Veronica Bennett was an English lecturer for many years but now writes full time. Her interest in writing about early cinema was sparked by an article in a book about silent film actors. “I was struck by how very young the women were, though not the men,” she says. “It seems that the seeds of movie culture, which even now demands youth and beauty from any aspiring actress, were sown right at the beginning. And sadly, so were the background stories we still read about every day, of betrayal, divorce, addiction. What would it be like, I wondered, to be a teenage girl living through the birth of celebrity culture?” Veronica lives in Middlesex with her husband, and has an adult son and daughter.