On the Bedside Table - The Sheik and I - The Life and Career of Agnes Ayres

 

102 years on, there is still a pretty fervent fanbase for Rudolph Valentino in his star making role as Ahmed ben Hassan in the 1921 film The Sheik. I confess, having read the book many moons ago, all I can say about E.M. Hull’s blockbuster novel is eek. It truly is of another time and does not age well at all. Misogynistic and racist are two words that spring immediately to mind. Thankfully, when the film was made, censorship required the more offensive bits of the story and characters to be cleaned up. No real idea on how much further censorship was done on the local state levels, not just Hollywood had strict rules. Having recently revisited the film, it was not as bad as I remembered. Nevertheless, it is right down there with The Young Rajah as my least favorite of Valentino's films.

Most of the time when discussing the film, the only person who gets discussed is Rudolph Valentino, slighting almost entirely his leading lady and person with star billing, Agnes Ayres. Agnes Ayres had a reasonably respectable career in the silent era, starting early on as so many did (even Valentino) as a bit player back east (or Midwest) before reaching a pinnacle of success in Hollywood. Save for The Sheik and her cameo in The Son of the Sheik, Agnes Ayres is all but forgotten today.

This brings us to the newly published volume by Louise Carley Lewisson The Sheik and I - The Life and Career of Agnes Ayres. Any new information on someone associated with Valentino in such a popular film is welcome and since Agnes Ayres is a cipher in many respects one hoped for a decent dive into her life and career. Having only previously read the excellent chapter on her in Michael G. Ankerich's Dangerous Curves Atop Hollywood Heels: The Lives, Careers, and Misfortunes of 14 Hard-Luck Girls of the Silent Screen, I had high hopes. Alas, my hopes were dashed.

Let's be clear, any author who researches a silent film performer, direct source material is very hard to find if there is anything extant at all. Unless the star is someone like Gloria Swanson or Lillian Gish who, seemingly, saved every scrap of paper on their career, if their papers were not saved and archived, it is a tough row to hoe. I applaud the author her research and hard work utilizing the invaluable resource that is the Media History Digital Library. That said, as she mentioned in a Q&A on her publisher's blog, "[research] can lead you down some rabbit holes." She's not wrong, and diving down a rabbit hole can be fruitful and distracting. Unfortunately from my perspective, this is part of a very large problem with the book, not just rabbit holes, entire rabbit warrens that veer off on to other subjects, cast members, producers, directors, punctuated by a brief history of Hollywood. You name it everyone has a capsule bio taking page after page after exhausting page. This leaves Agnes' narrative, what little there is, lost and forgotten. 

I did wonder when I saw that the book clocked in at 430 pages. Emily Leider’s richly detailed biography of Rudolph Valentino Dark Lover clocks in at 415 pages (not including the appendices and other back matter). As it stands, the book is crammed with material that could easily have been cut or abbreviated in the second part of the book/filmography. Some of the material is repeated including synopsis of film plots.

The first chapter is a chronicle of Agnes' birth and early life, then two chapters on Hollywood and general film history which I consider more filler and as I state above, takes away from the subject narrative. As the book progresses you see little glimpses of Agnes life and career following her rise up the cinematic ladder. As I mentioned above, even the films in which she is a mere extra get pages of capsule bios of the actual stars, a basic plotline and where they can be found reviews. We are taken chronologically year by year and studio by studio until she arrives at Paramount/Lasky and working with both Cecil B. De Mille and his lesser known brother William before landing the leading role in The Sheik. There is far less detail than I was expecting regarding the making of the film and pages devoted to the plot. This is not to say there is not any documentation on the filming, much taken from fan magazines and also Emily Leider’s Dark Lover (curiously not listed in the bibliography as a source). Again, from my perspective, another case of narrative getting lost.

The rest of the book chronicles Agnes Ayres last years on film, her marriage and divorce from Manuel Reachi, her lawsuit against Cecil B. DeMille and his PDC corporation and ultimately her sad passing. The author has dug and does providing trailing information on her daughter and Reachi.

I could well have missed much more detail in the book. I confess I got a little bored with all the filler and started to skim. Apologies to the author, she needed an editor. Since there are no acknowledgements at least in the kindle edition), one can assume there was no outside editor.

The book is sparse when it comes to photographs. There are two are eye-popping errors. The first being a photo of Valentino and Vilma Banky in a clinch from The Son of the Sheik identified as being a still from The Sheik (groan).  A second portrait purported to be Agnes Ayres which I believe is, in fact, May McAvoy. These two glaring errors are just maddening especially since neither lady bears even a remote resemblance to Agnes Ayres. 

I applaud the author efforts, birthing a manuscript is not easy and it is clear she wanted to access all that can be found. I very much wanted to like this book more than I do. An editorial hand would have cut this book down to a more manageable size with a cleaner flow. In the end, I much prefer the Dangerous Curves Atop Hollywood Heels: The Lives, Careers, and Misfortunes of 14 Hard-Luck Girls of the Silent Screen by Michael G. Ankerich. It is far briefer, but, you get the story of Agnes Ayres and her career  in a much more pleasant narrative form. 

This book can be found at all your usual spots to purchase books.