Paradoxically, it was during the steep decent that by 1935 had taken her out of movies (and, on the sunny side, to a solid transatlantic stage presence) that she made the picture she's best remembered for, Tod Browning's magnificently twisted epic of circus life, Freaks. Everything that made her not work in most talkies - the accent, of course, but also her larger-than-life presence, her flashing eyes and heavy, exotic beauty - made her the perfect evil, grasping circus acrobat, and so she carved out her little slice of celluloid immortality as Browning's Cleopatra.
Sharing the day? Among them are another silents survivor, ur-flapper Colleen Moore; Mademoiselle herself, la Chanel; half-a-duo Alfred Lunt; and That Somewhat Different tennis pro, Dr. Renée Richards. I hope, in one way or another, here or in the hereafter, they're having fun.