WAMPAS Baby Stars
The WAMPAS Baby Stars was a promotional campaign sponsored by the United States Western Association of Motion Picture Advertisers, which honored thirteen (fourteen in 1932) young women each year whom they believed to be on the threshold of movie stardom. Not all of them reached expected heights.
Most well known names include Joan Crawford, Janet Gaynor, Ginger Rogers, Mary Astor, Jean Arthur, Delores Costello, Gloria Stuart, Delores Del Rio, Clara Bow, Joan Blondell and Anita Page.
Interesting to note that of 145 women on this list, three lived passed their 100th birthday, 27 lived into their 90s, at least three committed suicide at young ages, the youngest to die was 14 years old, thirteen were born outside the US and only one WAMPAS Baby Star is still living.
Interesting to note that of 145 women on this list, three lived passed their 100th birthday, 27 lived into their 90s, at least three committed suicide at young ages, the youngest to die was 14 years old, thirteen were born outside the US and only one WAMPAS Baby Star is still living.
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- Marion Aye was born Maryon Eloise Aye on April 5, 1903 in Chicago, Illinois. Her father was a lawyer who moved the family to California. She was discovered by Fatty Arbuckle and started her career at Balboa Studios. When she was fifteen Marion lied about her age to elope with cameraman Sherman Plaskett. Sadly he passed away just a year later. After moving to New York City she worked at Bothwell Browne's Revue and became a Mack Sennett bathing beauty. Marion appeared in more than a dozen films including The Hick, Montana Bill, and The Weak-End Party with Stan Laurel. She also starred in a series of Cactus Westerns with Bob Reeves. In 1921 she made headlines when she became the first star to sign a contract with a morality clause in it. The following year was chosen to be one of the first Wampas baby stars along with Colleen Moore and Lois Wilson.
Her second marriage, to press agent Harry Wilson, ended in 1924. That same year Marion appeared in a successful stage production of White Collars. She seemed destined for stardom but her career never took off. Her last movie role was in the 1930 drama Up The River. Marion continued to work on the stage and the radio. Unfortunately she suffered from depression and in 1935 she attempted suicide. She married actor Robert Forester in 1936. Marion tried to make a comeback in 1951 and auditioned for a role on television. When she didn't get the part she became despondent. On July 10, 1951 she swallowed a large amount of poison in a Culver City motel. She was hospitalized but tragically she died eleven days later at the age of forty-eight. Her husband later told reporters that he never took her threats of suicide seriously. Marion was buried next to her mother at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale, California.WAMPAS Baby Star 1922 Born 1903 - Died 1951 aged 48 - Illinois-born Helen Ferguson is thought to have made her film debut at age 13 in 1914, although her first recorded credits are in 1917. She played opposite such action stars as Hoot Gibson and Harry Carey, and when she went to Fox in the early 1920s to star opposite Buck Jones, her career really took off. She went to Pathe in 1925 and was featured in several serials, westerns and comedies. She had married actor William Russell in 1925 but he died in 1929. The next year she married a wealthy banker, and left films to concentrate on stage work. Though she achieved some success in that medium, she gave up acting altogether in 1933 to concentrate on publicity work, and it was here where she achieved her greatest success. She soon became a major power in Hollywood, representing the top stars of the day, such as Henry Fonda, Barbara Stanwyck, Robert Taylor and Jeanette MacDonald, to name a few. She remained in that business until 1967, when she retired.WAMPAS Baby Star 1922 Born 1900 - Died 1977 aged 76
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A performer since childhood (she was widely known then as "Cuddles"), pert and pretty, raven-haired Lila Lee was brought to Hollywood by Paramount mogul Jesse L. Lasky and debuted in a starring role with The Cruise of the Make-Believes (1918) as a poor girl supported by a rich admirer. Following her appearance as a servant wench in Cecil B. DeMille's Male and Female (1919), Paramount starting grooming her to eventually supplant the highly temperamental and troublesome Gloria Swanson. Lila's talent, however, was lighter in weight and, though she enjoyed great popularity in such films as Blood and Sand (1922) with Rudolph Valentino, Another Man's Wife (1924), The Midnight Girl (1925), Love, Live and Laugh (1929) co-starring George Jessel and The Unholy Three (1930) opposite Lon Chaney, Swanson had little to worry about. A series of bad judgments and highly publicized bouts with illness led to Lila's swift decline. She made a few dismal comebacks on stage and in TV soaps in the 1950s but to little fanfare. Her last picture was as a hayseed mom in the deservedly obscure Cottonpickin' Chickenpickers (1967). Her actor-turned-writer son James Kirkwood Jr., however, earned fame on his own for penning the play "P.S. Your Cat Is Dead" and the musical "A Chorus Line." Lila died of a stroke in 1973.WAMPAS Baby Star 1922 Born 1901 - Died 1973 aged 72- Actress
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Beautiful auburn-haired, green-eyed leading lady of the silent screen, a "hand-picked" (by the great Florenz Ziegfeld Jr. himself) Ziegfeld Follies girl of 1920. "Jackie" was the daughter of architect Charles A. Logan and the Boston Conservatory opera singer and music teacher Marion Logan. She had a bit of a musical background, singing and learning to play piano and pipe organ at an early age. She was educated in Colorado and briefly worked as a newspaper reporter prior to finding her way into an acting troupe bound for Chicago. Having lied about her age, she was eventually let go and made her own way to New York, where (still without the requisite approval or even knowledge of her parents as to her newfound acting ambitions) she made her theatrical debut in a revival of "Floradora" in 1920. That same year she appeared as a dancer in the Follies and modeled as a "Dobbs Girl" for noted Broadway photographer Alfred Cheney Johnston (1885-1971). After successful auditions (with a little mentoring from the actor Ben Lyon), she began to grace the screen in 1922 and quickly moved on to leading roles in westerns, dramas and romantic comedies. Her part as Mary Magdalene in Cecil B. DeMille's epic The King of Kings (1927) is often cited as her most high-profile performance.
