Alla Nazimova
Encyclopedia
Alla Nazimova was a Russian American
Russian American
Russian Americans are primarily Americans who traces their ancestry to Russia. The definition can be applied to recent Russian immigrants to the United States, as well as to settlers of 19th century Russian settlements in northwestern America which includes today's California, Alaska and...

 film and theatre actress, a screenwriter
Screenwriter
Screenwriters or scriptwriters or scenario writers are people who write/create the short or feature-length screenplays from which mass media such as films, television programs, Comics or video games are based.-Profession:...

 and film producer
Film producer
A film producer oversees and delivers a film project to all relevant parties while preserving the integrity, voice and vision of the film. They will also often take on some financial risk by using their own money, especially during the pre-production period, before a film is fully financed.The...

. She is perhaps best known as simply Nazimova, but also went under the name Alia Nasimoff.

Early life

She was born Miriam Edez Adelaida Leventon , one of three children of Yakov Leventon and Sonya Horowitz. The family was Jewish and lived in Yalta
Yalta
Yalta is a city in Crimea, southern Ukraine, on the north coast of the Black Sea.The city is located on the site of an ancient Greek colony, said to have been founded by Greek sailors who were looking for a safe shore on which to land. It is situated on a deep bay facing south towards the Black...

, Crimea
Crimea
Crimea , or the Autonomous Republic of Crimea , is a sub-national unit, an autonomous republic, of Ukraine. It is located on the northern coast of the Black Sea, occupying a peninsula of the same name...

 (then a part of the Russian Empire
Russian Empire
The Russian Empire was a state that existed from 1721 until the Russian Revolution of 1917. It was the successor to the Tsardom of Russia and the predecessor of the Soviet Union...

; now a part of Ukraine
Ukraine
Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It has an area of 603,628 km², making it the second largest contiguous country on the European continent, after Russia...

). She grew up in a dysfunctional family
Dysfunctional family
A dysfunctional family is a family in which conflict, misbehavior, and often abuse on the part of individual members occur continually and regularly, leading other members to accommodate such actions. Children sometimes grow up in such families with the understanding that such an arrangement is...

 and after her parents' separation was shuffled among boarding schools, foster homes, and relatives. A precocious child, she was playing the violin
Violin
The violin is a string instrument, usually with four strings tuned in perfect fifths. It is the smallest, highest-pitched member of the violin family of string instruments, which includes the viola and cello....

 by age seven.

As a teenager she began to pursue an interest in the theatre and took acting lessons at the Academy of Acting in Moscow
Moscow
Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...

 before joining Constantin Stanislavski's Moscow Art Theatre
Moscow Art Theatre
The Moscow Art Theatre is a theatre company in Moscow that the seminal Russian theatre practitioner Constantin Stanislavski, together with the playwright and director Vladimir Nemirovich-Danchenko, founded in 1898. It was conceived as a venue for naturalistic theatre, in contrast to the melodramas...

 as "Alla Nazimova," and later just "Nazimova." (Her stage name was a combination of her middle name Adelaida and the surname of Nadezhda Nazimova, the heroine of the Russian novel
Russian literature
Russian literature refers to the literature of Russia or its émigrés, and to the Russian-language literature of several independent nations once a part of what was historically Russia or the Soviet Union...

 Children of the Streets.

Career

Nazimova's theater career blossomed early; and by 1903 she was a major star in Moscow
Moscow
Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...

 and Saint Petersburg
Saint Petersburg
Saint Petersburg is a city and a federal subject of Russia located on the Neva River at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea...

. She toured Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...

, including London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

 and Berlin
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...

, with her boyfriend Pavel Orlenev, a flamboyant actor and producer. In 1905 they moved to New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

 and founded a Russian-language
Russian language
Russian is a Slavic language used primarily in Russia, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. It is an unofficial but widely spoken language in Ukraine, Moldova, Latvia, Turkmenistan and Estonia and, to a lesser extent, the other countries that were once constituent republics...

 theater on the Lower East Side
Lower East Side
The Lower East Side, LES, is a neighborhood in the southeastern part of the New York City borough of Manhattan. It is roughly bounded by Allen Street, East Houston Street, Essex Street, Canal Street, Eldridge Street, East Broadway, and Grand Street....

