Browse: Home / Attention Must Be Paid: Julanne Johnston

Menu

Skip to content
  • Home
  • Who We Are
  • About
  • Privacy
  • Contact Us
  • Login

The-SoluteLogo

A Film Site By Lovers of Film

Menu

Skip to content
  • Features
  • Reviews
  • Long Reviews
  • News
  • Articles and Opinions
  • Other Media
  • The Friday Article Roundup: The Truth is In Here
  • Lunch Links: Schwarzfahrer
  • Websites on the Internet: THE SOLUTE
  • New on DVD and Blu-Ray
  • Movie Gifts Holidays 2024
Defintely natives of Baghdad

Attention Must Be Paid: Julanne Johnston

Posted By Gillianren on January 29, 2022 in Features | Leave a response

We basically don’t have the concept of the starlet today. I think we have a few actresses who fill similar roles, but the idea that there are these women who are just kind of around whose name you may or may not know but whose face and figure you likely did has changed. Partly, this is due to a change in the industry; without studio-run movie magazines, you don’t have the same sort of women who were there just to draw attention to the studios they worked for. And in theory, they could do talk shows, but in practice, they generally want you to have a reason to go on a talk show these days, to have something interesting to discuss. We’re also a lot less likely to give actresses nicknames like “the ‘It’ Girl” or “the Sweater Girl” or what have you.

Julanne Johnston actually played a few lead roles, but by any reasonable metric, she was one of the starlets of early Hollywood. For one thing, she was called the “baby star” of 1924, a term we definitely don’t use anymore. She was in several uncredited roles—admittedly more common in that era, but still an indicator that your character isn’t exactly vital to the story. Further, some of her credited characters have names like “Court Lady” or “Member of Frank’s Gang.” These are not the most prominent characters, generally speaking.

Of course, one of her characters is “The Princess,” from the 1924 (and therefore public domain) Thief of Baghdad. That’s a slightly more important role. Oh, maybe you would not yourself have chosen a nice girl from Indianapolis as an Iraqi princess, but how long ago did they cast Jake Gyllenhaal as a Persian prince? She was apparently actually discovered by Douglas Fairbanks, though honestly a lot of the early stories of people being “discovered” are not entirely accurate.

It seems that, early in the sound era, she was on her way to visit friends in New York. She stopped off at Grosse Pointe, for reasons. She met a guy. They ended up getting married, and she retired from acting. One hopes that’s because she found life in Grosse Pointe more satisfying, not because her husband insisted, of course. Still, if it is, that’s one of the better stories of someone who stopped acting. Settling down and having a couple of kids, even if her husband pressured her into it, is better than a downward spiral, if nothing else.

She was also one of the people on the notorious 1924 cruise of the Oneida, too. I’ve added several of them to the calendar after a viewing of The Cat’s Meow. I didn’t feel I could talk about both of the young actresses, but Johnston seems representative enough of the type. She was young. She was pretty enough so the studios didn’t seem terribly interested in hyping her talent, and she wasn’t talented enough so that you had to regardless of her looks. She was in many ways what we’d call today a working actress, though her type was pretty much “woman who appears so we have an attractive woman onscreen.”

Help fund my quiet home life by supporting my Patreon or Ko-fi!

Posted in Features | Tagged Attention Must Be Paid, Julanne Johnston, tribute

About the Author

gillianmadeira@hotmail.com'

Gillianren

Gillianren is a forty-something bipolar woman living in the Pacific Northwest after growing up in Los Angeles County. She and her boyfriend have one son and one daughter, and she gave a daughter up for adoption. She fills her days by watching her local library system’s DVD collection in alphabetical order, watching everything that looks interesting. She particularly enjoys pre-Code films, blaxploitation, and live-action Disney movies of the ’60s and ’70s. She has a Patreon account at https://www.patreon.com/gillianren

Related Posts

Life is a mysteryCelebrating the Living: Madonna→

Clearly Pryor knew a thing or two about wooing womenAttention Must Be Paid: Richard Pryor→

Definitely how most people picture him.Celebrating the Living: John Cameron Mitchell→

A sexy hot mess bigot!Attention Must Be Paid: Patricia Highsmith→

  • Comments
  • Popular
  • Most Recent
  • j*****@yahoo.com'
    mr_apollo on Year of the Month: Mon OncleWonderful piece, Sam. It's made…
  • j*****@yahoo.com'
    mr_apollo on Year of the Month: Mon OncleFellow heretic here. I've never…
  • n***********@gmail.com'
    Ruck Cohlchez on Film on the Internet: AN AMERICAN CRIMEI wouldn't have called it…
  • j***********@gmail.com'
    Son of Griff on LIFE ITSELFGlad to hear back from…
  • n*********@gmail.com'
    Jake Gittes on Film on the Internet: AN AMERICAN CRIMEThis is the single most…
  • “The End” of SAVAGES

    38549 views / Posted November 10, 2014
  • The Untalented Mr. Ripley: The Craft of Standup Comedy and the Non-Comedy of TOM MYERS

    31197 views / Posted June 26, 2018
  • What the fuck did I just watch? SPHERE

    30588 views / Posted March 19, 2015
  • Gordon with Mr. Looper

    Attention Must Be Paid: Will Lee

    27740 views / Posted January 7, 2023
  • Scenic Routes: SHOWGIRLS (1995)

    23691 views / Posted November 20, 2014
  • The truth is FAR out there.

    The Friday Article Roundup: The Truth is In Here

    December 6, 2024 / The Ploughman
  • This is a way lower res image than I will be allowed to get away with at the new site.

    Lunch Links: Schwarzfahrer

    December 5, 2024 / The Ploughman
  • Websites on the Internet: THE SOLUTE

    December 4, 2024 / ZoeZ
  • New on DVD and Blu-Ray

    December 3, 2024 / Greta Taylor
  • Movie Gifts Holidays 2024

    December 2, 2024 / The Ploughman

Last Tweets

    ©2014 - 2016 The-Solute | Hosted, Developed and Maintained by Bellingham WP LogoBellinghamWP.com.

    Menu

    • Home
    • Who We Are
    • About
    • Privacy
    • Contact Us
    • Login
    Do NOT follow this link or you will be banned from the site!