Unaccountably, though she took vocal lessons, her career in talking pictures never took off. Her looks remained exquisite and her voice was apparently good enough for the Broadway stage, to which she returned-- albeit unsuccessfully--in the mid-'30s. She attempted another comeback on the London stage and co-starred with English matinée idol Owen Nares in the comedy The Middle Watch (1930). Under contract to British International Pictures the following year, she wrote and directed the crime comedy Strictly Business (1931), a modest box-office success. However, upon her return to Hollywood, she found all doors firmly closed. Another Dorothy Arzner was not what the studios had in mind.
She may well have been too outspoken for her time, for in her later years she took on another role as a determined advocate of right-wing conservatism.WAMPAS Baby Star 1922 Born 1901 - Died 1983 aged 82
*Performed as a 1920 Ziegfeld Girl with Doris Eaton- Louise Lorraine's small stature and delicate beauty seemed hardly the qualities to be desired in a serial heroine, but she starred in 11 of the physically demanding, action-filled cliffhangers, and showed as much spirit as, and in some cases more than, many of her colleagues in that genre. Louise's entry into the film industry came about when a photography salesman knocked on the door of the suburban Los Angeles home she lived in with her widowed mother and five siblings. The 13-year-old Lorraine answered it, and the salesman was so impressed by her look and demeanor that he told her mother she should be in the movies, and he had a contact at the Ince Studio who could arrange it. At first, Louise's mother refused to let her daughter enter the film industry but eventually gave in. Louise started out in two-reel comedies for independent studios, and then alternated among Universal, MGM and Warner Bros. She left the screen after making her second sound movie n 1930, ostensibly to devote her time to her second husband (her first was cowboy actor Art Acord) and two children. She died in 1981.WAMPAS Baby Star 1922 Born 1901 - Died 1981 aged 80
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Bessie Love was born in Texas. Her cowboy father moved the family to Hollywood, where he became a chiropractor. As the family needed money, Bessie's mother sent her to Biograph Studios, hoping she would become an actress. D.W. Griffith saw she was pretty and had some acting talent, and put her in several of his films, also giving her a small part in Intolerance (1916). Bessie became popular with audiences and worked with Douglas Fairbanks in Reggie Mixes In (1916) and William S. Hart in The Aryan (1916). She then moved to Vitagraph and starred in a number of comedy-dramas. In the 1920s she began to act in more mature roles, such as Those Who Dance (1924), and also began working on the stage. She performed the first screen "Charleston" dance in The King on Main Street (1925), and gave one of her best performances in Dress Parade (1927). When sound movies came into vogue, she made a number of them and received an Academy Award nomination for The Broadway Melody (1929). By 1931, however, her career was over. She moved to England in 1935 and entertained the troops during World War II. By the 1950s she started playing small roles in movies such as No Highway in the Sky (1951). She played in a handful of low-budget films from the 1950s through the 1970s. In the 1980s she appeared in the big-budget Ragtime (1981) which starred James Cagney, and later that year in Reds (1981) which starred Warren Beatty.WAMPAS Baby Star 1922 Born 1898 - Died 1986 aged 87
*Nominated for an Oscar in 1930 *Appeared in the James Bond movie, On Her Majesty's Secret Service- Kathryn McGuire was born on 6 December 1903 in Peoria, Illinois, USA. She was an actress, known for The Navigator (1924), Sherlock Jr. (1924) and The Big Diamond Robbery (1929). She was married to George Landy. She died on 10 October 1978 in Los Angeles, California, USA.WAMPAS Baby Star 1922 Born 1903 - Died 1978 aged 74
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Patsy Ruth Miller was born on 17 January 1904 in St. Louis, Missouri, USA. She was an actress, known for The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1923), Daughters of Today (1924) and Fools in the Dark (1924). She was married to Effingham Smith Deans, John Lee Mahin and Tay Garnett. She died on 16 July 1995 in Palm Desert, California, USA.WAMPAS Baby Star 1922 Born 1904 - Died 1995 aged 91
*Had the lead female role opposite Lon Chaney in The Hunchback of Notre Dame- Actress
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Colleen Moore was born Kathleen Morrison in Port Huron, Michigan. Her father was an irrigation engineer and his job was good enough to provide the family a middle-class environment. She was educated in parochial schools and studied at the famed Detroit Conservatory. Colleen's family moved to Atlanta, Georgia, and later to Tampa, Florida, where she spent some of her happiest years. She described her childhood as a happy one where her parents were very much in love. In fact, she claims she never heard her parents argue with each other, although she admitted they had their differences. As a child she was fascinated with films and the queens of the day such as Marguerite Clark and Mary Pickford and kept a scrapbook of those actresses; she even kept a blank space for the day when she would be a famous star and could put her picture there. When a neighbor down the street from her had a piano delivered, Colleen talked the deliverymen into taking the wooden packing crate to her house, and she set it up as a stage. It was the beginning of her career, as she and her friend performed plays for the other neighborhood children. By 1917 she would be on her way to becoming a star. Colleen's uncle, Walter C. Howey, was the editor of the "Chicago Tribune" and had helped D.W. Griffith make his films The Birth of a Nation (1915) and Intolerance (1916) more presentable to the censors. Knowing of his niece's acting aspirations, Hovey asked Griffith to help her get a start in the motion picture industry. No sooner had she arrived in Hollywood than she found herself playing in five films that year, The Savage (1917) being her first. Her first starring role was as Annie in Little Orphant Annie (1918). Colleen was on her way. She also starred in a number of westerns opposite Tom Mix, but the movie that defined her as a "flapper" was the classic Flaming Youth (1923), in which she played Patricia Fentriss. By 1927 she was the top box-office draw in the US, pulling in the phenomenal sum of $12,500 a week (unlike many other young, highly-paid actresses, however, Colleen did not spend her money frivolously. Instead, she put it into the stock market, making very shrewd investments). She successfully made the transition into the "talkie" era of sound films. Her final film role was as Hester Prynne in The Scarlet Letter (1934). She did make one final appearance in the TV mini-series Hollywood (1980), but it was her silver screen appearances that mattered most. After she retired she wrote two books on investing and went so far as to marry two stockbrokers. On January 25, 1988, Colleen died of an undisclosed ailment in Paso Robles, California. She was 88.WAMPAS Baby Star 1922 Born 1899 - Died 1988 aged 88- Mary Philbin's life should be a lesson to domineering parents. Mary was born on July 16, 1903, in Chicago, Illinois, to John Philbin and his first wife and namesake, Mary. The child was regarded as a little beauty from an early age and her mother was exceedingly proud of her and loved to show her off. Howevr, unlike her gregarious mother (who many regarded as controlling and domineering, to the point of imprinting her strict religious beliefs on the child), Mary took after her shy, quiet and reserved father, whom she adored. Many of her contemporaries remarked how she didn't seem to belong to the current age; her personality was a throwback to the 19th century with her mannerisms and religious, quiet and very gentle nature. Being an only child, Mary grew up quite spoiled by her mother. Her father would take her often to see the plays at local theaters and even, on rare occasion, to see an opera at the Chicago Opera House. She fell in love with the stage immediately and, once home, would re-enact what she saw to her dolls--performing the leading heroine roles. She decided at an early age that she wanted a career in the theater. She took up classical dancing (ballet and waltz) and was quite adept at playing the pipe organ and piano (in her later years she kept her family's pipe organ close at hand), although much to her chagrin, she could not sing. However, she did not train in an acting school and this would ultimately impact on her later career.
Mary's early life was relatively uneventful; her mother's strong nature created friction between her parents and she became even more reserved and quite shy in public when meeting new people. The only real friend she had at that age (who would be her lifelong friend and even colleague in The Phantom of the Opera (1925)) was Carla Laemmle (aka Rebecca Laemmle), the daughter of Joseph Laemmle, brother of Universal Studios mogul Carl Laemmle. Through her friend's uncle Mary became interested in films and put her stage career on hold. Upon seeing her first "Nickelodeon", she was bitten by the film bug and eagerly awaited any new ones that came out. She was particularly fond of the films of Erich von Stroheim, so much so that at the age of 16, when she heard that the director was making his new film Blind Husbands (1919) and a contest was set up to search for talent for the film, Mary tried to sign up. At first she could not find the right photograph worthy of submission, but her mother had taken a picture and submitted it and was allowed to join the contest. The contest was held in Chicago at the Elks Club and was sponsored by her church, with Von Stroheim himself as the judge. The Teutonic director was smitten with her beauty and her eagerness to behave and speak well, and gave her the leading role in one of his films. When finding out she was to move to Los Angeles to make the film, Mary at first had reservations and (as always) consulted her parents. Her parents refused until they found out their old family friends, the Laemmles, were moving out to Los Angeles as well, and they gave consent for Mary to go but only with her parents as her chaperones (due to their fear that the "sheiks" of Los Angeles would corrupt Mary's moral character).
Once in Los Angeles, Mary was under watch all the time by her parents (in particular her mother) and, when working, by her new boss, Carl Laemmle. When arriving at the studio, she found out that she had been replaced in the leading role in "Blind Husbands". Mary was deeply hurt at the time and felt cheated, and was considering going home had it not been for her friend Rebecca (whom was now known as Carla) who recommended her to her uncle, the owner of Universal City, Carl Laemmle, and the man in charge of production, Irving Thalberg. Although Carl Laemmle had met Mary some time earlier and always regarded her as an "angelic, sweet, quiet" young lady, he was none too impressed with her at the time to consider her for a contract, owing mostly to her moralistic and reserved disposition. Thalberg held the same reservations about her. However, after being persuaded by Mary's family and Carla, Carl caved and gave 17-year-old Mary her first big part: "Talitby Millicuddy", the leading lady, in the melodrama The Blazing Trail (1921), directed by Robert Thornby. Mary caught on in films very quickly and was considered by the public, initially at least, in the same league as her bigger contemporaries - Mary Pickford, Florence Lawrence, Mae Marsh and Lillian Gish, one of those "child-woman" actresses particularly noted for her subtle but extraordinary ethereal Irish beauty.
