Name: Janet Gaynor: A Centennial Celebration
Start: 2006-07-01
End: 2006-07-12
Location: MoMA

Film series

Janet Gaynor’s career began with a small but central role in The Johnstown Flood. A contract with Fox led to collaborations with F. W. Murnau and Frank Borzage, including Murnau’s masterpiece Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans and Borzage’s Seventh Heaven, which first paired Gaynor with Charles Farrell. Her combined work in those films, and in Borzage’s Street Angel, won her the first-ever Academy Award for Best Actress. With a successful transition from silent to sound movies, Gaynor remained a principal box office draw throughout the 1930s for her portrayals of spunky yet sincere women. In 1939, she retired and married costume designer Gilbert Adrian. For the entirety of her career, Gaynor was an incontrovertible movie star—with charm and talent that captivated and endures.

Organized for MoMA by Anne Morra, Assistant Curator, Department of Film and Media, in collaboration with Andrea Aalsberg and Jesse Zigelstein, UCLA Film and Television Archive.

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