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==== 1921β28: Dramatic actress ==== Upon the completion of her Vitagraph contract, Love became a free agent. She took an active role in the management of her career, and was represented by Gerald C. Duffy, the former editor of ''[[Picture Play (magazine)|Picture-Play Magazine]]''.<ref>{{cite magazine|magazine=Photo-Play Journal|date=February 1919|title=Cinema Truth in Flashes|page=46|url=https://archive.org/details/photoplayjournal03cent/page/n115}}</ref> [[File:Bessie Love and Victory Bateman in Human Wreckage.jpg|thumb|With [[Victory Bateman]] in ''[[Human Wreckage]]'' (1923)]] Love sought roles that were different from the little girls she had portrayed earlier in her career when under contract to studios. She played Asian women in ''[[The Vermilion Pencil]]'' (1922) and ''[[The Purple Dawn]]'' (1923); a drug-addicted mother in ''[[Human Wreckage]]'' (1923); a woman accused of murder in ''[[The Woman on the Jury]]'' (1924); an underworld flapper in ''[[Those Who Dance (1924 film)|Those Who Dance]]'' (1924); and versions of her real-life self in ''[[Night Life in Hollywood]]'' (1922), ''[[Souls for Sale]]'' (1923), and ''[[Mary of the Movies]]'' (1923). As a film star, she was expected to entertain studio executives at parties, so she learned to sing, dance, and play the ukulele.<ref>{{cite news|title=Stagestruck? Who, Me?|first=Bessie|last=Love|date=November 20, 1967|newspaper=[[The Christian Science Monitor]]|page=8}}</ref> She gradually honed these skills and later performed them onscreen and on the stage.<ref>{{cite magazine|url=https://archive.org/details/photoplayjournal03cent/page/n79|title=Hobnobbing with Bessie Love|magazine=Photo-Play Journal|pages=11, 56|date=February 1919}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|title=Ukuleles Are Popular Among Hollywood Stars: Alfred Santell, Irene Rich, and Bessie Love Among Exponents|newspaper=[[The Baltimore Sun|The Sun]]|location=Baltimore, MD|date=2 Nov 1930|page=MR3|quote=Bessie Love and the uke have always been associated.}}</ref> Because of her performance in ''[[The King on Main Street]]'' (1925), Love is credited with being the first person to dance [[Charleston (dance)|the Charleston]] on film,<ref>In ''The King on Main Street'': * {{cite news|newspaper=[[The Harvard Crimson]]|title=Crimson Playgoer: The Metropolitan Opens Its Doors to an Unlimited Public and a Very Fair Opening Attraction|date=October 21, 1925|url=http://www.thecrimson.com/article/1925/10/21/crimson-playgoer-pwith-the-coming-of/|quote=Bessie Love too, who does a very jazzy version of the Charleston}} * {{cite magazine|magazine=Theatre Magazine|date=January 1926|quote=β¦it is memorable β¦ for the fact that Bessie Love gives a perfect exhibition of the Charleston, proving that it can be danced with extreme grace and agility, and yet without a single hint of wriggling vulgarity. We hereby award Miss Love the palm as the greatest Charleston expert on the screen if not on the stage{{spaced ndash}}which is by way of being a miracle, for ordinarily a film dance looks as silly as the capering of goats.|title=The King on Main Street}}</ref> popularizing it in the United States. Her technique was documented in instructional guides,<ref>{{cite magazine|title=Everybody's Doing It Now; Bessie Love Shows You How|magazine=Photoplay|date=October 1925|url=https://archive.org/details/photoplay2829movi/page/n455|pages=32β3}}</ref> including a series of photographs by [[Edward Steichen]].<ref>{{cite news|url=http://www.boston.com/community/photos/raw/articles/2009/07/19/edward_steichen_exhibits_showcase_breadth_of_photographers_career/?page=full|newspaper=[[The Boston Globe]]|title=Steichen: A man for all styles{{spaced ndash}}Exhibits showcase breadth of his career|first=Mark|last=Feeney| author-link=Mark Feeney |date=July 19, 2009}}</ref> She subsequently performed the dance the following year in ''[[The Song and Dance Man]]''.<ref>In ''The Song and Dance Man'': * {{cite magazine|magazine=The Film Daily|volume=35|issue=30|title=Newspaper Opinions|date=February 5, 1926|page=8|url=https://archive.org/details/filmdaily3536newy|quote=The picture is well worth viewing, however, if for no other reason than to watch Bessie Love dance the Charleston.}} * {{cite magazine|magazine=The Cornell Daily Sun|volume=XLVI|issue=134|date=25 March 1926|url=http://cdsun.library.cornell.edu/cgi-bin/cornell?a=d&d=CDS19260325.2.42&srpos=&st=0&e=-------en-20--1--txt-txIN------#|title=Stage and Screen|page=4|quote=Bessie Love is well cast as the girl{{spaced ndash}}she surely can do the Charleston.}} * {{cite news|newspaper=[[Reading Eagle|Reading Times]]|title=George M. Cohan's 'Song and Dance Man' Comes to State|date=March 22, 1926|page=8|location=Reading, Pennsylvania|quote=Bessie Love, the diminutive film favorite and the screen's foremost exponent of the 'Charleston,' is happily cast as the small time performer who eventually wins fame and fortune in the musical comedy field.}} * {{cite news|newspaper=[[The Gettysburg Times]]|location=Gettysburg, Pennsylvania|page=6|title=Lincoln Way Theatre|date=August 31, 1926|quote=See Bessie Love, the screen's Charleston champ, strut her stuff!}}</ref> In 1925, she starred in ''[[The Lost World (1925 film)|The Lost World]]'', a science fiction adventure based on [[The Lost World (Conan Doyle novel)|the novel of the same title]] by [[Sir Arthur Conan Doyle]]. In 1927, she appeared in the successful ''[[Dress Parade]]'', and was so impressed by her experiences on location that she wrote the unpublished novel ''Military Mary''.<ref>{{cite book|title=Military Mary|first=Bessie|last=Love|date=1929|oclc=37148006}}</ref> A year later, she starred in ''[[The Matinee Idol (1928 film)|The Matinee Idol]]'', a romantic comedy directed by a young [[Frank Capra]]. Despite these successes, Love's career was on the decline.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://archive.org/details/newmoviemagazine01weir/page/n31|pages=28, 124|work=The New Movie Magazine|title=Snappy Comebacks|first=Walter|last=Winchell| author-link=Walter Winchell |date=December 1929}}</ref> She lived frugally so she could afford lessons in singing and dancing.<ref>{{cite magazine|url=https://archive.org/details/picturep31stre/page/n375|magazine=Picture Play|page=116|title=Must a Star 'Go Hollywood'?|first=Myrtle|last=Gebhart|volume=31|issue=2|date=October 1929}}</ref>
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