If the actress Jeanne Eagels is remembered today, it is because of her performance as Sadie Thompson in the theatre adaptation of Somerset Maugham's Rain which was preserved as an early silent film.
While Ms Eagels was a major star of her time, she was also a woman who "lived with a tigerish passion and died at 35 in a gutter-dammerung (sic) of hooch and heroin". One critic described the film as containing "not only some of the most striking visuals of Kim Novak ever captured on film, but also one of her most sensationally bad performances."
Considering the soapiness of the story, perhaps this was just what the doctor ordered. Needless to say, this film put her on the cover of Time magazine. Andrew Horn
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