Stardust and Shadows: Canadians in Early Hollywood

Trevor S. Raymond is a teacher and librarian with the Peel Board of Education and editor of Canadian Holmes.

This is a fascinating contribution to the history of motion pictures and
an important sidelight on Canadian history. Charles Foster, now a
retired publicist, was on leave in Los Angeles in 1943 when he was
invited to the home of Sydney Olcott, a Canadian who was welcoming young
servicemen from his homeland. Unknown to Foster, Olcott had retired in
1928 at the height of his fame as a director and starmaker in the new
movie business. Through Olcott, Foster met such fellow Canadians as
Louis B. Mayer (head of MGM), Norma Shearer, and many others less known
or barely remembered today. Thanks to Foster’s extensive notes and
taped conversations from 1943, and interviews with more than 500 others
since, as well as research in archives and libraries, the lives of 18 of
these Hollywood Canadians are encapsulated in this volume. (One notable
exception is Ontario native Jack Warner, of Warner Brothers. Much of the
book is in the words of its subjects or those who knew them, or drawn
from contemporary commentary. Where an event has been reported in
different ways in memory or in published memoirs, Foster generally gives
us both versions.

What an all-star cast: the three Canadians who were at one time the
most famous actresses in the world; the two brothers from London,
Ontario, who built the first permanent Hollywood studio and churned out
wildly popular comedies; the Oscar-winning actress from Cobourg,
Ontario, who was blacklisted for helping create Actors Equity; a
phenomenal star from Montreal whose mysterious death at 24 may have
involved, tangentially, the President of the United States; a director
from Grimsby, Ontario, whose innovations included Chaplin’s moustache;
“America’s Sweetheart,” who took back Canadian citizenship late in
life. Mack Sennett, creator of immortal comedies; Norma Shearer’s
younger brother, who practically invented sound movies and won 12
Academy Awards during a long career. One would have liked a bibliography
and a list of those early pictures available on video, but there are
illustrations, an index, and an appendix listing more Canadians who were
part of the formative years of the movies.