As some of you may know, we’re writing the first and only book on Leila Hyams’ life and career. To begin, we’re taking a look at her parents John Hyams and Leila McIntyre, who were extremely popular stage actors in their day. John and Leila’s experience on the stage would have a profound impact on young Leila and her decision to become an actress herself. The actual writing process has already begun and we continue to gather as much information as possible. It has proved to be somewhat of a challenge, given that Vaudeville records were not kept with the precision of Broadway records. Vaudeville producers were more concerned with each specific show, as opposed to maintaining a record of past performances or the actors/actresses who appeared.
Because there has never been a book on Leila Hyams, there is no previous work to cross-reference. Additionally, many blurbs that mention John and Leila are just quick references to whichever play they were doing at the time. That is one of the many reasons that a book like this is important. Without the effort and genuine concern for the subject, this history would be lost forever. There are many things we’ve found while researching that are amazing, and they deserve to be highlighted in the annals of entertainment.
Perhaps the biggest goal of the book is to give Leila her due. As a child, she lived in the shadow of her parents’ celebrity; and, as a married woman, she would take a backseat to her husband’s career. There was really never a time when Leila was the main attraction. She had moments of grandeur on screen and that was the one place where no one else could touch her. This book will finally make Leila the woman of the hour. There will of course be the necessary family history and information on her husband of 50 years (Phil Berg), but all in all, this book is about her life and her career.
We have been fortunate enough to speak with Leila’s niece and nephew (by marriage, they are Phil’s niece and nephew), the only living relatives we’ve located to date. Leila was an only child and had no children of her own, so tracking down living family members has been nearly impossible. However, they have both expressed interest in the book and are helping us as much as they can. We’re very lucky to have them involved, it gives this book a certain amount of validation.
This coming December will be the 30th anniversary of Leila’s death. Though we would love to have the book finished and available by that time, we’re certainly not rushing or slapping it together for the sake of a deadline. We’d like this to be as thorough, informative and as entertaining as possible. Leila deserves no less than that.
A book of this kind is always welcome and needed in illuminating the Silent era/early Talkie era for younger/under 40 cinephiles. It is important to keep this history alive and in context.
However, such a book needs to be more than mere celebration and talking about how pretty Leila Hyams was, etc.
It is important to place the subject within the context of the bigger Hollywood studio system, and within the cultural and ideological context of the times. How was Leila’s image produced and what does it mean?
Leila represents a certain kind of femininity very dear to patriarchal notions of womanhood—decorative, faithful, dependent, non-threatening…She does not represent the aggressive hypersexuality of Jean Harlow or Olga Baclanova that needed to be contained and punished. Leila is not a “working class/liberated woman” in the Joan Crawford or Bette Davis mold. Her wisecracking charcter “Venus” in Freaks is the closest I’ve seen in this vien. She is not an “exotic” a la Garbo nor “dramatic” like Shearer.
Also, it is also meaningful to compare/contrast Leila with her contemporaries at MGM or other studios. How was Leila different from flappers/man-traps Clara Bow, Louise Brooks, Jean Harlow? How is she similar to Madge Evans, Karen Morley, Fay Wray, early Loretta Young? How did the deluxe MGM studio (mis)use her or underdevelop her as an actress/commodity? Pegged as a versatile “utility blonde”, MGM moguls clearly did not regard her in the same big league as Norma Shearer, Joan Crawford, or Myrna Loy.
What is Leila’s contribution to film with two big Horror classics and auteur-director Tod Browning in her resume? What does it mean to today’s audiences? Should this not place her high in the “scream queen” cult with Helen Chandler (Dracula), Mae Clarke (Frankenstein), Zita Johnan, Gloria Stuart and Fay Wray? Leila’s blondeness/whiteness makes her a perfect foil to the undertones of bestiality in Island of Lost Souls. I hope that the book will not only “give Leila her due” in celebrating her but will shed new light into the forgotten world of Vaudeville, the closing years of the silent era, the Talkie revolution and THE SYSTEM within which she worked as Golden Age Hollywood grows more remote.