The silent film era.  We don’t think about it that much.  Maybe because many films made during this time period are now lost.  And many of the stars from this era are long forgotten.

Maybe you’ve never heard of Colleen Moore.

She was one of the most fashionable (and highest paid) stars from this era.  If you’ve dressed up like a flapper for Halloween, you’re really trying to pull off the look that Colleen made popular.  She was one of the reasons all the ladies of the 20s started to bob their hair.

Flaming Youth was a notable film and unfortunately only one reel remains of this one.  Check out the movie poster.  Here’s what the text says on the poster:

She smoked cigarettes. She drank. She went to petting parties. She led the pace of the gayest life in the gayest society.  And yet she claimed to be respectable. The men liked her, but there were certain conservative young men who were not seeking her as a wife.  

“Why,” she wondered.  Had she gone too far?

These were pre-code films for sure.

But maybe Moore hadn’t lost her innocence, even with all those petting parties.

She loved dollhouses!  She really loved dollhouses.  Who doesn’t?

During a hiatus of her movie career in 1927, she needed something to keep her busy.  Her father reminded her how much she loved dollhouses as a child.  With the help of the set designers of her studio, she constructed what could be the most elaborate dollhouse ever!  It was 9 feet deep with the tallest tower reaching 12 feet. The interior rooms were designed by Harold Grieve, a motion picture art director.

Moore’s dollhouse has been a featured exhibit at the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago, Illinois since the early 1950s.  Per the museum, it is seen by 1.5 million people each year and would be worth $7 million. Moore continued working on it, and contributing artifacts to it, until her death.

You can see more detailed photos of each room here.

Check out this video from the Museum about how the museum has been conserving this amazing dollhouse.

Moore lead an interesting life after her time in pictures was over.  She had made good money on her films, during the height of her popularity, and invested wisely.  She became a day trader and a partner in Merrill Lynch investment firm and later wrote a book for women on how to invest in the stock market.  How Women Can Make Money in the Stock Market (1969)

Maybe that’s how she never lost her fairy castle to foreclosure like so many of the other silent era movie stars did.