1929 was a busy year for Myrna Loy as she made eight movies. Some of these photos were included in the magazine Vanity Fair. She was working her way from a dancer in prologues to chorus girls to bit parts in movies to becoming a star. These photos, taken by Hungarian-American photographer Nickolas Muray, show Loy in a peasant dress indicating her “exotic image” that she was cast as in the early years of her career.
Before becoming Hollywood’s quintessential “ideal wife” opposite William Powell in The Thin Man (1934), Loy was consistently typecast in late silent films and early talkies as an exotic, dangerous, or mystical temptress—an image reflected in this bohemian, rustic costume and theatrical pose.
During this pre-Code era of cinema, studio executives frequently cast her in exotic, “exotic-vamp” roles, a theme that Muray’s atmospheric lighting and styling beautifully captured. He was one of the era’s premier fashion and celebrity photographers, celebrated for his striking use of geometry, deep shadows, and theatrical staging.
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