. The venture was unsuccessful; and Orlenev returned to Russia while Nazimova stayed in New York.

She was signed up by the American producer Henry Miller
Henry Miller (actor)
Henry Miller was an English-born American actor, director, theatrical producer and manager.Born as John Pegge in London, Miller's parents immigrated to Canada where he started acting as a juvenile. He became the leading man in Charles Frohman's stock company in New York City's Empire Theatre in 1893...

 and made her Broadway
Broadway theatre
Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...

 debut in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

, New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...

, in 1906 to critical and popular success. She quickly became extremely popular (a theater was named after her) and remained a major Broadway star for years, often acting in the plays of Henrik Ibsen
Henrik Ibsen
Henrik Ibsen was a major 19th-century Norwegian playwright, theatre director, and poet. He is often referred to as "the father of prose drama" and is one of the founders of Modernism in the theatre...

 and Anton Chekhov
Anton Chekhov
Anton Pavlovich Chekhov was a Russian physician, dramatist and author who is considered to be among the greatest writers of short stories in history. His career as a dramatist produced four classics and his best short stories are held in high esteem by writers and critics...

. Dorothy Parker
Dorothy Parker
Dorothy Parker was an American poet, short story writer, critic and satirist, best known for her wit, wisecracks, and eye for 20th century urban foibles....

 described her as the finest Hedda Gabler
Hedda Gabler
Hedda Gabler is a play first published in 1890 by Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen. The play premiered in 1891 in Germany to negative reviews, but has subsequently gained recognition as a classic of realism, nineteenth century theatre, and world drama...

 she had ever seen.

Due to her notoriety in a 35-minute 1915 play entitled War Brides, Nazimova made her silent film
Silent film
A silent film is a film with no synchronized recorded sound, especially with no spoken dialogue. In silent films for entertainment the dialogue is transmitted through muted gestures, pantomime and title cards...

 debut in 1916 in the filmed version of the play. A young actor with a bit part in the movie was Richard Barthelmess
Richard Barthelmess
Richard Semler "Dick" Barthelmess was an Oscar-nominated silent film star.-Early life:Barthelmess was educated at Hudson River Military Academy at Nyack and Trinity College at Hartford, Connecticut...

 whose mother taught Nazimova English. This appearance brought her to the attention of Lewis J. Selznick
Lewis J. Selznick
Lewis J. Selznick was a Jewish-Ukrainian-American producer in the early years of the film industry.-Personal life and early career:...

. Over the next few years she made a number of highly successful films that earned her a considerable amount of money. By 1917 her contract was earning her $13,000 per week.

In 1918, Nazimova felt confident enough in her abilities that she began producing and writing films in which she also starred. In her film adaptations of works by such notable writers as Oscar Wilde
Oscar Wilde
Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde was an Irish writer and poet. After writing in different forms throughout the 1880s, he became one of London's most popular playwrights in the early 1890s...

 and Ibsen she developed her own film making techniques, which were considered daring at the time. Her projects, including A Doll's House (1922), based on Ibsen, and Salomé
Salomé (1923 film)
Salomé , a silent film directed by Charles Bryant and starring Alla Nazimova, is a film adaptation of the Oscar Wilde play of the same name...

(1923), based on Wilde's play, were critical and commercial failures.

By 1925 Nazimova could no longer afford to invest in more films; and financial backers withdrew their support. Left with few options, she gave up on the film industry, returning to perform on Broadway, notably starring as Natalya Petrovna in Rouben Mamoulian
Rouben Mamoulian
Rouben Mamoulian was an Armenian-American film and theatre director.-Biography:Born in Tbilisi, Georgia to an Armenian family, Rouben relocated to England and started directing plays in London in 1922...

's 1930 New York production of Turgenev's A Month in the Country
A Month in the Country (play)
A Month in the Country is a comedy in five acts by Ivan Turgenev. It was written in France between 1848 and 1850 and was first published in 1855...

and an acclaimed performance as Mrs. Alving in Ibsen's Ghosts
Ghosts (play)
Ghosts is a play by the Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen. It was written in 1881 and first staged in 1882.Like many of Ibsen's better-known plays, Ghosts is a scathing commentary on 19th century morality....

