ERICH VON STROHEIM

The dawn of Hollywood was laden with some of the finest creative talent to ever grace film. 1914 saw Charlie Chaplin make his film debut, fast becoming the medium's most popular and famous exponent; Cecil B. De Mille shot the first feature film in Hollywood 'The Squaw Man', he would go onto establish himself as film's most lavish and one of it's msot successful directors. 1914 also saw the arrival of a young immigrant who had been living in San Francisco, where he had been attempting to write short stories; he came to Hollywood to advise on Germanic fashion and culture and soon found himself playing bit parts in productions for D. W. Griffith, who would become his mentor and inspiration as he began to forge his own career as a writer and director. He would go on to become one of cinema's most charismatic visionaries and his movies inspired and influenced the likes of Sergei Eisenstein, Fritz Lang, Jean Renoir, Billy Wilder, Orson Welles, Ernst Lubitsch and many other directors who themselves have been lauded as the "Greatest Ever". His name was Erich von Stroheim, or as he was known to colleagues and friends... "Von".