It all started with a photo – the photo you see here on the right.
I found it by chance on the web – it’s a portrait of actress Mary Nolan, a picture taken in the ’20s.
I find her achingly beautiful.
So I decided to learn more about her.

As Imogene “Bubbles” Wilson, Kentucky-born Nolan was a Ziegfeld girl that was kicked out of the show because of her scandalous affair with a married comedian.
To escape the scandal, Nolan moved to Germany, where she worked as an actress, using the name of Imogen Robertson, making seventeen movies in two years.
She returned in the USA in 1928, and in that same year she acted in Tod Browning‘s West of Zanzibar, that is a thoroughly wicked, evil little adventure movie.
If we can call little a movie produced and directed by Browning, and featuring Lon Chaney and Lionel Barrymore. Continue reading →