. In the early 1940s, she appeared in a few more films, playing Robert Taylor
Robert Taylor (actor)
Robert Taylor was an American film and television actor.-Early life:Born Spangler Arlington Brugh in Filley, Nebraska, he was the son of Ruth Adaline and Spangler Andrew Brugh, who was a farmer turned doctor...

's mother in Escape
Escape (1940 film)
Escape is a 1940 drama film about an American in pre-World War II Nazi Germany who discovers his mother is in a concentration camp and tries desperately to free her. It starred Norma Shearer, Robert Taylor, Conrad Veidt and Alla Nazimova...

(1940) and Tyrone Power
Tyrone Power
Tyrone Edmund Power, Jr. , usually credited as Tyrone Power and known sometimes as Ty Power, was an American film and stage actor who appeared in dozens of films from the 1930s to the 1950s, often in swashbuckler roles or romantic leads such as in The Mark of Zorro, Blood and Sand, The Black Swan,...

's mother in Blood and Sand
Blood and Sand (1941 film)
Blood and Sand is a Technicolor film produced by 20th Century Fox, directed by Rouben Mamoulian and starring Tyrone Power, Linda Darnell, Rita Hayworth, and Alla Nazimova...

(1941).

Marriages and children

In 1899 she married Sergei Golovin, a fellow actor. However, the marriage was "in name only"; and the two never legally divorced.

While still in Russia and before coming to America in 1905, Nazimova may have given birth to a child. The father has been speculated to be either her husband Golovin or her lover Orlenev.

From 1912 to 1925 Nazimova lived in a "lavender marriage
Lavender marriage
Lavender marriage is a type of male-female marriage of convenience in which the couple are not both heterosexual and conceal the homosexual or bisexual orientation of one or both spouses...

" with Charles Bryant
Charles Bryant (actor)
Charles Bryant was a British actor and film director.-Biography:Bryant was born in Hartford, Cheshire on 8 January 1879. He was educated at Ardingly College...

 (1879–1948), a New York actor.

Relationships with women

Between the years of 1917 and 1922 Nazimova wielded considerable influence and power in Hollywood. By all accounts she was extremely generous to young actresses in whom she saw talent and became involved with at least some of them romantically. For instance, after meeting a young Patsy Ruth Miller
Patsy Ruth Miller
Patsy Ruth Miller was an American film actress.After being discovered by the actress Alla Nazimova at a Hollywood party, Patsy Ruth Miller got her first break with a small role in Camille, which starred Rudolph Valentino...

 at a Hollywood party, Nazimova assisted in getting Miller's career launched. (Miller got her first break with a small role in Camille
Camille (1921 film)
Camille is a 1921 silent film starring Rudolph Valentino and Alla Nazimova. It is one of numerous screen adaptations of La Dame aux Camélias by Alexandre Dumas, fils. The original play opened in Paris in 1852. The first Broadway production of the play opened on 9 December 1853...

.) Another noteworthy example was Anna May Wong
Anna May Wong
Anna May Wong was an American actress, the first Chinese American movie star, and the first Asian American to become an international star...

, whose first film role at age 14 was as an extra in The Red Lantern
The Red Lantern
The Red Lantern is a 1919 silent film starring Alla Nazimova and directed by Albert Capellani. It is notable today for Anna May Wong's screen debut in an uncredited role. A single solitary print survives in Europe as well as rumors of a copy at Gosfilmofond, Moscow.-Synopsis:In China, a...

.

Nazimova helped start the careers of both of Rudolph Valentino
Rudolph Valentino
Rudolph Valentino was an Italian actor, and early pop icon. A sex symbol of the 1920s, Valentino was known as the "Latin Lover". He starred in several well-known silent films including The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, The Sheik, Blood and Sand, The Eagle and Son of the Sheik...

