Hollywood’s Latest Cinderella
Year of Ann Dvorak: Day 253
I recently won this Sky Devils publicity photo on eBay, which arrived in the mail yesterday. It was issued by Howard Hughes’ Caddo Company and the snipe on the back of the photo refers to Ann as “Hollywood’s latest Cinderella.” In late 1931/early 1932, this, along with the variation of “Hollywood’s new Cinderella,” was a label applied to Ann often. She had endured the lowly role of chorus girl for over two years at MGM, but referring to her casting in Scarface as an overnight success made for better press. The columnists ate up the Cinderella angle, and even though Ann had been at her wits end at MGM for quite some time, landing the role of Cesca Camonte as her first speaking part was indeed rather fantastic.
Less than a year after snagging Scarface, Ann would be on a slow boat to Europe for a honeymoon unauthorized by her studio and the press would stop making mention of her Cinderella story.
We will surely read more about it in the bio, but you’ve already suggested that Ann herself was mostly to blame for not capitalizing on her “Scarface” breakthrough. Her decision to choose the personal over the professional had a lasting impact on her career. You would hope that talent alone would be enough to achieve stardom, but Ann (and there are others) proves otherwise.
I finally watched the dvr’ed “Life of Her Own” last nite. It’s really not THAT bad of a movie. Typical of a lot of MGM films of the period – glossy and superficial, but redeemed by good acting. Ann has 4 scenes, all excellent, but the last one in her depressing apartment room with the outclassed Lana Turner is especially moving.
I stand by my 15-year-old memory of “A Life of Her Own” being that bad. I wish the whole movie could have been Lana & Ann fighting their modeling demons. Back then, my friend Darin recorded it on VHS and fell asleep while it was on and recording. In his haze, he somehow thought that Ann showed up later on in a wheel chair, so we watched the whole movie thinking that she survived the fall and was going to come back! Needless to say, we were very disappointed.
This is a really, really nice picture of Ann.
She seems very composed and confident. And who could blame her for not feeling so, at that point in time?
I agree it’s a great photo. She has a wonderful profile.
When this image was taken, she was on top of the world, but she was also 20 and had never been in love before, so that ended up trumping all.