JOHN BOWERS

John Bowers was an actor from the 1910s to the 1930s. He was born in 1885 and started in movies in 1916, and became a star in the early 1920s. He appeared in many movies with Marguerite De La Motte, who he later married in 1924. He could not make the transition to sound movies, and he went downhill, and in 1936, after he turned 50, he got in a rowboat and rode out into the water and drowned himself, and it is widely thought that this incident (and his marriage to De La Motte) were partially the inspiration for 1937's "A Star is Born" (although other similar Hollywood marriages, like Al Jolson and Ruby Keeler, were surely also partially an inspiration).