The story of a necklace - the "diamonds" of a queen... and other lesser mortals.

The necklace was not just a beautiful part of Norma Shearer's most glorious Adrian toilette from 1938's Marie Antoinette, it also constituted an important plot point. In the charming fiction of the scene at a gambling house, the young queen has lost the necklace in a bet with her brother-in-law, and employs the aid of a handsome stranger, Count Ferson - Tyrone Power - to try and win it back. The gambit ultimately fails, but the queen has found the great love of life in the Swedish count.

Incomplete and altered, and whether or not it was the necklace, this went to auction three years ago. Against an estimate of $6000-$8000, it sold for almost $9000.

The matching earrings were estimated at $800-$1200, but sold for almost $3000.

The necklace - and matching earrings - were the work of Joseff of Hollywood. The same necklace, or variations made from the same castings, can be seen in several other films. There were also copies made with colored stones, and differently arranged versions, using the same setting components. For decades, Joseff of Hollywood - the company is still in business - was the supplier of costume jewelry for the film industry - from Garbo's Camille to Scarlett O'Hara to Elizabeth Taylor's Cleopatra - and their early work is now highly sought after. 

With Tyrone Power.

Unlike the necklace as it was auctioned, as worn by Shearer, the pear-shaped pendants went all the way around, and there was a proper, matching clasp.

(A continuity issue I always make note of: when the moment comes for Shearer to take off the necklace and hand it over...

 ... to the comte de Provence, it has magically turned all the way around so that the clasp is conveniently in the front. Did they really think I wouldn't notice?!)

Here are a few other appearances of the necklace, or versions of it; I'm sure there are many more.

Jeanette MacDonald as Marianne de Beaumanoir in "New Moon", 1940.

With Nelson Eddy.

The necklace as worn by MacDonald is larger in circumference and composed of more elements.

Norma Drury as the Queen of Naples in "That Hamilton Woman", 1941. With Luis Alberni.

 (Ironically, the Queen of Naples - Maria Carolina of Austria - was actually Marie Antoinette's sister!)

Ruth Warrick as Countess Isabelle Gravini in "The Corsican Brothers", 1941. With Akim Tamiroff and Douglas Fairbanks, Jr.

Betty Grable as Kate Farley in "Coney Island", 1943.

As worn by Grable, the necklace is much shorter.

With George Montgomery.

Heather Thatcher as Lady Mildred Dalroy in "Gaslight", 1944. With Joseph Cotton.

Tallulah Bankhead as Catherine the Great in "A Royal Scandal", 1945.

With Anne Baxter.

With Anne Baxter and Willian Eythe.

Anita Louise as Amélie de Montreval in "The Fighting Guardsman", 1946. With  Lloyd Corrigan, George Macready, and Janis Carter.

Anita Louise had played the princesse de Lamballe in "Marie Antoinette" eight years before. Here she wears the "Queen's necklace",
while Janis Carter wears a more elaborate rendition of the necklace and one of the actual gowns that Shearer wore in the latter film.

Barbara Britton as Angela Picard in "The Return of Monte Cristo", 1946. The necklace has been augmented with a rather unfortunate addition.

Angela Lansbury as Em in "The Harvey Girls", 1946.

Her "emerald" necklace and earrings (with a different post) are made from the same casts as the pieces worn by Shearer.

I'm not convinced this is the same necklace worn by Lansbury. If it is, it's been much altered and is also missing elements.

The necklace was also used for portrait sittings not necessarily related to a particular film. Lucille Ball, circa late 1940s.

The version worn by Ball is also larger in circumference; perhaps this is the same piece worn by MacDonald.

But there's then the question of who wore it best...? 

I'll always give my vote to Shearer.

Illusion upon illusion - Norma Shearer in color photographs from Marie Antoinette, 1938

Gown by Adrian, coiffure by Sydney Guilaroff, jewels by Joseff of Hollywood.

It's been widely written that M-G-M's lavish 1938 production of "Marie Antoinette" was originally planned to be shot in Technicolor. The late head of production, Irving Thalberg, had already greenlighted the project for his wife Norma Shearer before his death two years previously. But it's said that when the time came to begin filming, with production costs booming, the decision was made to shoot the film - one of the most expensive of the Thirties - in black and white rather than color. Mark Alan Vieira‎ disputes this, though. Photographer, filmmaker, and Hollywood historian, and the author of an authoritative biography of Thalberg, he ought to know. Having reviewed the production memos for the film, he states that there was never any intention of filming "Marie Antoinette" in color.

So what of these color photographs? The story goes that the costume designer, Adrian, asked to have color stills taken to record his work, but that might just be "collector talk." What is known is that these images were restored from 4x5 Kodachrome transparencies by Vieira, himself. Apparently there are hundreds of such slides, though some are so faded as to be beyond restoration. (The two portraits of Norma Shearer were included in Jay Jorgensen's 2015 book, "Creating the Illusion.")

The gambling house scene, with Joseph Schildkraut, Tyrone Power, Anita Louise, Shearer, Reginald Gardiner, and Albert Dekker.

The beginning of the film, with Shearer and Cecil Cunningham.

*

It should also be noted that on the evening of 8 July 1938 - exactly twenty years before my birth; please don't do the math - "Marie Antoinette" had its very opulent, star-studded Los Angeles premiere at the Carthay Circle. The gardens around the theater has been restructured and decorated to evoke a resemblance to the gardens at Versailles, and movie fans waited for hours in the summer heat for a glimpse of the film stars. (Most of these images are screenshots taken from "Hollywood Goes to Town", a featurette made to promote the film.)

Norma Shearer and Tyrone Power signing the guest registry.

Some well-known names here. Adrian, who designed the film's costumes, added his distinctive signature at top left.