Myrna Loy photographed by Henry Waxman for the 1928 film, What Price Beauty?. Filmed in 1925 but not released until 1928, Loy had a small role in the film but it helped give her attention. Waxman actually helped discover her, as he took portraits of her while she was performing at the Grauman’s Egyptian Theater. The portraits were seen by Rudolph Valentino and Natacha Rambova, and Rambova hired Loy for her role in What Price Beauty? in which Rambova was a producer. A few of the stills pictured here were featured in Motion Picture magazine, which then led to a film contract with Warner Bros for Loy.
Following her failed screen test for the film Cobra and extra work on Pretty Ladies, Myrna remembered how she was casted in What Price Beauty? in her book, Being and Becoming:
“Natacha Rambova came to the rescue. Henry Waxman called to say that she wanted me at the studio, so I hurried over. Lou and Betty [her best friends] waited by the phone until I called home with the news that Natacha had hired me for a small but showy part in What Price Beauty?. Mother made a midnight supper and Lillian Butterfield and Melva Lockman, my friends from Grauman’s, joined us for a celebration. They all stayed overnight, five of us crosswise in one double bed, chattering away, planning brilliant futures for ourselves.
“What Price Beauty? had a dreadful script, a variation on the country-girl-in-the-big-city theme, but done with the Rambova touch. She’d found a young designer named Adrian Greenberg—that’s where M-G-M’s Adrian started. His big test, and my only scene, was a futuristic dream sequence depicting various types of womankind. Natacha dubbed me ‘the intellectual type of vampire without race or creed or country.’ Adrian designed an extraordinary red velvet pajama outfit for me, with a short blond wig that came to little points on my forehead, very, very snaky. This bizarre film wasn’t released for three years, but Henry Waxman took pictures of me in that outfit. They appeared in a fan magazine captioned ‘Who is she?’ and eventually led to my contract.”
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