Personal Life and Later Years
Pearl White was a wealthy young woman when in 1919 she met and married World War I veteran Major Wallace McCutcheon, Jr. (1880–1928), an actor, director, and cinematographer. However, the marriage failed and they divorced in 1921. Two years later, White made her last American film.
Influenced by the French friends from Pathé Studios, White was drawn to the artistic gathering in the Montparnasse Quarter of Paris. While living there, she made her last film for her friend, Belgian-born director Edward José, who had directed her in several serials. Silent films could be made in any country, and as White was a recognizable star worldwide, she was offered many roles in France. Instead, she chose to perform on stage in a Montmartre production "Tu Perds la Boule" (You Lost the Ball). In 1925 she accepted an offer to star with comedian Max Wall in the "London Review" at the Lyceum Theatre in London.
White's childhood poverty made her frugal with money. A shrewd businesswoman, she invested in a successful Parisian nightclub, a Biarritz resort hotel/casino, plus a profitable stable of thoroughbred race horses. Living in a fashionable town house in the exclusive Parisian suburb of Passy, she also owned a villa in Rambouillet. She became involved with Theodore Cossika, a Greek businessman who shared her love of travel. Together they purchased a home near Cairo, Egypt, and White travelled with him throughout the Middle East and the Orient. White then returned to France. She made just one more film, Terror (1924).
She starred in several popular stage reviews at the Montmartre Music Hall in Paris, and was in a London revue with George Carney. She then retired from performing.
Read more about this topic: Pearl White
Famous quotes containing the words personal, life and/or years:
“I was not at all apprehensive about ... disease ... [it] had no terrors for me. The thing I most feared in the world was hunger. That was something of which I had personal knowledge.”
—Madeleine [Blair], U.S. prostitute and madam. Madeleine, ch. 4 (1919)
“The literature of the poor, the feelings of the child, the philosophy of the street, the meaning of household life, are the topics of the time. It is a great stride. It is a sign,is it not? of new vigor, when the extremities are made active, when currents of warm life run into the hands and the feet.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (18031882)
“In that second it dawned on me that I had been living here for eight years with a strange man and had borne him three children.”
—Henrik Ibsen (18281906)