's wives, Jean Acker
Jean Acker
Jean Acker was an American film actress with a career dating from the silent film era through the 1950s. She was perhaps best known as the estranged wife of silent film star Rudolph Valentino.-Early life and career:...

 and Natacha Rambova
Natacha Rambova
Natacha Rambova was an American silent film costume and set designer, artistic director, screenwriter, producer and occasional actress. Later in life she worked as a mildly successful fashion designer and Egyptologist....

. Although she was involved in an affair with Acker, it is debated as to whether her connection with Rambova ever developed into a sexual affair. Nevertheless, there were rumors that Nazimova and Rambova were involved in a lesbian affair (they are discussed at length in Dark Lover, Emily Leider's biography of Rudolph Valentino) but those rumors have never been definitely confirmed. She was very impressed by Rambova's skills as an art director
Art director
The art director is a person who supervise the creative process of a design.The term 'art director' is a blanket title for a variety of similar job functions in advertising, publishing, film and television, the Internet, and video games....

; and Rambova designed the innovative sets for Nazimova's film productions of Camille
Camille (1921 film)
Camille is a 1921 silent film starring Rudolph Valentino and Alla Nazimova. It is one of numerous screen adaptations of La Dame aux Camélias by Alexandre Dumas, fils. The original play opened in Paris in 1852. The first Broadway production of the play opened on 9 December 1853...

and Salomé
Salomé (1923 film)
Salomé , a silent film directed by Charles Bryant and starring Alla Nazimova, is a film adaptation of the Oscar Wilde play of the same name...

.

Of those Nazimova is confirmed to have been involved with romantically, the list includes actress Eva Le Gallienne
Eva Le Gallienne
Eva Le Gallienne was a well-known actress, producer, and director, during the first half of the 20th century.-Early life and early career:...

, director Dorothy Arzner
Dorothy Arzner
Dorothy Arzner was an American film director. Her directorial career in feature films spanned from the late 1920s into the early 1940s, a time period in which there were very few—if any—other women working in the field.- Biography :Born in San Francisco, California, Arzner grew up in Los...

, writer Mercedes de Acosta
Mercedes de Acosta
Mercedes de Acosta was an American poet, playwright, and socialite, best known for her numerous lesbian affairs with Hollywood personalities including Marlene Dietrich, Greta Garbo, Alla Nazimova, Eva Le Gallienne, Isadora Duncan, Katharine Cornell, Ona Munson, Adele Astaire and, allegedly,...

, and Oscar Wilde
Oscar Wilde
Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde was an Irish writer and poet. After writing in different forms throughout the 1880s, he became one of London's most popular playwrights in the early 1890s...

's niece, Dolly Wilde
Dolly Wilde
Dorothy Ierne Wilde, known as Dolly Wilde, was an Anglo-Irish socialite, made famous by her family connections and her reputation as a witty conversationalist...

. Bridget Bate Tichenor
Bridget Bate Tichenor
Bridget Bate Tichenor , also known as Bridget Tichenor or B.B.T., was a Mexican surrealist painter of fantastic art in the school of magic realism and a fashion editor...

, a Magic Realist
Magic realism
Magic realism or magical realism is an aesthetic style or genre of fiction in which magical elements blend with the real world. The story explains these magical elements as real occurrences, presented in a straightforward manner that places the "real" and the "fantastic" in the same stream of...

 artist and Surrealist
Surrealism
Surrealism is a cultural movement that began in the early 1920s, and is best known for the visual artworks and writings of the group members....

 painter, was also rumored to be one of Nazimova's favored lovers in Hollywood during the World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

 years of 1940 to 1942. The two had been introduced by the poet and art collector Edward James
Edward James
Edward William Frank James was a British poet known for his patronage of the surrealist art movement.-Early life and marriage:...

, and according to Tichenor, their intimate relationship angered Nazimova's longtime companion, Glesca Marshall
Glesca Marshall
Glesca Marshall was an actress and theatrical benefactor who was known primarily as the most enduring lover of Alla Nazimova, silent screen actress and a legend of her time...

. It was allegedly Nazimova who coined the phrase "Sewing circles
Sewing circles
A group of people, especially women, who meet regularly for the purpose of sewing, often for charitable causes.Sewing circles is a phrase used to describe the underground, closeted lesbian and bisexual film actresses and their relationships in Hollywood, United States, particularly during...

