Self-Promotion is Hard: September 1926

In 1926 Zimina took out a full-page ad in the Standard Casting Directory. One hundred years ago this month, Grace Kingsley had casting news about people from all kinds of backgrounds: James Pierce, a former football player for Indiana University and later a high school coach, had been hired to play Tarzan for F.B.O. Studios. Iris Stuart, an advertising model, had signed a long-term contract and would be the second lead in Bebe Daniels’ Stranded in Paris. Jean de Navelle, a famous Parisian dancer, had also signed with Famous Players-Lasky.* But one aspiring actress claimed a much more astonishing past than them: “That charming young actress and heroine of the World War, Valentina Zimina, member of the Russian Woman’s Battalion of Death, seems in a fair way to become as excellent an actress as she was a patriot. As luck will have it, she is getting a little comedy relief, since she is playing a featured role with Charlie Chase at Hal Roach’s studio, and when she finishes that is to have…