After the moderate success of "The Blazing Trail" she was cast in Danger Ahead! (1921) in the role of Tressie Harlow; the one-reel comedy Twelve Hours to Live (1921); the western Red Courage (1921) as Eliza Fay, and Sure Fire (1921) in an extra part (her earliest known surviving film); and False Kisses (1921) as Mary. In all, she made six films in 1921. After seeing her work in "False Kisses" and in particular "Danger Ahead"; Erich von Stroheim cast Mary for his next film, which would become the most expensive (to that date) production ever for Univeral City (the costs rising up to a million dollars) - the part of the crippled girl (an extra part) in Foolish Wives (1922). Mary can be seen in the film as the little girl on crutches with her back turned, and you only quickly get a darkened glimpse of her face through her curly ringlets. Although her role in the film was just a bit part, Mary relished being under Von Stroheim's tutelage and it was from him, as she always said, she learned about "true" acting in comparison to stage acting. It has always been said of Mary Philbin that when the director was really good (such as von Stroheim, Paul Leni, William Beaudine), people noticed she could be equally as good an actress as her colleagues. However, in the hands less talented directors (such as Rupert Julian', - who would partly direct her later in Merry-Go-Round (1923) and "The Phantom of the Opera"--her lack of acting training became a real handicap for her (this is clearly evident in some of her later films).
Mary began to get more notice from Carl Laemmle and Irving Thalberg, after Erich von Stroheim's high recommendation of her (and of course the public's approval), and after a minor film, _The Trooper (1922)_ (v), she was given the role of "Ruth" in Human Hearts (1922). Mary began to get even further recognition and it was around this time that her face always was featured on movie magazines as the 'Cover' Girl. But Mary's personal life was darkened by her father's divorce and remarriage to Alice Mead. Mary was shattered by the event, and as a result became even closer to her mother (her biggest mistake), but nevertheless was very loving to her new stepmother and continued to adore her father.
Mary made two more films before she received her first big break as the heroine "Agnes Urban", in von Stroheim's "The Merry-Go-Round" in 1923. The casting for this film was impeccable and many of its stars would later repeat many films with Mary afterward - in particular her leading man, Norman Kerry. He always had a crush on Mary and flirted with her many times on the set, although von Stroheim, Mary's mother and father (who always were on the set with her; her stepmother stayed at home) and even Mary herself kept him from getting too carried away. Mary said in her later years how deep down she always had a great crush on Norman Kerry and considered him "a very handsome, dashing man". Everything was going well in the production until it came to a standstill for the most unusual and even hilarious reason. Erich von Stroheim was known to be a perfectionist in his work, so much so that in the plot of this film (set in the Austro-Hungarian Empire of the time of 'Emperor Franz Josef') he insisted that some of the actors wear underwear embroidered with the Imperial Austrian Royal Family insignia - infuriating Carl Laemmle. After an intense argument with Laemmle the wildly extravagant director was dropped from the picture. The cast was stunned and the two most affected were Wallace Beery (who was originally cast as Agnes' father) and Mary Philbin. Wallace, infuriated with Carl Laemmle's decision walked out, as did many others--even Mary considered it. To clean up the mess quickly, Carl hired Universal actor Rupert Julian to direct (who previously had directed and starred in The Kaiser, the Beast of Berlin (1918) with Lon Chaney). Mary, at first, refused until Carl insisted that Julian would be just as good a director as von Stroheim. Not having met or worked with Julian before, she decided to stay and Cesare Gravina (a favorite actor of von Stroheim) was re-cast in Beery's role. However, it became clearly evident that Julian was a novice compared to von Stroheim, although he reportedly considered himself equal to, if not better than, von Stroheim in directorial skills. Much of the original footage was cut or re-filmed upon its release, "The Merry-Go-Round" launched Mary as an "official" Hollywood star.
Although not as popular as her contemporaries, Mary graced many more magazine covers and was the feature girl for various products - even the Victrola Recording Company. During this time, Mary met the love of her life, Universal Studio executive/producer Paul Kohner - through the Laemmles. Paul Kohner was only a year older than Mary and born in Teplitz-Schoenau, Austria-Hungary (now Teplice, Czech Republic). They were immediately smitten with each other - but due to Mary's parents' religion (Roman Catholicism) and the fact that Paul was a Jew - they kept their relationship, in the early years, secret as much as possible. They exchanged love letters to each other (which both of them kept till their deaths).
Mary's film career took off with "Where Is This West?"; "The Age of Desire"; "The Temple of Venus"; "The Thrill Chaser"; among others with Paul Kohner sometimes as the producer (affording her more time to be with him, under the protection from her parents observance). But it wasn't until 1924, after she made good in the role of Marianne in The Rose of Paris (1924) that Mary was to be cast in her next, most famous and best- remembered film role of her entire career.
In 1924, Carl Laemmle was searching among the elite list of Hollywood starlets (among those listed were Lillian Gish, Madge Bellamy, Betty Bronson, Patsy Ruth Miller, Mildred Davis) for the role of the young Swedish soprano Christine Daaé in the film adaption of Gaston Leroux's novella "Le Fantôme de l'Opéra" (The Phantom of the Opera) starring in the leading role of Erik (the Opera Ghost/Phantom of the Opera) was one of Hollywood's best actors - Lon Chaney, fresh from his success in The Hunchback of Notre Dame and, much to the concern of the cast and crew, the director hired for the picture was the temper-mental Rupert Julian. Julian remembered Mary from "The Merry-Go-Round" (he also remembered Norman Kerry and hired him for role of Viscount Raoul de Chagny). Mary was cast in the key role of Christine, the chance of a lifetime. But the production was one of the most difficult for the cast to endure. Although Mary was working alongside of many of her former colleagues and friends (Norman Kerry, Cesare Gravina, John St. Polis, and Carla Laemmle), she had never met Lon Chaney personally before and, in keeping with her nature, was initially very shy and nervous around him.