" as code to refer to lesbian or bisexual actresses of her day who concealed their true sexuality.http://www.glbtq.com/arts/film_actors_lesbian.html

Nazimova lived with Glesca Marshall from 1929 until her death in 1945.

Life in the United States

Her private lifestyle gave rise to widespread rumors of outlandish and allegedly debauched parties at her mansion on Sunset Boulevard
Sunset Boulevard
Sunset Boulevard is a street in the western part of Los Angeles County, California, that stretches from Figueroa Street in downtown Los Angeles to the Pacific Coast Highway at the Pacific Ocean in the Pacific Palisades...

, in West Hollywood, California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...

, known as "The Garden of Alla", built in 1919. This mansion in 1927 became the Garden of Allah apartment-hotel complex. In later years, she continued to live in one of the villas there.

In 1921, Nazimova, a friend of actress Edith Luckett and her husband, Dr. Loyal Davis, was made godmother
Godparent
A godparent, in many denominations of Christianity, is someone who sponsors a child's baptism. A male godparent is a godfather, and a female godparent is a godmother...

 to future U.S. First Lady
First Lady of the United States
First Lady of the United States is the title of the hostess of the White House. Because this position is traditionally filled by the wife of the president of the United States, the title is most often applied to the wife of a sitting president. The current first lady is Michelle Obama.-Current:The...

 Nancy Davis Reagan, Luckett's daughter from a previous marriage. She was also the aunt of American film producer Val Lewton
Val Lewton
Val Lewton was an American film producer and screenwriter, best known for a string of low-budget horror films he produced for RKO Pictures in the 1940s.-Early life:...

.

Nazimova became a naturalized
Naturalization
Naturalization is the acquisition of citizenship and nationality by somebody who was not a citizen of that country at the time of birth....

 citizen of the United States in 1927.

Death and memorials

She died of a coronary thrombosis
Coronary thrombosis
Coronary thrombosis is a form of thrombosis affecting the coronary circulation. It is associated with stenosis subsequent to clotting. The condition is considered as a type of ischaemic heart disease.It can lead to a myocardial infarction...

, age 66, in the Good Samaritan Hospital in Los Angeles, California
Los Angeles, California
Los Angeles , with a population at the 2010 United States Census of 3,792,621, is the most populous city in California, USA and the second most populous in the United States, after New York City. It has an area of , and is located in Southern California...

; and her ashes were interred in Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Glendale, California
Glendale, California
Glendale is a city in Los Angeles County, California, United States. As of the 2010 Census, the city population is 191,719, down from 194,973 at the 2000 census. making it the third largest city in Los Angeles County and the 22nd largest city in the state of California...

. Her contributions to the film industry have been recognized with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame
Hollywood Walk of Fame
The Hollywood Walk of Fame consists of more than 2,400 five-pointed terrazzo and brass stars embedded in the sidewalks along fifteen blocks of Hollywood Boulevard and three blocks of Vine Street in Hollywood, California...

.

Legacy

Nazimova has been portrayed in film three times. The first two were biographical films about Rudolph Valentino
Rudolph Valentino
Rudolph Valentino was an Italian actor, and early pop icon. A sex symbol of the 1920s, Valentino was known as the "Latin Lover". He starred in several well-known silent films including The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, The Sheik, Blood and Sand, The Eagle and Son of the Sheik...

: 1975's The Legend of Valentino, in which she was portrayed by Alicia Bond; and 1977's Valentino, in which she was portrayed by Leslie Caron
Leslie Caron
Leslie Claire Margaret Caron is a French film actress and dancer, who appeared in 45 films between 1951 and 2003. In 2006, her performance in Law and Order: Special Victims Unit won her an Emmy for guest actress in a drama series...

. The most recent film portrayal was in Return to Babylon
Return to Babylon
Return to Babylon is an upcoming silent film. It was directed by Alex Monty Canawati and written by Matt Riddlehoover. It stars an ensemble cast of Jennifer Tilly, María Conchita Alonso, Ione Skye, Debi Mazar, and Tippi Hedren.-Plot:...

of 2004, a film about Hollywood's silent movie era, in which Laura Harring
Laura Harring
Laura Harring is a Mexican-American actress and former Miss USA . She is known for her role as Rita in Mulholland Drive.-Early life:...

 played Nazimova.

