Cassidy Blake-Lewis

April 10th, 1908, Al and Helen Blake brought a beautiful baby girl into their Chicago home. They named her Cassidy Margaret Blake. Along with Cassidy, Al and Helen had 3 other daughters named Sadie, born in 1907, Charlotte, born in 1903, and Stella, born in 1901. The girls were best friends. Cassidy was the trouble maker of the group. At 4, she would run down the street and got yelled at quite often. At 9, she got into a fight at school with a boy and gave him a bloody nose and a black eye. For that she got detention. As for her teenage years, Blake was one of the most popular girls in the school. She had the best clothes and all the popular guys as boyfriends. You could say people were insanely jealous. Blake was very involved in school. She was a high honor student and put herself in all the plays she could. She took part in chorus, cheerleading, and softball. In Blake’s spare time, she worked at a diner as a waitress and sang every second she could.

In May of 1925, at just 17, Blake started working at “The Green Mill”, just a short walk from her home, as a flapper dancer and as a singer on occasion. The club played mainly jazz music, but on rare occasion there was a jazz-country type of mix. There she met lots of famous people; people that others would do anything to meet. In 1926, Blake met a young girl, about 17, named Lydia Williams also working at “The Green Mill” as a flapper dancer. Blake and Williams hit it off immediately. Soon there after, you would rarely see the girls apart. They did anything and everything together. They even lived together in the Sheridan Plaza Hotel in Chicago. A couple months after Blake’s 18th birthday, she met a guy; but not just any guy. Born Vincenzo Gibaldi in Italy, he changed his name to Jack McGurn when he came to America. McGurn was one of the famous Al Capone’s gunmen. They had nicknamed him “Machine Gun” Jack McGurn. At the time Blake and Mcgurn met, he was 23 and managing “The Green Mill” where Blake worked. The two couldn’t keep their hands off of each other when they were together. Their relationship was kept a secret though, because Mcgurn didn’t want all the publicity to be directed towards them. So, they kept it a secret from everyone and only met up after working hours.

One night in late 1927, shortly after meeting Mcgurn, Blake was filling in for an act that didn’t show up. Much to her luck, a talent scout was watching her. That night after she sang, the talent scout came and talked to her about being in musicals and possibly movies. She accepted, exchanged phone numbers, and immediately told everyone she knew. The next day, she got a phone call from that same talent scout offering her an audition that day in an upcoming musical titled “The New Moon”. She couldn’t be more excited and immediately accepted the offer. Her luck didn’t fail her and she got one of the lead parts as Marianne Beaunoir. Her career blew up and she became one of the bigger stars on Broadway. She did every musical she could, including “Strike Up the Band” in 1930, and “Face the Music” in 1932. She eventually moved on to movies, but still occasionally did some musicals. Movies she took part in included “Scarface” in 1932, and “Modern Times” in 1936. Meanwhile, before her appearance in “Strike Up the Band”, her gunman boyfriend, Jack Mcgurn, helped out with the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre. He and the other gangsters murdered many people. Mcgurn was sent to jail, but wasn’t in long and was released for good behavior. Mcgurn was sentenced to parole for 7 months.

Blake tried to maintain her relationships with her family, Mcgurn, and her close friends. She wrote hundreds of letters to them when she wasn’t able to be with them. Blake and Williams had remained best friends, and Blake maintained her relationship with her boyfriend, Jack Mcgurn. They’d stayed together for nine years and were still going strong when Mcgurn got murdered in a bowling alley in 1936. When Blake and Williams went to clean out Mcgurn’s house, they found two letters; one addressed to Williams and the other addressed to Blake. They read them and found out that the entire time Mcgurn had been two timing them, with each other. The girls were enraged, but didn’t take it out on each other. It wasn’t their fault, they had no way of knowing since Mcgurn kept both of their relationships a secret. The girls still remained friends.

In March of 1937, at the age of 28, Blake met a man named Samuel Lewis, who was 31 at the time. They instantly fell in love and got married 6 months later on September 26th, 1937. The publicity sky-rocketed, but Blake was done with it. She wanted to have a normal married life without the publicity and gossip. She pulled herself out of all the Hollywood glamour and settled down in a nicer suburb in Chicago. A year after, in February of 1938, the first of the Lewis’s children was born. It was a boy, and they named him Joseph Samuel Lewis. Their second child came in June of 1939, a girl they named Elizabeth Margaret Lewis. The last of their children came in November of 1940. The Lewis’s brought into the world another baby girl named Marilyn Rose Lewis. The Lewis’s led their happy life with their three kids and their family pet; a Cocker Spaniel named Bug. In 1953, the Lewis family got in a car accident. They were hit by a drunken semi driver that hit the passenger side where Cassidy was sitting. She died instantly. Cassidy’s husband and kids survived, but got some minor and major injuries. Cassidy Lewis died on June 14th, 1953 at the young age of 45.

