Analysis of a feud

a Taylor Swift studies major with an Olivia Rodrigo studies minor

image source

Silent film stars Gloria Swanson and Pola Negri hated each other. Their mutual rivalry was famous. The press reported that Negri even stooped so low as to take advantage of Swanson’s well-known terror of cats to surprise her and send her running home.

Just one problem: Gloria Swanson was not afraid of cats. (That’s her with the lion in the header picture.) Second problem: she didn’t have a feud with Pola Negri. Here’s my new favorite historian I guess, Jeanine Basinger, in Silent Stars:

Years later, Swanson pointed out how silly most of this hype really was by saying, “I’m not a stupid woman and I hope I have common sense. Someone wrote … that Pola and I always tried to see who could make a later entrance to a party. What did I do, sit outside in an automobile until she went in first? Or be in cahoots with the butler who would call me up and say, ‘She’s arrived, now you can come over’? I never heard such nonsense in my life.” At the time, however, they seemed like perfect fo…