The Rise and Fall of Lou-Tellegen

WINNER BEST SILENT FILM BOOK OF 2011 (Thomas Gladysz in the San Francisco Examiner).

Lou-Tellegan, a youth from the Netherlands, became one of the world's first movie stars. Before he became famous, he was the son of a brave and brilliant Dutch military general. Lou first found work as a boxer, a circus trapeze artist, and as a nude model in Paris for Auguste Rodin. He became an eager, dedicated stage actor with Italy's most famous actress, Eleonora Duse. When France's renowned actress, Sarah Bernhardt, plucked him from obscurity with a four-year contract, she remade him into a rich and world-famous star. Hollywood snapped him up for silent movies. Geraldine Farrar, the world's greatest opera singer, married him after a brief, whirlwind romance, but on one dark day, the fairy tale magic of his incredible storybook life came suddenly to a shocking end that stunned the entire world.