Eleanor Boardman

Eleanor Boardman was born on August 19, 1898 to parents who were feircely religious and thought that films were wicked. But Eleanor's independant spirit led her to belive otherwise, and she became a teen model for Eastman Kodak. By the ages of 15 and 16, she became the "Kodak Girl". Much like we see Nikki Tyler as The Cover Girl. The ad she appeared in was shown nationwide. With such luck in hand, Eleanor set her sails for Hollywood to become an actress. In 1922, she became a contract player with the Goldwyn Pictures company. Two years later, when it became Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Eleanor remained a contract player, and stayed at the studio until 1932.

Eleanor was not only beautiful and sophisticated, she was a very good actress. Director King Vidor, whom she married in 1926, gave her several plum roles, including:
• Three Wise Fools (Goldwyn Pictures, 1923), with Claude Gillingwater • Wine of Youth (Metro-Goldwyn Pictures, 1924), with Johnnie Walker • Wife of the Centaur (Metro-Goldwyn Pictures, 1925) with John Gilbert • Proud Flesh (Metro-Goldwyn Pictures, 1925) with Harrison Ford • and the lost film Bardelys the Magnificent (M-G-M, 1926), also with John Gilbert.
Vidor's greatest achivement was The Crowd in 1928, a Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer production. James Murray had the lead role of a man in a modern, urban, unfeeling world. Eleanor played the girl. (duh) It got some excellent reviews, especially for Eleanor. As a matter of fact, some fifty three years after The Crowd's release, it was revived by Kevin Brownlow's company to sellout audiences at the London Film Festival in 1981. John Coleman wrote in The New Statesman: "What a superbly controlled performance Eleanor Boardman gives; and what a sweetness she had, uncloying, instinct with life."
Eleanor's fame led people to having more general opinions about her. She was "the most outspoken girl in Hollywood". Hey, I'd be outspoken, too, if I was a frequent guest among Hollywood's castles! In other words, you could often find her in San Simeon (home of William Randolph Hearst and Marion Davies) and Pickfair (don't tell me I have to explain that to you). Friends included F. Scott Fitzgerald and his wife Zelda, Greta Garbo, Joan Crawford, John Barrymore, Lillian Gish, Gloria Swanson, John Gilbert, and Marion Davies.
In 1932, after having made a few talkies, Eleanor left MGM and divorced Vidor the following year. She made her last movie in Spain in 1934 entitled The Three Cornered hat with Henri d'Abbadie d'Arrast as a director. He was alike to Eleanor in the sense that he too had once been an important part of Hollywood and was now working in another film studio in another country. They married shortly after the picture was completed. For years, Eleanor divided her time between the United States and Europe where the d'Arrasts lived in a chateau in the Pyrenees in the south of France. In 1968, Henri died, and Eleanor moved to Montecito, California in a beautiful home she designed herself. She stayed there until her death on December 12, 1991 at the age of 93.

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