''A Social Celebrity'' is a 1926 American silent

comedy drama film Comedy drama, also known by the portmanteau ''dramedy'', is a genre of dramatic works that combines elements of comedy and drama. The modern, scripted-television examples tend to have more humorous bits than simple comic relief seen in a typical ...

directed by Malcolm St. Clair and starred

Louise Brooks Mary Louise Brooks (November 14, 1906 – August 8, 1985) was an American film actress and dancer during the 1920s and 1930s. She is regarded today as an icon of the Jazz Age and flapper culture, in part due to the bob hairstyle that she helpe ...

as a small town manicurist who goes to

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

with her boyfriend (

Adolphe Menjou Adolphe Jean Menjou (February 18, 1890 – October 29, 1963) was an American actor. His career spanned both silent films and talkies. He appeared in such films as Charlie Chaplin's ''A Woman of Paris'', where he played the lead role; Stanley Ku ...

), a barber who poses as a French count. The film is now considered

lost Lost may refer to getting lost, or to: Geography *Lost, Aberdeenshire, a hamlet in Scotland * Lake Okeechobee Scenic Trail, or LOST, a hiking and cycling trail in Florida, US History *Abbreviation of lost work, any work which is known to have bee ...

.Progressive Silent Film List: ''A Social Celebrity''
at silentera.com

Plot

Max Haber (Menjou), a small town barber, is the pride of his father, Johann (

Chester Conklin Chester Cooper Conklin (January 11, 1886 – October 11, 1971) was an early American film comedian who started at Keystone Studios as one of Mack Sennett’s Keystone Cops, often paired with Mack Swain. He appeared in a series of films with ...

), who owns an antiquated barbershop. Max adores Kitty Laverne (Brooks), the manicurist, who loves him but aspires to be a dancer and leaves for New York City, hoping that he will follow in pursuit of better things. Mrs. Jackson-Greer (Josephine Drake), a New York society matron, has occasion to note Max fashioning the hair of a town girl and induces him to come to New York and pose as a French count. There he meets April (Elsie Lawson), Mrs. King's niece, and loses his heart to her, as well as to Kitty, now a showgirl. At the theater where Kitty is appearing, Max is the best-dressed man in April's party. At a nightclub later that night, Max's true identity is revealed, and he is deserted by his society friends. Disillusioned, Max returns home at the request of his father. Kitty follows, realizing that he needs her.

Cast

as Max Haber *

as Kitty Laverne * Eleanor Lawson as April King (credited as Elsie Lawson) * Roger Davis as Tenny * Hugh Huntley as Forrest Abbott *

as Johann Haber *

Freeman Wood Freeman Wood (July 1, 1896 – February 15, 1956) was an American character actor of the silent and sound film eras. Biography Born in 1896 in Denver Denver () is a consolidated city and county, the capital, and most populous cit ...

as Gifford Jones * Josephine Drake as Mrs. Jackson-Greer *

Ida Waterman Ida Waterman (born Ida Shaw; March 10, 1852 – May 22, 1941) was a stage and screen actress. Waterman was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She appeared some thirty or more Broadway productions between the late 1880s and early 1920s. She play ...

as Mrs. Winifred King

Production

The film was produced by

Famous Players-Lasky Corporation Famous Players-Lasky Corporation was an American motion picture and distribution company formed on June 28, 1916, from the merger of Adolph Zukor's Famous Players Film Company—originally formed by Zukor as Famous Players in Famous Plays—and ...

and distributed by

Paramount Pictures Paramount Pictures Corporation is an American film and television production company, production and Distribution (marketing), distribution company and the main namesake division of Paramount Global (formerly ViacomCBS). It is the fifth-oldes ...

. ''A Social Celebrity'' began production in December 1925 with

Greta Nissen Greta Nissen (born Grethe Rüzt-Nissen; 30 January 1906 – 15 May 1988) was a Norwegian-American film and stage actress. Stage and screen actress Born Grethe Rüzt-Nissen in Kristiania (now Oslo), Norway, Nissen was originally a dancer. While ...

in the lead role. Louise Brooks was also cast in a supporting role but was recast in the lead after Nissen left the project.

Preservation

Prints of ''A Social Celebrity'' still existed up until the 1950s. One print was preserved at the

George Eastman House The George Eastman Museum, also referred to as ''George Eastman House, International Museum of Photography and Film'', the world's oldest museum dedicated to photography and one of the world's oldest film archives, opened to the public in 1949 in ...

where Louise Brooks viewed it in 1957. That print has since deteriorated. The last known print of the film was preserved at the

Cinémathèque Française The Cinémathèque Française (), founded in 1936, is a French non-profit film organization that holds one of the largest archives of film documents and film-related objects in the world. Based in Paris's 12th arrondissement, the archive offers ...

, but was destroyed in a vault fire on July 10, 1959. No prints of the film are known to exist and ''A Social Celebrity'' is now considered lost.

References

External links