Beauty Archivist: Beauty in Black and White – The Evolution of Movie Makeup
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In 1950 Dolores Costello, the delicate and translucent beauty known as “goddess of the Silent Screen” left Hollywood for good. Why was Costello reportedly living alone on an avocado farm taking no visitors? The rumour mill said the reason for her disappearance was that the ruined condition of her skin was becoming impossible for makeup to hide. The perfect complexion she had been famous for destroyed by years of the crude greasepaint necessary to translate her face onto black and white film.
Today, even if a movie is shot in black and white, the film itself is sensitive to the full light spectrum, meaning that the relationships between tones are captured accurately. We see areas of depth and light truthfully even in grayscale. Until the late 1920s films were mostly made with blue sensitive film. It overexposed areas on the blue and violet end of the spectrum and underexposed any red or yellow tones. This meant any naturally occurring red tones or yellow tones in the skin would read as black whilst blue eyes would be an extremely unnerving white, the Paul Hollywood effect on acid. Any areas of blush or natural ruddiness would look like dirt. Faces were also rendered in much higher contrast meaning gentle contours or expression lines would read as heavy black folds.
In order for an actor to look natural on film they would be wearing colour that looked bizarre in real life. To create the impression of a true black, a star might instead use red as eyeliner and mascara. A real life black would look grey due to the presence of blue. A deep purple would be registered as a medium tone and interpreted as pink so had uses on the lips and eyelids. Any colour approaching red on the cheeks would create the effect of extreme gauntness and so instead skin was completely covered in a heavy flat yellowish grease paint. If you had visited Costello or any of her contemporaries on set you would have seen them wearing makeup that looked like it belonged on America’s Next Top Model’s avant-garde day.
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Knowing this, we can assume that part of the indelible images we have of early icons is actually less to do with their personal style and more how their makeup choices translated on film. Theda Bara’s white face was probably a heavy-handed attempt to avoid looking sunken on screen and the deep sooty eyes she is famous for are actually reported to have been made up in softer warm browns and peaches. Gloria Swanson who we think of as having a clean, sporty all American vibe to her beauty often favoured a blue eyeshadow that wouldn’t have been picked up on camera. Early goth queen Louise Brooks in reality was wearing much brighter shades of orangey red lipstick and even green eyeshadow in her films.
“In order for an actor to look natural on black and white film they would be wearing colour that looked bizarre in real life. To create the impression of a true black, a star might instead use red as eyeliner and mascara.”
Throughout the 1910s, most actors would do their own makeup using, honestly, some really gross sounding methods. Commercial greasepaint of the type used on stage was available but often was personalised or supplemented with household products such as lard or vegetable shortening, vaseline, paprika, flour and most confusingly “brick dust”. Unsurprisingly, given the list of ingredients, this greasepaint did not have an elegant texture. It was heavy and thick and would crack along expression lines, making emotive close ups impossible. Over time it caused the kind of irreparable damage to the skin that ended Dolores Costello’s career.
In 1914, everything changed when a wig and cosmetics shop in LA, developed a product called Flexible Greasepaint. At first actors would come by the House Of Makeup to see the application demonstrated but soon stars such as Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton would pay to be made up early in the morning before their call time, making the proprietor, an immigrant of Polish-Jewish descent named Max Factor the world's first celebrity makeup artist.
As film and lighting developed, Max Factor was at the forefront of developing new methods of cosmetics to respond to the new demands of film making. In 1927, incandescent light was introduced and for the first time shine and reflections were translated on screen. Max Factor responded by developing the first ever lip gloss which would go on to be sold under the pretty scandalous name “X rated” - which sounds like it could still be sold at NARS today. He sprinkled gold dust into Marlene Dietrich’s hair and added a sheen to eyelids. Whilst previously faces were best translated if they were graphic, see Louise Brooks and her sharp flapper bob, this new light refraction allowed a new mode of hazy ethereal beauty to emerge. Think of the soft light washing through fluffy hair and delicate features of Carole Lombard.
Panchromatic film started to become widely available to Hollywood during this time. Created with a sensitising dye it extended the ability of film to capture green and red portions of the light spectrum making black and white tones closer to reality.
The combination of incandescent lighting and the newly sensitive film began the movie craze for blonde hair giving birth to Jean Harlow and the platinum blonde archetype. It also started to allow for greater flexibility and personalisation in the makeup applications of stars giving rise to signature looks such as Clara Bow’s sharply drawn cupid's bow and Joan Crawford’s overdrawn top lip: Looks that still reverberate through the beauty industry today.
As the 1930s progressed these special techniques became less relevant with the advent of Technicolour. The Wizard of Oz was released in 1939 and became the first colour film shown in most American cinemas, launching a new era of Hollywood beauty and a new generation of movie stars to embody it. Whilst Judy Garland, the star of The Wizard of Oz, would eventually meet her own untimely Hollywood fate, the damage caused by being an on screen beauty icon was now emotional rather than physical.
Words: Grace Maria Ellington