertips is tracing the fleeting career arc of a star.  We see the excitement of his/her discovery, the popular period when every other article seems to be about him/her…then, the mentions get fewer and further between, until finally his/her name is all but forgotten by the once-adoring public.  

(All images are courtesy my favorite place on the internet, the Media History Digital Library.)

Jobyna Ralston was born on November 21, 1899. She first appeared on stage at age nine; by 1915 she was attending acting school, and eventually made her Broadway debut in Two Little Girls in Blue at age 21.  Max Linder was in the audience and insisted she come to Hollywood -- she performed in many of his films, as well as the Marx Brothers' lost Humor Risk and Hal Roach shorts.  First mention of her I could find was in 1922, in a blurb about Mildred Davis retiring as Harold Lloyd’s leading lady:

 Just who is to follow Mildred…hasn’t been decided…[A] little extra girl named Jobyna – yes, truly – is being most seriously considered.  Well, whoever follows Bebe Daniels and Mildred Davis, will be lucky, it would appear. [“Plays and Players”, Photoplay, September 1922]

With that, suddenly, in 1923, she was noticed: 

 [Photoplay, July 1923]

The prestige of being named a WAMPAS star, along with well-received performances in Why Worry? and Girl Shy put her on the map.  She was profiled by Adela Rogers St Johns:

But oh, sang I, to be eighteen and just fresh from Tennessee, and pretty.  Jobyna is so Southern...[t]rying to alter her speech would be just about as foolish as extracting the perfume from a rose.  I don’t know whether she’s got a brain in her head, but brains are just excess baggage to girls like Jobyna. [I guess that’s supposed to be positive?  Yeesh.  –JR] I don’t know what to call it – but whatever it is, Jobyna’s got it.  [“Betty & Jobyna”, Photoplay, November 1923]

She posed for fluff [a bob clause?  Really?!]:

 [“News and Gossip East and West”, Photoplay, July 1924]

She was officially presented to the public:

A man with an eye like [Harold Lloyd]’s doesn’t need any glass in his horn rims.  I have never seen a more sensitive face.  Expressions flutter over it, one after another, like ripples in a pond.  A whimsical, engaging bit of fluff that’s liable to be wafted far.  [Herbert Howe, “The Discovery of Jobyna Ralston”, Photoplay, August 1924]

And the portraits!  Hardly a month went by without one:

[Photoplay, February 1924]

[Photoplay, August 1925]

[Photoplay, April 1926]

But then…one issue went by without Jobyna.

She was still working, both with Lloyd (she appeared in six of his pictures) and in other films, including the first Academy Award winning Best Picture, Wings, yet she didn't seem to garner attention.  More issues went by with nary a word about her.

Her marriage to Richard Arlen, whom she met on the set of Wings, did gain a notice:

[Photoplay, July 1927]

Nothing else until four years later, when her prowess at dinner parties is discussed:

When Jobyna Ralston married Richard Arlen, she gave up a promising screen career to settle down and become merely “Dick Arlen’s wife”.  [OUCH. – JR]  Since then, Joby has turned her talents into housewifely channels…[Carolyn Van Wyck, “Jobyna and Dick Give a Party for Six”, Photoplay, May 1931]

She made three movies after sound came in, but talkies exposed one problem that even her sweet Tennessee drawl couldn't fix: a lisp.  Due to this and her first child on the way, she retired permanently from the screen.

[Photoplay, August 1933]

Movies are mercurial by nature.  It’s almost unfathomable to process how much films changed from the 20s to the 30s.  It’s no wonder, then, that just ten short years after her discovery, Jobyna is part of a “where are they now” nostalgia article:

It’s easy to account for many former big stars who have found the answer in Hollywood marriages and screen retirement…Jobyna Ralston is satisfied with being just Mrs Richard Arlen. [Kirtley Baskette, “They, Too, Were Stars”, Photoplay, March 1934]

Sadly, the satisfaction didn't last forever; she and Arlen were divorced in 1945.  In later years, her health declined dramatically, and she suffered from rheumatism and a series of strokes.  

Jobyna Ralston succumbed to pneumonia on January 22, 1967.  She was only 67.

The Summer Movies for '13

Got absorbed in a project and didn't have time to write a proper blog entry this week (sorry!) so in exchange, I offer you the movies that exhibitors couldn't wait to get in their theatres -- from exactly 100 years ago today.  From the May 31, 1913 issue of Moving Picture World [all courtesy the MHDB]:

(How can you go wrong with that first title?)

(I kind of want to see THE ACCUSING HAND. 

"Driven to complete confession without one single word of accusation"!)

(A HUSBAND'S TRICK stars Lillian Walker as a woman who realizes 

the husband-neglecting error of her suffragette ways.  Yay?)

("Professor Nutt, the vegetarian, goes to the house of an old friend for dinner."
Hey, it ain't WORLD WAR Z, but it'll do.)

Remembering

John Gilbert and Karl Dane in "The Big Parade" (1925)

[image courtesy The Eastman House]

Richard Arlen and Buddy Rogers in "Wings" (1927)

[image courtesy Feminema]

"The War Film Speaks", Motion Picture, November 1914

[courtesy the MHDL]

I show you long lines of marching men

As in war's grim armor they go their way

To the battlefield, the fort and the fen,

And you clap your hands and you shout hurrah!

