Dangerous Curves Atop Hollywood Heels

We were like dragonflies. We seemed to be suspended effortlessly in the air but in reality our wings were beating very very fast. - Mae MurrayIt is worse than folly for persons to imagine that this business is an easy road to money to contentment or to that strange quality called happiness. - Bebe Daniels A girl should realize that a career on the screen demands everything promising nothing. - Helen FergusonIn Dangerous Curves Atop Hollywood Heels author Michael G. Ankerich examines the lives careers and disappointments of 15 silent film actresses who despite the odds against them and warnings to stay in their hometowns came to Hollywood to make names for themselves in the movies.On the screen these young hopefuls became Agnes Ayres Olive Borden Grace Darmond Elinor Fair Juanita Hansen Wanda Hawley Natalie Joyce Barbara La Marr Martha Mansfield Mae Murray Mary Nolan Marie Prevost Lucille Ricksen Eve Southern and Alberta Vaughn.Dangerous Curves follows the precarious routes these young ladies took in their quest for fame and uncovers how some of the top actresses of the silent screen were used abused and discarded. Many unable to let go of the spotlight after it had singed their very souls came to a stop on that dead-end street referred to by actress Anna Q. Nilsson as Hollywood's Heartbreak Lane.Pieced together using contemporary interviews the actresses gave conversations with friends relatives and co-workers and exhaustive research through scrapbooks archives and public records Dangerous Curves offers an honest yet compassionate look at some of the brightest luminaries of the silent screen. The book is illustrated with over 150 photographs.