Early Cosmetic Contact Lenses for Hollywood Film Actors

Abstract

The first use of contact lenses to alter the look of actors in Hollywood goes back to the year 1939. That year, the optometrist Reuben Greenspoon from Berverley Hills had presented a demonstration of ocular molding on the living eye for educational films. Later on he adapted colored contact lenses to the actor Henry Hull for the movie Miracles of Sales and also to the actor Walter Hampton for North West Mounted Police. The next year Greenspoon modified on that manner the aspect of the eyes of Orson Welles and of Joe Cotton for the famous film Citizen Kane. In 1945, Greenspoon modifies the eyes of actor Herbert Marshal into blind eyes in The Enchanted Cottage. Reuben Greenspoon became the expert and the reference for the adaptation of cosmetical contact lenses for the entertainment industry of Hollywood.