The American silent movie
Silent Movie
Silent Movie is a 1976 satirical comedy film co-written, directed by, and starring Mel Brooks, and released by 20th Century Fox on June 17, 1976...

 "Silent Life" (Vlad Kozlov, Isabella Rossellini
Isabella Rossellini
Isabella Fiorella Elettra Giovanna Rossellini is an Italian actress, filmmaker, author, philanthropist, and model. Rossellini is noted for her 14-year tenure as a Lancôme model, and for her roles in films such as Blue Velvet and Death Becomes Her.-Background and early life:Rossellini is a...

 et al) based on the life of Rudolph Valentino
Rudolph Valentino
Rudolph Valentino was an Italian actor, and early pop icon. A sex symbol of the 1920s, Valentino was known as the "Latin Lover". He starred in several well-known silent films including The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, The Sheik, Blood and Sand, The Eagle and Son of the Sheik...

, where Nazimova has been played by Galina Jovovich
Galina Jovovich
Galina Jovovich is an actress and the mother of Milla Jovovich. She was very famous in Soviet Union for her roles in movies, and then gained additional popularity for being an agent of her daugther Milla Jovovich. Now she is an actress playing in American and Russian movies...

, (also known as mother of Milla Jovovich
Milla Jovovich
Milla Jovovich December 17, 1975)is an American model, actress, musician, and fashion designer. Over her career, she has appeared in a number of science fiction and action-themed films, for which music channel VH1 has referred to her as the "reigning queen of kick-butt".Milla Jovovich began...

) is expected to be released in 2012.

The character of Nazimova appears also in Dominick Argento
Dominick Argento
Dominick Argento is an American composer, best known as a leading composer of lyric opera and choral music...

's opera Dream of Valentino in which she also plays the violin.

Nazimova was also featured in make-up artist Kevyn Aucoin
Kevyn Aucoin
Kevyn Aucoin was an American make-up artist and photographer.-Early life:Aucoin was born in Shreveport, Louisiana and grew up in Lafayette, Louisiana, to parents Isidore Adrian Aucoin and Thelma Suzanne Melancon, who adopted him as an infant through Catholic Charities of Alexandria, Louisiana He...

's 2004 book Face Forward
Face Forward
Face Forward is a cosmetics book written by Kevyn Aucoin. It was a New York Times bestseller.Aucoin's portrait subjects include Julia Roberts, Sharon Stone, Martha Stewart, Tori Amos and Aucoin's own mother...

, in which he made up Isabella Rossellini
Isabella Rossellini
Isabella Fiorella Elettra Giovanna Rossellini is an Italian actress, filmmaker, author, philanthropist, and model. Rossellini is noted for her 14-year tenure as a Lancôme model, and for her roles in films such as Blue Velvet and Death Becomes Her.-Background and early life:Rossellini is a...

 to resemble her, particularly as posed in a certain photograph.

Filmography

Year Film Role Notes
1915 War Brides Joan
1918 Revelation Joline
Toys of Fate Zorah/Hagah
A Woman of France
Eye for Eye
Eye for Eye (1918 film)
Eye for Eye is 1918 silent film directed by Albert Capellani. It was produced by Richard Rowland and Alla Nazimova and distributed by Metro Pictures. Nazimova is also the star in a production scripted by June Mathis...

Hassouna Also producer and co-director
1919 Out of the Fog Faith & Eve
The Red Lantern
The Red Lantern
The Red Lantern is a 1919 silent film starring Alla Nazimova and directed by Albert Capellani. It is notable today for Anna May Wong's screen debut in an uncredited role. A single solitary print survives in Europe as well as rumors of a copy at Gosfilmofond, Moscow.-Synopsis:In China, a...

Mahlee & Blanche Sackville
The Brat The Brat Also producer and writer
1920 Stronger Than Death Sigrid Fersen Also producer
The Heart of a Child
The Heart of a Child
The Heart of a Child is a 1915 British silent drama film directed by Harold M. Shaw and starring Edna Flugrath, Edward Sass and Hayford Hobbs. It is based on a novel by Frank Danby. A girl from the slums is injured by an aristocrat's car...