During the filming Chaney and Julian exchanged heated arguments. Charles Van Enger, the main cameraman for the film, commented on how they "just hated each other" and how Julian was obsessed with Mary; adjusting her clothes, wigs, even the padding on her legs and chest. Mary put up with it - because of not only was her mother on the set most of the time, but Julian's wife Elisie Wilson was an old friend of Mary's. Upon seeing Julian's conduct- Elisie took over Mary's wardrobe and makeup for the film. On the Phantom set Mary seldom worked with Chaney alone, most of the time it was under Julian's supervision - but due to Chaney and his arguments- Chaney would direct his own scenes including several scenes with
WAMPAS Baby Star 1922 Born 1902 - Died 1993 aged 90
*Appeared opposite Lon Chaney in The Phantom of the Opera *Lifelong friends with Carla Laemmle - Pauline Starke was born on 10 January 1901 in Joplin, Missouri, USA. She was an actress, known for Captain Salvation (1927), A Royal Romance (1930) and Salvation Nell (1921). She was married to Jack White and George Sherwood. She died on 3 February 1977 in Santa Monica, California, USA.WAMPAS Baby Star 1922 Born 1901 - Died 1977 aged 76
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A schoolteacher who became a stage actress (briefly), Lois Wilson entered films in 1916 at Paramount (her sisters, Diana Kane and Connie Lewis, also worked as actresses). Wilson played leading roles well into the sound era, and after she retired from the screen she worked sporadically in television and again appeared on stage.WAMPAS Baby Star 1922 Born 1894 - Died 1988 aged 93
*Best friends with Gloria Swanson- Silent-era star Claire Windsor was born Clara Viola Cronk in Cawker City, Kansas, the daughter of Ella and G.E. Cronk. She was educated at Broadway High School in Seattle, Washington, and Washburn Preperatory Academy in Topeka, Kansas. She studied voice and piano at Cohn's Conservatory of Music in Seattle. Claire began her film career as an extra on the Famous Players-Lasky lot, and was signed to stock by director Allan Dwan to work at First National Pictures. She was then signed by writer/director Lois Weber to the lead role in What Do Men Want? (1921), at which time she changed her name to Claire Windsor (on the advice of writer Frances Marion). She toured with Al Jolson in his stage show in 1933.WAMPAS Baby Star 1922 Born 1892 - Died 1972 aged 80
*Had dinner with William Desmond Taylor the night before he was murdered. - Philadelphia-born Eleanor Boardman had always wanted to be an actress, and as soon as she graduated high school she headed for New York to conquer Broadway. When Broadway proved not quite ready to be conquered yet, she took whatever jobs she could find, including one as an artist's model. In that capacity she heard that the Selwyn Organization, a major producer of Broadway plays, was looking for girls with no stage experience. Since she was more than qualified in that respect, she tried out for the job and before she knew it she was in the chorus line of "Rock-a-Bye-Baby" until the show closed three months later. She then got a job in another Selwyn production, "A Very Good Young Man", but that show closed not long after opening. It was at this time that a casting director for Goldwyn Pictures hit the Broadway scene looking for new faces. She tested for him and impressed him enough that he finally picked her out of a pool of more than 1000 young girls who tested for the opportunity to go to Hollywood. She made her first film in 1922 and stayed in the business until 1935, when she retired. She was married twice, first to director King Vidor from 1926-1931, then to director Harry d'Abbadie d'Arrast from 1940 to his death in 1968. She died in Santa Barbara, CA, in 1991.WAMPAS Baby Star 1923 Born 1898 - Died 1991 aged 93
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Petite, sultry leading lady of the 1920's and 30's who was born and schooled in Tampa, Florida, until the age of ten when she lost her mother. She moved to New York with her dad and started modelling while still in her teens. Her original intention was to go into the teaching profession. Instead, Evelyn became enamored with acting during a school visit to the Popular Plays and Players Studio in Ft.Lee, New Jersey, a production cooperative for distributors World Film, Pathe and Metro. Before long, she obtained a job as an extra for $3 a week using her birth name Betty Riggs. Between 1914 and 1920, she appeared in featured film roles with stars like Olga Petrova and John Barrymore (who hand-picked her as his leading lady for Raffles, the Amateur Cracksman (1917)), then took a sabbatical for health reasons and went to England.
