Art is not a luxury, it is a necessity.

Ruth Taylor in the 1928 American silent comedy film ‘Gentlemen Prefer Blondes’ directed by Mal St. Clair.

(Anita Loo’s perfect blonde: Ruth Taylor, the American film star.

Soon after leaving school, Ruth Taylor took up the study of dancing and dramatic art and her first appearance on the stage was with an amateur company. She then went into film work as an extra, but although she appeared in one or two Mack Sennet comedies she made very little progress until she was picked up by Anita Loos from a great number of candidates as a perfect type for film purposes to impersonate Lorelei, the heroine of “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes.” Ruth Taylor’s next appearance was in another Paramount film, “Just Married,” in which James Hall played the part made famous on the legitimate stage on both sides of the Atlantic by Lynne Overman.)

Marie Prevosts was discovered by Mack Sennet who signed her to contract and made her one of his ‘Bathing Beauties’ in the late 1910s. She was also a favourite of Ernst Lubitsch. After 1926 Prevost's career began to decline which lead to secondary roles due to personal problems, and she made her last on-screen appearance in 1936.

Marie Doro ca,1902.

Mae Murray in the silent romantic drama ‘The Masked Bride’ 1925.

Early Technicolour, Louise Brooks in ‘The American Venus’ 1926 - Technicolour Process II.

(Source: BFI National Archive/Warner Bros.)

‘El Hotel Eléctrico’ (The Electric Hotel) is a 1908 Spanish silent comedy-fantasy film directed by Spanish film pioneer Segundo de Chomón.

(The film displays one of the earliest uses of stop motion animation in history, though it is not de Chomón's first try at this technique. His 1906 film, Le théâtre de Bob, use animated puppets. But El Hotel eléctrico is also an early use of pixilation.)

‘Cabiria’ 1914 - An Italian Epic Silent Film Directed by Giovanni Pastrone.

Alla Nazimova in ‘Madame Peacock’ 1920.

‘Madame Peacock slipped from her head the magnificent head-dress composed of the feathers of the most magnificent birds of the species. She slipped the silken, embroidered sheath she wore from her body, suddenly weary, suddenly divested of glamour, suddenly and un-miraculously itself. For the first time in, oh, well, in many, many years she felt that she was herself, essentially herself. Not very wonderfully herself save as reality, however unlovely, is always wonderful. It hurt to be herself. To be herself, Jane Goring, again. It hurt because she had, first, to be so divested of the glittering garments she wore. The garments of Sham.’ - Faith Service, Motion Picture Classic, 1920.

Alla Nazimova in the silent drama film ‘The Red Lantern’ 1919.

Nita Naldi ca.1920.

Gloria Swanson ca.1920.

From the British Silent Film Drama ‘Comradeship’ 1919.

Virginia Valli, American Stage and Film Actress, ca.1920.

Advertising  Illustration for the silent drama  ‘A Tale of Two Worlds’ 1921 - The stars included  Leatrice Joy, Wallace Beery, Edythe Chapman & J. Frank Glendon. 

(via Moving Picture World 1921)

Gloria Swanson in 1919.

Original Portrait of Pricilla Dean by Juan Segura, Celebrated Spanish Artist, 1922.