Sally Snape Also producer
Madame Peacock
Madame Peacock
Madame Peacock is a 1920 silent film drama written, produced by and starring Alla Nazimova and distributed by Metro Pictures. A lost film. -Cast:*Alla Nazimova - Jane Goring/Gloria Cromwell*George Probert - Robert McNaughton...

Jane Gloring/Gloria Cromwell Also producer and writer (adaptation)
Billions Princess Triloff Also writer (titles) and editor
1921 Camille
Camille (1921 film)
Camille is a 1921 silent film starring Rudolph Valentino and Alla Nazimova. It is one of numerous screen adaptations of La Dame aux Camélias by Alexandre Dumas, fils. The original play opened in Paris in 1852. The first Broadway production of the play opened on 9 December 1853...

Marguerite Gautier/Manon Lescaut in Daydream
1922 A Doll's House Nora Helmer Also producer and writer
1923 Salomé
Salomé (1923 film)
Salomé , a silent film directed by Charles Bryant and starring Alla Nazimova, is a film adaptation of the Oscar Wilde play of the same name...

Salomé Also producer
1924 Madonna of the Streets Mary Carlson/Mary Ainsleigh
1925 The Redeeming Sin (1925 film) Joan
My Son Ana Silva
1940 Escape
Escape (1940 film)
Escape is a 1940 drama film about an American in pre-World War II Nazi Germany who discovers his mother is in a concentration camp and tries desperately to free her. It starred Norma Shearer, Robert Taylor, Conrad Veidt and Alla Nazimova...

Emmy Ritter
1941 Blood and Sand
Blood and Sand (1941 film)
Blood and Sand is a Technicolor film produced by 20th Century Fox, directed by Rouben Mamoulian and starring Tyrone Power, Linda Darnell, Rita Hayworth, and Alla Nazimova...

Señora Augustias Gallardo
1944 In Our Time
In Our Time (1944 film)
In Our Time is a 1944 romantic drama film set in the days leading up to World War II. It stars Ida Lupino and Paul Henreid.-Plot:In March 1939, antiques dealer Mrs. Bromley and her assistant Jennifer "Jenny" Whittredge travel through Poland making purchases...

Zofya Orvid
The Bridge of San Luis Rey
The Bridge of San Luis Rey (1944 film)
The Bridge of San Luis Rey is a 1944 drama film made by Benedict Bogeaus Productions and released by United Artists. It was produced and directed by Rowland V. Lee with Benedict Bogeaus as co-producer. The screenplay by Howard Estabrook and Herman Weissman was adapted from the novel The Bridge of...

Doña Maria – The Marquesa
Since You Went Away
Since You Went Away
Since You Went Away is a 1944 film distributed by United Artists, a big-budget epic about the American home front during World War II. It was directed by John Cromwell and adapted and produced by David O. Selznick from the novel Since You Went Away: Letters to a Soldier from His Wife by Margaret...

Zofia Koslowska

See also


  • List of people from New York City
  • List of Russian people
  • List of vaudeville performers: L–Z
  • List of women writers


Further reading

  • Golden, Eve (2001). Golden Images – 41 Essays on Silent Film Stars. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company
    McFarland & Company
    McFarland & Company, Inc. is a book publisher of primarily academic and adult nonfiction based in Jefferson, North Carolina. Its president and editor-in-chief is Robert Franklin, who began the enterprise in 1979...

    . ISBN 0-7864-0834-0.
  • Lewton, Lucy Olga (1988). Alla Nazimova, My Aunt, Tragedienne: A Personal Memoir. Minuteman Press.
  • Lambert, Gavin (1997). Nazimova: A Biography, Knopf, 420pp. ISBN 0-679-40721-9.
  • Mennefee, David W. (2004). The First Female Stars: Women of the Silent Era. Connecticut: Praeger. ISBN 0-275-98259-9.
  • Smith, Frederick James (September 1918). "Those Nazimova Eyes!" in Picture Play.

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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