Flashback Fridays! #1

The funny thing about growing up in this city is that it sits on the best stories. Its history is constructed on deceit, lies, and the strange. There isn't any reality show that can compete with Hollywood history. Hollywood is the queen, and nothing can come close to how great this city is. Many scoff at its pseudo pretentious demeanor, but they don't realize what this city had to do to become the city it is now.

No one knows how really great this city is.

So since this is my hobby I decided I'll write about one random historical person or fact every friday. It'll be called, "Flashback Fridays". It'll have fun details about some famous person or place or event that happened in Hollywood.

and I'll start off with...

#1 Gilda Gray

Gilda Grey was an actress from the silent movie/ talkie era that is famous for introducing the shimmy dance move. She stared in seven movies, and she was mainly a dancer throughout her career. Dealing with the terror of the stock market crash as well as her faltering career, Gilda Gray died at 58 from her second heart attack. 

Like most actresses during the Golden Era, Gilda Gray started off as a vaudeville performer. Born Marianna Michalska in Kraków, Austria-Hungary, (now Poland) Gilda seemed like a person that fought tooth and nail to get the career. She originally danced in her native land of Poland, but like every hopeful dreamer, the beaconing lights of the boulevard called her in. She wanted the adventure, and she wanted the fame.

What is most interesting about Gilda was that a Times article stated that she was married at 11 and had a child at 12. However records state that she was married at 14... so I guess that's ok?

But fuck me man. I couldn't even commit to go to a party when I was 14. I sure as hell wouldn't been able to have gotten married at 14.

I would have been crying all the time at 11, since I was a baby.

When the 1929 stock market crashed, Gilda lost most of her money but managed to sustain a career as a dancer at the Palace Theater in New York. After that, she had a heart attack. She had previously dealt with a couple of divorces as well as other financial problems. 

Near the end of her life Gilda was in complete financial trouble. She couldn't afford any form of room or board and had to live with her friends for about six years. Gilda died December 22, 1959 at age 58. The Motion Picture Relief Fund, an organization that helps actors that need assistance when they can't find the means to do so, paid for her funeral.

While her name did not survive in infamy, she left behind the shimmy. While that might seem like much, at least it was something. If you think about it, did your grandma leave anything fantastic behind? No, delicious pies do not count.

Gilda danced for Hollywood, and because of that, we contain her history.


Watch her dance here!