By making the acquaintance of American playwright Oliver Cromwell she was able to land a good role in the George Bernard Shaw comedy 'The Ruined Lady' on the London stage. This, in turn, led to her being cast as leading lady in several British films. In 1922, she even went to Spain as star of The Spanish Jade (1922), distributed in America by Paramount. Upon her return to the United States in 1924, she was briefly under contract to Fox, then joined Associated Authors, and, finally, Paramount-Famous Players-Lasky (1926-30). At the height of her career in silent films, the dark-haired, aquiline Evelyn became a matinee idol with performances as exotic temptresses and vamps, particularly in films by Austrian director Josef von Sternberg. She was notable as the gangster's moll 'Feathers' in Underworld (1927) (the proverbial tough broad with the heart of gold) and as a self-sacrificing Russian girl in love with an exiled Czarist general (Emil Jannings) in The Last Command (1928). She gave another interesting performance as a blackmailer in Paramount's first all-talking picture Interference (1928)
While Evelyn's voice proved no detriment to her success in talking pictures, the declining quality of her films certainly did. Her Alaskan epic The Silver Horde (1930) in which she portrayed another disreputable character named Cherry Malotte was described in critical review as 'dull and trivial' (New York Times, October 25). Her performances as gang molls in Framed (1930) and The World Gone Mad (1933), as well as her unlikely mission worker in Madonna of the Streets (1930) engendered lukewarm write-ups like 'satisfactory' or 'competent'. This did nothing to elevate Evelyn's post-Paramount career. By the end of the decade she had moved down the cast list from second leads to supporting roles, finally appearing in westerns and 'quota quickies' for poverty row studios, such as Monogram and PRC. One example of the 'cheap and cheerful' category in which she seemed to enjoy herself was the Columbia serial Holt of the Secret Service (1941), playing Kay Drew, partner of tough agent Jack Holt. She was also memorable in one of her last roles as a one-armed satanist in the eerie Val Lewton horror flic about devil-worshippers in Greenwich Village, The Seventh Victim (1943).
After making her last film in 1950, Evelyn found work as an actor's agent with the Thelma White Agency in Hollywood. After the death of her third husband, Harry Fox (who gave the Foxtrot its name) in 1959, Evelyn made a final screen appearance as a guest star on Wagon Train (1957). She left the limelight for good in 1960 and lived her remaining years in retirement in Westwood Village, California. She has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6548 Hollywood Boulevard.WAMPAS Baby Star 1923 Born 1899 - Died 1975 aged 75- Diminutive, brown-haired Dorothy Devore was born Inez Williams in Ft. Worth, TX. She completed her schooling in Los Angeles when her family moved to California. She first acted in amateur revues, which she also produced and for which she contributed the music. While still in her mid-teens she performed in nightclubs and worked as a singer in vaudeville. In 1918 she signed a contract with film producer Al Christie. During the next five years she became a pre-eminent ingénue of light romances and star comedienne in numerous Christie two-reelers, on occasion billing herself as "De Vore".
In 1924 Dorothy took an offer of a seven-year contract with Warner Bros./First National to appear in feature films. Unhappy at being cast opposite canine hero Rin Tin Tin, she eventually bought out her contract. Joining Educational Pictures, she returned to her preferred two-reel format and made a brace of "Dorothy Devore Comedies", with full control over all aspects of production. Unfortunately, she failed to make the transition to sound pictures and left the industry in the early 1930s.WAMPAS Baby Star 1923 Born 1899 - Died 1976 aged 76 - Virginia Brown Faire was born on 26 June 1904 in Brooklyn, New York City, New York, USA. She was an actress, known for Broadway Billy (1926), Handcuffed (1929) and The Calgary Stampede (1925). She was married to William Bayer, Duke Worne, Jack Dougherty and Dick Durham. She died on 30 June 1980 in Laguna Beach, California, USA.WAMPAS Baby Star 1923 Born 1904 - Died 1980 aged 76
- Betty Francisco was born Elizabeth Barton on September 26, 1900 in Little Rock, Arkansas. When she was a child she started acting in stock companies. She and her younger sister Evelyn Francisco performed in vaudeville as "The Dancing Franciscos". Betty worked as an artists model and starred in the Ziegfeld Follies for two years. In 1920 she made her film debut in A Broadway Cowboy. She had supporting roles in many films including Flaming Youth, Across The Continent, and Gambling Wives. Betty quickly found herself typecast as "the other woman".
She was chosen to be a WAMPAS baby star in 1923. That same years she was named "America's Most Perfect Blonde". She continued to get small roles in films like The Gingham Girl and Broadway Daddies. Betty married Fred Spradling, a New York stock broker, in 1930. She decided to quit Hollywood and become a full-time housewife. Her final film was the 1934 comedy Romance In Rain. She and her husband lived on a ranch in Corona, California. They never had children. On November 25, 1950 she died from a heart attack. She was only fifty years old. Betty was buried at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale, California.WAMPAS Baby Star 1923 Born 1900 - Died 1950 aged 50 - Actress
- Stunts
Born in Montreal, the youngest of 11 children, Pauline Garon spent seven years at one of the most prestigious convent schools in Montreal, le Sacre-Coeur. She wasn't yet 20 when she ran away to New York to become an actress. After some success on Broadway in plays such as "Buddies" and "Sonny," she made her first movie, either as Dorothy Gish's double or in a small part, in Remodeling Her Husband (1920). She got her first important film role the following year as William H. Tooker's daughter-in-law in The Power Within (1921). By 1922, her star was rising steadily: she was Owen Moore's leading lady in Reported Missing (1922) and was the ingenue in Henry King's much-acclaimed adaptation of Sonny (1922). In 1923, she was hailed as Cecil B. DeMille's new discovery, and he cast her in Adam's Rib (1923). She was also a Wampas Baby Star that year.
Until the end of the decade, Pauline Garon was a popular flapper and a second-rank star. She starred in more than 20 films, most of them Povery Row productions. She also played the second female lead in many A movies.
In the 'thirties, after a few leads in French versions of Hollywood films and in comedy shorts, she would get smaller and smaller roles despite her pleasant voice and her perfect "Hollywood English" pronunciation. By 1935, she was only playing bit roles; her last one was in How Green Was My Valley (1941) in which she said only one word: "Divorce."
