Yup that's it!...John Gilbert...PashaRu wrote:lol yes, I'd know. I have more than an entire shelf full of books about silent film. And yes, I've read them all lol
There certainly were some careers that ended with the advent of sound. One that immediately comes to mind is John Gilbert. There wasn't really anything wrong with his voice, but audiences found that it didn't match the persona they had created in their minds. There were, of course, other reasons why his career started to decline. He was heavy into alcohol and died of a heart attack in 1936 at 38 years of age. Others had very strong accents, such as Pola Negri, Emil Jannings, and Ramon Novarro. But the public is fickle, and other stars with accents, such as Garbo and Paul Muni, made the transition successfully. Chaplin refused to make the transition to sound for awhile, feeling that the Tramp shouldn't speak (I agree). So he made City Lights (1931) and Modern Times (1936), both silent "with sound effects" and featuring the Tramp. His first sound film was The Great Dictator (1940), a satire of Hitler with a version of the Tramp in a somewhat darker role (as Hitler!)
Probably more than you wanted to know. lol
Yes, I saw The Artist and liked it. I was happy that in this day and age, not only did someone have the b*lls to make a silent b&w film, but it even won an Oscar.
I was Soooo ready to like " The Artist " for the reasons you stated, but for whatever reason for me it was one big YAWNFEST...