Life, 1923-06-14 · page 21 of 44
Life — June 14, 1923 — page 21: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page satirizes the early Hollywood studio system's marketing of male actors as romantic leads. The headline "Which One Will Take 'Rudy's' Place" references Rudolph Valentino, the era's most famous romantic actor, suggesting these five men are being promoted as his potential replacements. The satire works through absurd, fabricated backstories. The text describes actors with ridiculous credentials: one was a "potato racer," another a "spare pantry parts" seller, one a cabaret worker, one a milkman. Their supposed nationalities (Argentina, Russia, Poland, America) are exaggerated to suggest Hollywood's formula of importing "exotic" foreign types to appeal to female audiences. The joke targets both the studio system's cynical star-making machinery and audiences' gullibility—these men are being repackaged as romantic heroes based entirely on appearance and manufactured mystique, regardless of actual talent or background. It's media criticism through humor.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
THE EXPERIENCED, devil- may-care man of the world is Frederic Crumbley’s type. Known as the best-dressed man in the old world, Beau” Crum- bley and his wardrobe have fast become the talk of Holly- wood. It was he who first made popular the tripe-collared over- toat, which is being worn by all ‘the bloods of the Pacific coast. Fans, look forward to his appearance in “Make Her an Honest Woman’ UP FROM languorous Argen- tine, land of tangos, and hot pas- sions, comes the fiery Miguel de Habailo y Slouch, better known to the hearts of ‘his people as “The Wild Bull of the Pam- pas.” The sinuous South Ameri- can is expected to boldly carry off the fluttering affections of American girlhood in his first picture, “The Man of a Thou- sand Fires.” UST WATCH the increase in the BRAVE LITTLE POLAND has sent us Ernst Hellwulf, whose way has been strewn with feminine hearts. It is whis- pered that the young star is continually followed by throngs of laughing women. ‘efore he entered the moving pictures, r. Hellwulf achieved promin- ence as a six-day potato racer, and a seller of spare pantry parts. ALL AMERICAN, on one side, jan letters when Adrian Ulch, the bold gossoon from Little Russia, first fiashes flame-like upon the silver sheet. Already he has made himself known in Hollywood as the male Gloria Swanson, and he has been chosen to play the coveted role of the milkman in “Drunken Mothers.” No less a person than Director Werley has called him “the perfect society type.” and proud of it, is Roland C. Bease- ley, who was discovered working in a gilded cabaret in Worcester, Mass. He will be featured in a series of domestic comedies, which will af- ford him an opportunity to display some new dance steps, for “Rolly” was considerable of a hoofer before the films lured him with a fat con- tract. He is in his early twenties, and as good as unmarried, comicbooks.com