Would you like to sin
With Eleanor Glyn
On a tiger skin?
Or would you prefer
To err
With her
On some other fur?
That doggerel was written about Elinor Glyn, who wrote trashy books long before there was more than one shade of gray. Elinor Glyn created the concept of "IT," an undefinable magnetism that draws people to an "IT" person. Elinor Glyn wrote novels, short stories, and screenplays. She directed adaptations of her own films. Elinor Glynn was a woman far ahead of her time.
Elinor Glynn was British but raised in Canada. Her father died when Elinor and her sister Lucille were young. Their mother remarried and the family returned to England. Her grandmother raised Elinor and Lucille to be of the upper class. Lucille married and took on the title of Lady. Elinor married wealthy barrister and landowner Clayton Glyn. They had two daughters, Margot and Juliet. Elinor's marriage was troubled and Elinor had affairs, including an affair with politician George (husband of penny princess and past TYDKYNTK subject Mary Leiter.)
Lucille had always been interested in fashion. She eventually married Cosmo Duff-Gordon and started a fashion empire. The two survived the Titanic. Elinor had always loved books and writing. She wrote Visits of Elizabeth in 1900. She toured America in 1907 to promote the book, sailing on the Lusitania. She took a three week train trip across America, journeying as far as California. After visiting Hollywood Elinor decided to dramatize her novel. Upon returning to the UK she wrote a sequel - Elizabeth Visits America.
Glyn continued to pioneer romantic erotic fiction, a new literary concept for the era. In her novel The Man and the Moment she created "IT," an undefinable concept of mystique and interest, a magnetism that draws people to a particular person, but is not specifically sex appeal. When World War I broke out she became a war correspondent in France. She was one of only two women present at the signing of the Treaty of Versailles. She returned to Hollywood for the filming of her novel The Great Moment. She signed with Hurst International Magazine Company, writing about health, beauty, fashion and relationships and sex for Cosmopolitan magazine.
Glyn was offered a screenwriting contract with Famous Players Laskey for 10,000 pounds. She began calling herself Madam Glyn. (She had no claim to an aristocratic title like her sister Lady Lucy.) Glyn cultivated a persona of elegant sexuality, decorating her suite at the Hollywood Hotel with silk, satin, and animal skins. When her contract expired in 1922 she signed with MGM to write screen plays and direct films. She directed the film version of "IT" to box office success ; the film starred Clara Bow, who came to personify the "IT" girl.
With an aling mother and owing a great deal of taxes in the states, Elinor Glyn returned to England and opened her own film company in 1929. Her British films did not fare as well as her American ones. England had stricter censorship codes than America at the time. She closed her studio soon after. Elinor Glyn had always sold herself as a product as much as her novels and films, but England had no concept of celebrity as did America.
She continued to write for film magazines, but her novels did not seem as titillating as they had before World War I, given the freedoms women took on in the 1920s. Elinor Glyn died in 1943 at the age of 79. Since then she's been mostly forgotten (but was name checked by Tom Branson in an episode of Downton Abbey.) Elinor Glyn created the idea of the media star, using whatever talent and appeal you have to impress yourself on the public through all available media platforms. Anytime an influencer is mentioned in the mainstream press, they should thank Elinor Glyn; whatever "IT" is that a celebrity has they have "IT" thanks to Elinor Glyn.
SOURCES :
Elinor Glyn. Wikipedia.
Cummings, Denise K. / Kuhn, Annette. Her British Career / Her American Career. Women Film Pioneers Project.
FURTHER MEDIA :
BOOKS :
The It Girls ~ Karen Harper
VIDEO :
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