Did sound really end movie stars' careers?

From what I had heard, a lot of the silent stars had horrible voices. Sort of like in "Singin' in the Rain".



"There will be blood. Oh, yes, there WILL be blood."-Jigsaw; "Saw II"

Yeah sound killed a lot of people's career, that's not a myth.

Some stars were able to make the transition to sound, some didn't. The reasons varied. It wasn't only a matter of not having a good speaking voice, but often having one that might have been good, even very good, but not what the public expected. John Gilbert is a good example of that, with a higher pitch voice than his image "demanded". Chaplin had a wonderful speaking voice, but he was afraid that the English accent wouldn't fit the "Little Tramp" character.

"What can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence."

Sound ruining the careers of many actors certainly isn't a "myth". It impacted the careers of many stars to be sure. Many European actors such as Pola Negri's careers suffered in the States because they had thick accents. That wasn't the sole reason however because plenty of European actors with accents did fine in sound films.

The problems with many stars, especially the big ones, was that their voice didn't nessecarily line up with their persona. Some also had personas that were great only when they didn't talk. John Gilbert is a fine example. His voice recorded fine (contrary to rumors) and he was a good actor, but his lover persona was goofy when you heard him talk. I think Valentino would have suffered the same fate had he lived regardless of how his voice sounded. I think audiences of time identified certain stars with a certain era. Someone carefree and "wild" like Clara Bow seemed almost vulgar in the 30s. There was little to be carefree about during those years and the 20s was a lifetime away.

As for Swanson, she had a clothes horse, over the top glamour girl image that didn't work well during the Depression. She had also done a few flops during the time films were transitioning to sound that didn't help matters.

I don't remember the actress' name; but one silent star lost her career because her voice was referred to as a "Bronx Honk."

It is a myth, one that gets more and more overblown with each passing decade. Actors and actresses like John Gilbert, Clara Bow, Buster Keaton, and Louise Brooks had perfectly fine voices, a fact proved by the sound movie appearances they made in the 1930s. Their careers petered out in the early sound period for other reasons. The Lena Lamonts of the film world were rare, but her fictional story in "Singin' in the Rain" gave the "bad voice" legend a huge boost that has persisted to this day.

It's my understanding that some actors, when they actually had to speak their lines, weren't that good at real acting. They looked great with their facial and bodily expressions, but when it came to speaking words on camera, some failed, some succeeded.

It's not completely a myth, the arrival of sound coincided with the end of many actors' careers, starting with those that didn't speak much English. Spoken language didn't matter for Silent Film actors, so a lot of the stars who played all-American girls and boys were actually European, or Central American. Few of these had careers that extended into the 1930s, Greta Garbo and Delores del Rio were probably the most famous ones.

And lot of other careers petered out in the late twenties and early 30s, including Gloria Swansons. The public wanted new and exciting stuff on the screen, and the studios brought in a lot of new actors from the stage, as they could talk and sing and dance, didnt need to unlearn silent acting, and worked cheaper than the established stars. Seriously, the resl reason most of the silent stars left Hollywood around that time was $$$, their expensive contracts ended and wouldn't be renewed, not for big money.