Mary Pickford

Mary Pickford was born Gladys Marie Smith on April 8, 1892, in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, though in later years she would try to shave a year off her age. Her father was an alcoholic who could not hold a job, and he died when Gladys was a child. Gladys' mother pushed her children into show business for financial reasons, and Gladys was soon a success on Broadway, first known as "Baby Gladys Smith," until the producer David Belasco christened her "Mary Pickford."
Her film career began in 1908, when she met D.W. Griffith, head of Biograph Studios. She began working at Biograph with her friends, Lillian and Dorothy Gish. Griffith specialized in films featuring the damsel in distress stereotype, and both Gish sisters played it to perfection. When Mary felt Griffith was paying more attention to the Gishes than to her, she left Biograph.
By this time, 1910, Mary showed that she was already a savvy businesswoman by hopping from studio to studio - wherever the most money was. By 1916 she was already making $16,000 a week. Now known throughout the world as "America's Sweetheart," (abroad Mary was called "The World's Sweetheart") she continued playing little girl roles in films such as New York Hat (1912) and Daddy Long Legs (1919.) At this time she also married actor Owen Moore. The marriage didn't last too long, however, because on a war bond tour during World War I, Mary met a man who was to have a profound affect on both her personal and professional life.
Douglas Fairbanks was the biggest male star in Hollywood. He was the first "action" star, thrilling audiences by swinging on ropes, jumping across high buildings, and engaging in sword fights. Mary found him irresistible, and after divorcing their respective spouses, they married in 1920. They named their Hollywood estate PickFair, and were renowned for their glittering parties.
It was at around this time that Mary formed United Artists with Fairbanks, Charlie Chaplin, and her former boss D.W. Griffith. United Artists was a revolutionary concept: allowing filmmakers to have total artistic control over their films from conception through post production. It also meant that artists and writers could control their own financial future, rather than having to kowtow to exploitative studio bosses. Her decision to help found United Artist would eventually make Mary Pickford a millionaire several times over. She was not as lucky in her personal life, however, and she and Fairbanks divorced in 1929.
Though Mary won an Oscar that same year for a "grown-up" role in Coquette, audiences never really accepted her as an adult, and she retired in 1933. She married Charles Buddy Rogers, an actor and musician, in 1937. She devoted much of her time to charity, and also helped to incorporate Beverly Hills.

In 1976, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences awarded Mary its lifetime achievement award. She was known to drink to excess in her later years, and on May 29, 1979, Mary Pickford died of a cerebral hemorrhage at the age of 87.

Greta Garbo

Greta Lovisa Gustafsson (18 September 1905-15 April 1990) popularly known as Greta Garbo was born in Stockholm, Sweden. This incredible actress had modest beginnings where in she was forced to work at an early age as a soaplather girl and then as a clerk in a departmental store. It was in the early 1920’s when Greta Garbo polished her acting skills at the Royal Dramatic Theatre. This was also the time when she was chosen by director Mauritz Stiller who helped to train her and hone her acting skills. He even gave her the screen name-Greta Garbo. Some of her popular silent movies that displayed her acting talent were ‘The Temptress’ and ‘Love’. This glamorous actress particularly made a mark in the 1920’s. Greta Garbo also preferred to keep her private life away from the media. She was the recipient of many prestigious awards as well.

Louise Brooks

Mary Louise Brooks popularly known as Louise Brooks (14 November 1906 – 8 August 1985) was born in Cherryvale, Kansas. She began her career as a dancer in 1922. She landed with a five-year contract with Paramount Pictures when producer Walter Wanger noticed her in 1925. Louise Brooks starred in the silent film, ‘The Street of Forgotten Men’ in 1925. She soon bagged many leading roles in silent movies that belonged to the comedy genre. She particularly made a mark as a vamp in the movie ‘A Girl in Every Port.’ Soon, Louise Brooks hobnobbed with the rich and famous and even set trends. She was known for her bob haircut and was the one who basically set this trend in the 1920’s. Her subtle style remained to be her forte in silent films. She also inspired pop diva, Madonna in many ways, which is visible in Madonna’s videos ‘Rain’ and ‘I’ll Remember’!