The 'Girl Who Was Too Beautiful' moniker is both a blessing and a curse for Barbara La Marr's legacy. It ensures her place in the pantheon of Hollywood's most intriguing figures, but at the same time discourages modern audiences from viewing her as anything more than Roaring Twenties eye candy. Therefore, the task that Sherri Snyder has undertaken is invaluable; Snyder manages to humanize an actress who is all too often defined merely by her physical appearance and freewheeling lifestyle. Expertly researched and captivatingly written, Barbara La Marr: The Girl Who Was Too Beautiful for Hollywood manages to paint the most complete picture of La Marr's life to date. A scholarly work on Barbara La Marr was long overdue; the silent film community as a whole should be thankful that Snyder was not only up to the task, but has created a work that will serve to define La Marr's life and career for decades to come.
~Charles Epting, editor, Silent Film Quarterly
Snyder's work is fresh and enthralling. Her dedication and compassion for her subject shines through. And we are richly rewarded with a truly well-written biography of a long-forgotten star.
~Stephen Michael Shearer, author of Patricia Neal: An Unquiet Life, Beautiful: The Life of Hedy Lamarr, and Gloria Swanson: The Ultimate Star
Snyder beautifully steps up to the task of providing film scholars a thoughtful and well-researched depiction of La Marr's life, career, and legacy. Snyder's work offers an honest and incredibly personal perspective of La Marr's life. Snyder's prose justly portrays both the rewarding and challenging moments throughout La Marr's life and career.
~Hometowns to Hollywood
Snyder's completed manuscript is impressive in both its scope and detail.... A fluid and captivating narrative.
~Christina Rice, author of Ann Dvorak: Hollywood's Forgotten Rebel
Sherri Snyder digs deep into the life of Barbara La Marr, giving an in-depth look at the intelligence and talents of the 'girl who was too beautiful.' We see the real three-dimensional La Marr for the very first time, a thoughtful, generous, and creative woman who died much too young.
~Mary Mallory, film historian and author of Hollywood Celebrates the Holidays: 1920-1970, Hollywoodland: Tales Lost and Found, and Hollywood at Play: The Lives of the Stars Between Takes
Rich with details, and never becoming discursive, Barbara La Marr: The Girl Who Was Too Beautiful for Hollywood is a fascinating study of a life and career that will cause the reader to have greater respect and admiration for its subject. It is one of the best film books of 2017.
~James Neibaur Blog
This gripping biography by Sherri Snyder details every twist and turn of La Marr's breathless existence from teenage rebel to beloved star.
~Sight & Sound
One of the 'Best Film Books of 2017.'
~Huffington Post
One of the 'Best Celebrity Bios of 2017'
~The Entertainment Report
One of the things I love most about University Press of Kentucky is its penchant for releasing stellar biographies on long forgotten Hollywood legends. Author Sherri Snyder does a wonderful job here of telling Barbara La Marr's life story from its very beginnings in the late nineteenth century to its very end in the mid-1920s. It's extremely evident that Snyder's research was meticulous because literally nothing was glossed over. The events of La Marr's life – and there were plenty – are presented clearly, succinctly, accurately (as far as I could gather), and respectfully.
~Super Veebs
Through archival research, as well as talking to family and friends, Snyder has been able to untangle the myths and lies and find the truth at the heart of Barbara La Marr's short but dramatic life. This book provides much needed insight into the workings of a young Hollywood, but more than that, it ensures that Barbara La Marr has now been rescued from obscurity and can rightly be remembered not only for the importance of her film career, but for her life as a daughter, friend, wife and mother.
~Cinema Retro
Get a hold of Sherri Snyder's definitive biography, Barbara La Marr: The Girl Who Was Too Beautiful for Hollywood... Sherri has the intelligence, insight and sensitivity to get Barbara's complexity.
~Dixie Laite, Writer and Mayor at Dametown.com
Sherri Snyder, the author of Barbara La Marr: The Girl Who Was Too Beautiful for Hollywood, aims at shedding a well-deserved light on silent cinema's forgotten actress.... [She] grants La Marr her final close-up, but instead through the medium of writing rather than cinema. Snyder's written biography fulfills the glory La Marr lusted for and acts as homage to the life of a female film figure Snyder describes as '...an incredible, multitalented woman'.... It is a poignant portraiture of a phoenix, in this case Barbara La Marr, that arose from the ashes of film history and has been renewed by Snyder's meticulous research and writings.
~Film Matters Magazine
Packed with extensive research and never-before-released documents, Snyder's biography of La Marr transports the reader to a bygone era of glamour mixed with decadence, a life of hope and despair. Ultimately, we witness the birth of a great actress and the many challenges she faced in her struggle to the top.
~Roz Templin, El Segundo Scene
Some may say [Barbara La Marr] was destined for a life of ruin, but in Sherri Snyder's skillfully written biography about the 'too beautiful' silent screen vamp of the 1920s, La Marr's story becomes a compelling look into a young, beautiful woman's brief journey to fulfill her destiny.
~Greg Autry, Splash Magazines
