Clara Bow, the silent film actress, was a phenom until talkies came out. Her Brooklyn accent was so grating audiences couldn’t take it and she faded away.
Not quite true. Read my book mentioned above or better yet Runnin Wild by David Stenn. Clara Bow did quite well in talkies although she did have a lot of problems adjusting because she was used to the pantomime style silent acting technique. Her personal issues and ultimate mental illness drive over from Hollywood when she married Rex Bell. However talking pictures destroyed the careers of many silent movie stars. In fact John Wayne‘s first big break in the movie The Big Trail in 1930 came about because first choices like Gary Cooper were unavailable, and other silent cowboy stars did not have voices suitable for talkies.
I should also add, before somebody else goes there, that the old stories of Clara Bow having orgies with the USC football team are not true either. I used Stenn’s book extensively in researching mine, and he shows pretty conclusively that those allegations were made up by Daisy DeVoe, Bow’s former assistant who was locked in a scandalous court case after being accused of embezzling Bow’s funds.