She died, of a brain disorder, at the Patton State Hospital in 1965.WAMPAS Baby Star 1923 Born 1901 - Died 1965 aged 63
Of all the WAMPAS Baby Stars, only thirteen were born outside the USA. Pauline Garon was born in Canada.- Kathleen Key was born Kitty Lanahan. Her great-great grandfather was Francis Scott Key who composed The Star Spangled Banner. When she was a baby her family moved to ranch in Southern California. In 1920 she made her acting debut opposite Snowy Baker in the Australian film The Jackeroo of Coolabong. Then producer Thomas Ince offered her a contract. Kathleen was given supporting roles in The Rookie's Return and The Beautiful And The Damned. The lovely brunette was chosen as one of the Wampas Baby Stars of 1923. She was signed by MGM and cast as Tirzah in the drama Ben Hur. Her performance got rave reviews and she seemed destined for stardom. Kathleen appeared in several westerns including The Flaming Frontier, Under Western Skies, and The Desert's Toll. Off screen she became known for having a fiery temper.
In an interview she said "I think I'm a little bit crazy. Not much, you understand, but just a little nutty in the head." She was briefly engaged to Ottavio Prochet, an Italian doctor. Then she began a passionate affair with married actor Buster Keaton. When he ended their romance in 1931 she beat him up and ransacked his dressing room. Kathleen was arrested and the bad publicity destroyed her career. Her final role was a bit part in the 1936 film One Rainy Afternoon. By this time she was suffering from alcoholism and nearly bankrupt. She was arrested in November of 1938 for public intoxication. Three years later she was arrested for drunk driving. Eventually was diagnosed with cirrhosis of the liver and moved into the Motion Picture Country House. On December 22, 1954 she died from a hepatic coma at the age of fifty-one. Kathleen was buried at Valhalla Memorial Park in North Hollywood, California.WAMPAS Baby Star 1923 Born 1903 - Died 1954 aged 51 - Actress
- Soundtrack
Laura La Plante was 15 years old when she entered films as a Christie Comedy Bathing Beauty. By 1921, she had played a number of roles including a Tom Mix Western called The Big Town Round-Up (1921) for Fox and The Old Swimmin' Hole (1921) for First National. Laura, now 17, next signed with Universal, where she appeared in shorts, serials and many supporting roles. Over the next few years, she would become one of the leading stars at Universal and acted in in dramas, mysteries and comedies. Some of her more important films were the adventure Crooked Alley (1923), the comedy Sporting Youth (1924), the drama Smouldering Fires (1925) and the mystery The Cat and the Canary (1927). One of her successful comedies, Skinner's Dress Suit (1926), was directed by her husband, William A. Seiter. When sound came to Universal, she was one of the silent film stars who made the transition. She played a leading role in the sound film Show Boat (1929) and made her first all-talking picture with Hold Your Man (1929). By 1930, she decided that she had enough and left Universal, which terminated her contract. She went to England, where she would appear in a few more films over the years. Laura returned to Hollywood in 1935, where she again retired from the screen.WAMPAS Baby Star 1923 Born 1904 - Died 1996 aged 91- Margaret Leahy was born on August 17, 1902 in London, England. Her father, William Leahy, was a garage mechanic. Margaret's family nicknamed her "Bubbles". When she was eighteen she opened a costume shop where she designed her own clothes. In 1922 she beat out 80,000 other girls to win a beauty contest sponsored by Norma and Constance Talmadge. Margaret, who was five feet, five inches tall with dark blue eyes, was described as "the most ravishing girl in England". Producer Joseph Schenck signed her to a three year contract and she moved to Hollywood. The press called her the "Cinderella Girl". She said "It all feels like a dream, like some fantastic fairy tale". Margaret was chosen to be one the 1923 Baby Wampas stars and appeared on the cover of Movie Weekly. The first movie she was cast in was the drama Within The Law. Unfortunately the director didn't like her acting and she was fired from the film. She was also told she needed to lose ten pounds.
Then she costarred with Buster Keaton in the comedy Three Ages. Her performance got mixed reviews and she would never make another film. She decided to sue Joseph Schenck for $50,000 for breach of contract and injured feelings. Margaret remained in California and married businessman Ernest Vogt in June of 1924. The couple divorced eleven years later. In court she testified that Ernest was cheap and forced her to wear shabby clothes. She started working as an interior decorator at Bullock's department store. By the early 1960s she had divorced her second husband and was living in a small apartment on Bronson Avenue. Her friends said she was very bitter about her failed acting career and had burned all her memorabilia. She was devastated when her beloved mother died in 1964. Tragically on February 23, 1967 she committed suicide by drinking drain cleaner, Margaret was sixty-four years old. She is buried at Hollywood Forever Memorial Park in Los Angeles, California.WAMPAS Baby Star 1923 Born 1902 - Died 1967 aged 64
Of all the WAMPAS Baby Stars, only thirteen were born outside the USA. Margaret Leahy was born in England. - Helen Lynch was born on 6 April 1900 in Billings, Montana, USA. She was an actress, known for Romance of the Underworld (1928), Minnie (1922) and Bustin' Thru (1925). She was married to Carroll Nye. She died on 2 March 1965 in Miami Beach, Florida, USA.WAMPAS Baby Star 1923 Born 1900 - Died 1965 aged 64
- Derelys Perdue was born on 22 March 1902 in Kansas City, Missouri, USA. She was an actress, known for Quick Triggers (1928), Untamed Youth (1924) and The Last Man on Earth (1924). She died on 30 September 1989 in Los Angeles, California, USA.WAMPAS Baby Star 1923 Born 1902 - Died 1989 aged 87
- Curly-locked, cherubic knockabout comedienne of the silent cinema. Her mother, portrait photographer Mrs. Kemp Raulston, named her after her favorite actress, Jobyna Howland. She harbored ambitions for her daughter to achieve similar fame and trained her to that end. After a failed teenage marriage to a local farmer, Jobyna left her Tennessee home and went to New York in 1919 to join the Ned Wayburn dancing academy, a popular springboard for aspiring actresses.
