PEARL WHITE Silent Film Personality Postcard and 17 similar items

Vintage original 3.5 x 5.25 in. (8.9 x 13.3 cm.) postcard, printed in England, unused, very fine condition. This vintage original Silent Era postcard featuring the greatest of all silent serial film stars, Pearl White (who starred in Pathe's The Perils of Pauline). The image depicts a close shot of Miss White wearing a very elegant lace wrap with a hair net and posing in front of a dark studio backdrop. This vintage original postcard was printed in England and is uncirculated and in very fine condition with some light wear around the edges, mostly on the top left corner (see image). There are a few numbers written lightly in pencil on the verso. In 1910, White was offered a role by Pathe Freres in The Girl From Arizona, the French company's first American film produced at their new studio in Bound Brook, New Jersey. She then worked at Lubin Studios and several other of the independents, until the Crystal Film Company in Manhattan gave her top billing in a number of short films. In 1914, Pathe director Louis J. Gasnier offered her the starring role in The Perils of Pauline, a film based on a story by playwright Charles W. Goddard. The film was one where "Pauline" was the central character in a story involving considerable action, which the athletic Pearl White proved ideally suited for. The Perils of Pauline consisted of twenty episodes. A box-office success, the movie made White a major celebrity, and she was soon earning the then astronomical sum of $3,000 a week. She followed this with an even bigger box-office winner, The Exploits of Elaine. Flying airplanes, racing cars, swimming across rivers, and doing other similar feats, White made four more successful serials on the same theme. She did much of her own stunt work and she suffered injuries that would force her to use a stunt double in her later films.