Miss Bee-Stung Lips was quite the silent screen star. Beginning on Broadway with Vernon Castle, she then hooked up with the Ziegfeld Follies and became a headliner in 1915. By 1919 she was a big deal, starring with Valentino in The Delicious Little Devil. Mae's peak, in the mid 20s, came soon after Metro, Goldwyn & Louis joined forces, starring her in The Merry Widow. Like many of her other pictures, Mae's dancing was what helped Widow become the box-office hit it was. (Joan Crawford & Clark Gable were extras in that film.). By the early Thirties [her stab at the talkies having proven fatal] she was a has-been. The 1940s found her trapped in the nostalgia circuit, playing Billy Roses's Diamond Horseshoe and performing her once famous Merry Widow Waltz. Like others before him, Rose found Mae horrid to work with and fired her. Ultimately, she was found homeless in 1964, wandering the streets of St.Louis and ended her days at the Motion Picture House, founded by the Motion Picture & Television Fund of which she had been an early board member.
The ever delightful Miss Murray
was quoted as saying, "You don't
have to keep making movies to
be a star. Once you're a star,
you're always a star!"
Maybe that's exactly what she's
screaming, but was anybody
listening?
My favorite has always been her quote when emerging from the premier of "Sunset Blvd. (and it was widely thought that the Norma character was based on Murray), "None of us floozies was that nuts."
ReplyDeleteThe Motion Picture Home was there for Mae Murray. savingthelivesofourown.org is fighting to save the Home for current and future generations. Get informed, see the videos, sign the petition. The residents of the Home are counting on us to take care of our own since the Fund is bulldozing over its past, present, and future. It's not too late.
ReplyDeleteresearcher- thank you so much for the link. Just went and signed the petition. It's terribly important so please everyone, go.
ReplyDelete