Gladys Hall & Russell Ball: Glamourizing Early Hollywood

Biographical Bytes from Bala #031

It wasn’t long after movies became ubiquitous in America that movie fan magazine appeared.  Eventually there would be more than 20 of them. 

• Gladys Hall had a stellar reputation as a “safe” interviewer who could be depended on to tell a good story without any scandal.  Her interview with Hungarian actor Bela Lugosi is one of the strangest things you could imagine.
• She was married to glamour photographer Russell Ball, remembered today for his classic portraits of Louise Brooks, Rudolph Valentino, Greta Garbo, and Gloria Swanson, who used Ball as her private photographer. 

Gladys Hall and Russell Ball are interred in an unmarked grave in the Lansdowne Section of Laurel Hill East.