But Marie wasn’t in Hearts and Sparks, nor was Phyllis Haver, both Beauties who Gloria obviously posed in a bathing suit with. These photos of Gloria and Marie must date to 1917 or 1916.Ĭomplicating matters is Stardust and Shadows, an unfortunately inaccurate book that quotes Sennett as saying he asked Gloria to pose in a swimsuit only briefly, for her third Keystone film ( Hearts and Sparks, presumably).
Both credits are unlikely, as Swanson wasn’t in any Sennett shorts after 1917 - she had left Sennett by the time she did her first film with Borzage in 1918, and by 1919, she moved on to a series of unfathomably popular and slightly saucy flicks such as Don’t Change Your Husband and Male and Female. Life Magazine’s 1950 article on Sunset Blvd. She was certainly a featured actress in several shorts, but at the same time was frequently shown in the same adorable hats and suits in frisky poses as other background Beauties.īelow is a series of pictures of Gloria and Marie Prevost, usually credited to the film Why Beaches Are Popular (1919). We don’t need that particular picture to see Swanson looking like a Bathing Beauty, anyway. Personally, I think she was, at least for the first couple of Sennett shorts, but this picture doesn’t prove anything of the sort - it’s not Gloria. The problem is that many on the internet have posted this picture of Marie as proof that Gloria was a Bathing Beauty.
The Silent Movies Calendar misidentified the same photo in 2011, which may be where Petersen got her info. The confusion likely comes from Gloria starring in Teddy at the Throttle while working with Sennett - though the throttle in the film is of a train, not a boat. More about her Bathing Beauty Days can be found at Anne Helen Petersen’s The Hairpin, which hilariously repeats the mistake that the photo of Marie Prevost on a boat helmed by Sennett superpooch Teddy is actually Gloria. Gloria always maintained she was not actually a Bathing Beauty, but rather a featured actress in Sennett comedies that also starred Bathing Beauties. She had been spotted by director Frank Borzage and cast in 1918 as the lead in his drama Society for Sale, co-starring William Desmond. The Pullman Bride was Gloria’s final film with Keystone.
Gloria and Mack Swain in The Pullman Bride Chester looks on. The marriage did not last and was, by Swanson’s own account, a nightmare of abuse. She had worked with Wallace Beery at Essanay and again at Keystone, and they married in 1916 on her 17th birthday. When she left Essanay, Gloria spent nearly a year out of films until hired by Keystone in 1916. Gloria Swanson’s career began when she was a teen and was given roles in a few slapstick shorts at Charlie Chaplin’s Essanay Studios. Gloria sulks while the Beauties yuk it up with Chester Conklin in The Pullman Bride. Gloria Swanson clowning around with Phyllis Haver while on the set of The Pullman Bride (1917), absolutely not being a Bathing Beauty at all. Gloria Swanson: Glamorous star of the cinema or victim of a horrible smear campaign designed to make her seem mortal, adorable and occasionally clad in a swimsuit, just like those harlot Sennett broads?