Said to have been a protégée of Lillian Gish, blonde Pauline Garon had done some chorus work and appeared in vaudeville prior to becoming a stand-in for Lillian's sister Dorothy. She starred opposite Richard Barthelmess in Henry King's beautiful Sonny (1922) and was awarded a contract by Cecil B. DeMille, who publicized her as "The DeMille Blonde." Garon was cute and personable, but DeMille found her somewhat lacking in the acting department and was rumored to have made her watch endless screenings of Gloria Swanson films. Something must have rubbed off and Garon was indeed very much à la Swanson in Adam's Rib (1923), lolling about on a tiger skin as Anna Q. Nilsson's wanton daughter and looking extremely fetching while doing so. King Vidor then used her to maximum effect in Wine of Youth (1923), in which she played a sexually experimental, gin-loving debutante who wakes up fully clothed in the shower after an especially wild night on the town. She stole the film outright from its nominal star, Vidor's wife Eleanor Boardman, and earned a 1923 WAMPAS Baby Star title. Unfortunately, her subsequent films had tempting titles but little else and an abusive marriage to actor/director Lowell Sherman basically sealed her fate. By the early '30s, she was playing bit parts and appearing in French language versions of Paramount films. Divorced from Sherman, Garon later married Ross Forrester, the widower of fellow WAMPAS Baby Star Maryon Aye. She died of a brain disorder at California's Patton State Hospital.
by Hans J. Wollstein
biography
