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Reid, Bertha Westbrook ListingsIf you cannot find what you want on this page, then please use our search feature to search all our listings. Click on Book Title to view full description
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Reid, Bertha Westbrook Wallace Reid; His life story as related by his mother
New York Sorg Pub. Co 1923 First Edition Hardcover Good with no dust jacket
Blue cover with gold print shows spotting Very rare account of Wallace Reid by his mother. William Wallace Reid was named the silent "screens most perfect lover" by Motion Picture Magazine. Born William Wallace Reid in St. Louis, Missouri into a show business family, his mother Bertha Westbrook was an actress and his father, Hal Reid(1860-1920), worked successfully in a variety of theatrical jobs, travelling the country. As a boy, Wallace Reid was performing on stage at an early age but acting was put on hold while he obtained an education at Freehold Military School in Freehold, New Jersey. A gifted all-around athlete, Reid participated in a number of sports while also following an interest in music, learning to play the piano, banjo, drums, and the violin. As a teenager, he spent time in Wyoming where he learned to be an outdoorsman.Reid was drawn to the burgeoning motion picture industry by his father who would shift from the theatre to acting, writing, and directing films. In 1910, a 19-year-old Wallace Reid appeared in his first motion picture called The Phoenix. while working on location in Oregon making The Valley of the Giants (1919), Reid was injured in a train wreck and in order to keep on filming he was prescribed morphine for his pain. The powerful drug almost immediately led to a deadly addiction but Reid kept on working at a frantic pace in films that were growing more physically demanding and changing from 15-20 minutes in duration to as much as an hour. Reid's morphine dependency deepened at a time when proper help for any form of addiction was non-existent. By late 1922, his health had deteriorated badly and after contracting the flu, he fell into a coma from which he never recovered.Dead at age thirty-one, Wallace Reid was interred in the Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Glendale, California.Unlike the self-destructive behavior of other stars of that era such as Barbara La Marr, Jack Pickford, and Jeanne Eagels whose death resulted from drugs and/or alcohol abuse, historical records point to Wallace Reid being a victim of medical ignorance. (Wikipedia). Very Rare.; Photos; 12mo 7" - 7½" tall; 104 pages
Price:
143.98 USD
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