But pause for a moment, my friends out there,

Where safe you sit as my swift feet leap,

And think of the children that starve and stare

And the waiting women that work and weep.

Ah, know you already that war's wild hate

Has taken its toll of these marching lines,

That many a face with a smile elate

Lies ghastly now 'neath the border pines?

Yes, this laughing lad and that gaunt grandsire,

Who please your eye with their trim display,

May now be fighting 'mid hell's fierce fire,

Or breathing their last in the mad affray.

O mothers that look on your sons with pride,

O daughters that gaze on your fathers dear,

O maids that sit by a fond lover's side,

O wives that hover your husbands near,

Resolve in your hearts this horror must go

That brings to the world such awful dole,

This cheat called war with its pitiless woe

That wrings to the depths each human soul.

--Oscar H. Roesner

Five Facts About: Wanda Hawley

[Photo courtesy Fanpix.net]

1.  Most of the fan magazines list her maiden name as Pettit, but her birth name was actually Selma Wanda Pittach.  When entering movies in 1917, she took the name Pettit to accent her petite stature (she was only 5'3").  The moniker didn't last long, and she instead used her married name (she and Allen Burton Hawley would divorce in 1922):

Wanda Pettit is the latter no more.  That is, she has assumed her honest-to-goodness name which is Wanda Hawley...Allan Dwan, the director, didn't like the Pettit part -- said it wasn't euphonious, or something, so Wanda had it deleted without a murmur.  ["Plays and Players", Photoplay, June 1918]

Mr and Mrs Hawley.  

[Photoplay, January 1920, courtesy the MHDL]

2.  In addition to enjoying swimming and gold, Wanda was vocally trained and toured for awhile across the country singing opera.  She was also an accomplished pianist:

She was to be a grand opera prima donna...and her mother had her put through a strict course of training vocally, as well as at the piano.  The result is that she can sit down now and tick off a few Rachmaninoff preludes and Bach fugues without winking an eye.  ["Victuals and Voice", Photoplay, January 1920]

[Photoplay, January 1920, courtesy the MHDL]

3. She is said to have appeared in the 1925 version of The Wizard of Oz, though her role is uncredited and, as of yet, unverified.  This is a most unusual version of the story, directed by Larry Semon:



4.  At the height of her career, she was receiving the same amount of fan mail as Gloria Swanson, and starred with matinee idols like Rudolph Valentino and Wallace Reid.

Wanda and Rudy in The Young Rajah (1922). 

[Photo courtesy The Loudest Voice.]

5. Though well-regarded, her career faltered after sound came in (her IMDb lists only three credits, ending in 1932), and she is rumored to have become a call girl in San Francisco.  She died in 1963.

Interested?  Good!  For more about Wanda:

Wanda Hawley -- IMDb

An interesting essay written by her great-niece: Sixth Street - House Arrest Girl

Wanda Hawley -- Answers.com

She is also included in Dangerous Curves atop Hollywood Heels: The Lives, Careers, and Misfortunes of 14 Hard-Luck Girls of the Silent Screen by Michael Ankerich (another on my to-read list!)

[Photo courtesy Fanpix.net]

Review: Two Alone (1934)

Mazie (Jean Parker) lives in a world as bleak and unforgiving as a Grant Wood painting.  An orphan, she was adopted into a life of drudgery and servitude by a harsh farm family, headed by the deplorable Slag (Arthur Byron) and his shrewish wife (Beulah Bondi).  Their daughter, Corie (Nydia Westman, who you'll hear more about soon), doesn't seem to care for Mazie one way or another, only noticing her existence to laugh at her.

Somehow, despite the lack of love and affection, this little weed has grown into a wildflower; Mazie is beautiful, dreamy-eyed, and curious.  Her only friend on the farm is George Marshall (Willard Robertson), an older hired hand, and her heart is broken when he leaves -- though he does promise to come back and save her someday.

One day, Mazie stumbles across Adam (Tom Brown), a troubled young man on the run, and treats him with the first compassion he's ever known.  They recognize something in each other, these two castoffs, and before they know it they've formed a bond -- one they will desperately need to hang on to...

This movie touched me.  It's a soapy programmer, to be sure, and it starts a bit slow and rickety, but the performances are disarming.  Jean Parker imbues Mazie with an innocence that never devolves into dopeyness or gullibilty; both she and Tom Brown have such freshness, such vulnerability, that their love story never seems syrupy or overblown.   Arthur Byron plays one of the coldest, meanest characters in recent memory, and just when you think he might be softening...well, I don't want to give it away.  Charley Grapewin injects a bit of humor into the movie's darker moments with a small but pivotal role, and Zasu Pitts has a cameo as his long-suffering daughter.

Two Alone is a thinly-veiled Cinderella story, but it is also a very real and poignant tale of first love.  IMDb says it is also known as Wild Birds; it's worth seeing under any name.

I give this one:

Lightning Flyer

She was Dot sometimes, or Little Alabam',
Started a Scandal up there on the stage,
When in her cups, her friends called her Slam,
At MGM, all the rage.

A beauty just brimming with humor and fun,
Her joie de vivre showed in her face, in her carriage,
She mended the stone face and heart of someone,
In spite of his marriage.

Forever supporting, rarely the lead,
The role didn't matter -- her presence shone stronger.
A daughter of silents who vanished with speed...
Wish you'd stayed longer.

Dorothy Sebastian