Vina Delmar at Vitaphone Varieties
by Andre Soares
A 1928 introduction to writer Vina Delmar at Vitaphone Varieties:
"Vina Delmar is her name. She is 23. Her first novel, Bad Girl, has been made the April Book-of-the-Month by the Literary Guild of America. Thus, before it reached the bookstands, Miss Delmar’s story was assured some 40,000 readers, with a $10,000.00 advance."
…
"’I came to know, first hand, the girls who go to Coney Island, who pack the medium-sized movie theaters and write fan mail, who chew gum, work for a living, put on lipstick in crowded subways, and try to live on $1.60 a day. Some of them are tough and some of them are not. I grew up with these people, and when I decided to write, I wrote about them. It seems to me that if you’re going to write, that’s what you have to do. Don’t wander into strange lands, but write.’"
Bad Girl became a play, and was turned into a movie in 1931. Popular on-screen lovebirds Janet Gaynor and Charles Farrell were initially slated to star in the film, but contractual problems led to the casting of James Dunn and Sally Eilers. The prestigious Frank Borzage directed from a screenplay by Edwin J. Burke. The result was a critically acclaimed box-office hit that ended up winning a best direction Academy Award for Borzage — his second. (The first one was for 7th Heaven, starring Gaynor and Farrell, in the first year of the Oscars.)
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Delmar’s maiden name was Croter, and she was my mother’s
cousin. Her father was in vaudeville, my mother’s father
was a member of a theatrical pit orchestra.