In 1920, she appeared first on screen in Reelcraft "Cuckoo" comedy shorts made in Jacksonville, FL. Around this time she also co-starred in Humor Risk (1921), which marked the film debut of The Marx Brothers, and is now considered a lost film. The following year she made her one Broadway appearance in "Two Little Girls in Blue" by George M. Cohan. Deciding that comedy was her forte, she went to Hollywood in 1922, starting as an extra with Hal Roach. She was cast in a rare dramatic role in The Call of Home (1922), then partnered with French comedian Max Linder and subsequently starred in Roach's James Parrott comedies. When Harold Lloyd became aware of her talent, he picked her as his leading lady, succeeding his wife-to-be Mildred Davis. By that time, Jobyna had already been in 60 one-reel comedy shorts for Hal Roach. She proceeded to star in six of Lloyd's features, of which Why Worry? (1923), The Freshman (1925) and The Kid Brother (1927) are standouts for her ability to combine considerable comedic talent with pathos. Of her performance in Girl Shy (1924), "Variety" commented (April 2) "Jobyna Ralston . . . proves herself considerable of an actress [sic] in addition to being decidedly pretty". In 1927 "Joby" was cast in a featured role in the Academy Award-winning drama Wings (1927), whose star, Richard Arlen, she married in January of that year (she eventually divorced Arlen in 1945 on the grounds of desertion, obtaining a $250,000 settlement). As a freelance comedienne she appeared in leading roles opposite stars like Eddie Cantor, Charles Ray and Buck Jones.
Jobyna also starred with Douglas Fairbanks Jr. in an obscure Frank Capra melodrama, The Power of the Press (1928). She made just three talkies, The College Coquette (1929), Rough Waters (1930) (her co-star being Rin Tin Tin!) and Sheer Luck (1931). In regard to the first, the New York Times (August 26, 1929) declared that "Miss Ralston's utterances are frequently indistinct". Indeed, Jobyna was found to have a noticeable lisp which, combined with her impending pregnancy, effectively put an end to her career as a motion picture actress.WAMPAS Baby Star 1923 Born 1899 - Died 1967 aged 67 - Ethel May Shannon's parents divorced when she was a child and her mother Agnes got a job as a housekeeper. After high school she moved to Los Angeles, California. A friend suggested that they should start working as film extras. In 1919 the lovely redhead co-starred with Bert Lytell in the comedy "Easy To Make Money," then was cast as Hoot Gibson's leading lady in the western "Roarin' Dan." Ethel was signed by producer B.P. Shulberg who gave her a starring role in the drama Maytime. She was also chosen to be one of the 1923 Wampas Baby Stars along with Evelyn Brent and Pauline Garon. On August 9, 1923 she married Robert Cary, a broker.; they split up two years later. Her success continued with the films "Lightning Romance", "Stop Flirting", and "The Phantom Express."
Ethel married screenwriter Joseph Jackson in 1927. The following year their son Joseph Jr was born, and soon after, she decided to quit acting and become a full-time homemaker. Tragedy struck in May of 1932 when her husband Joseph drowned while swimming at Laguna Beach. Devastated by his death and began drinking heavily. In 1934 she announced her engagement to Louis Grau, secretary to the Cuban consulate, but they broke up soon after. Ethel returned to acting with a small role in the 1935 film Backfire. She spent the next decade out of the spotlight while she raised her son. Sadly she also continued to struggle with alcoholism. On July 10, 1951 she died from a pulmonary edema caused by cirrhosis of the liver. Ethel was only 53 years old. She was buried at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale, California.WAMPAS Baby Star 1923 Born 1898 - Died 1951 aged 53 - Actress
- Music Department
- Soundtrack
Clara Gordon Bow, destined to become "The It Girl", was born on July 29, 1905 in Brooklyn, New York, and was raised in poverty and violence. Her often absentee and brutish father could not or did not provide and her schizophrenic mother tried to slit Clara's throat when the girl spoke of becoming an actress. Bow, nonetheless, won a photo beauty contest which launched her movie career that would eventually number 58 films, from 1922 to 1933.
The movie It (1927) defined her career. The film starred Clara as a shopgirl who was asked out by the store's owner. As you watch the silent film you can see the excitement as she prepared for her date with the boss, her friend trying hard to assist her. She used a pair of scissors to modify her dress to try to look "sexier." The movie did much to change society's mores as there were only a few years between World War I and Clara Bow, but this movie went a long way in how society looked at itself. Clara was flaming youth in rebellion. In the film she presented a worldly wisdom that somehow sex meant having a good time. But the movie shouldn't mislead the viewer, because when her boss tries to kiss her goodnight, she slaps him. At the height of her popularity she received over 45,000 fan letters a month. Also, she was probably the most overworked and underpaid star in the industry. With the coming of sound, her popularity waned. Clara was also involved in several court battles ranging from unpaid taxes to being in divorce court for "stealing" women's husbands. After the court trials, she made a couple of attempts to get back in the public eye. One was Call Her Savage (1932) in 1932. It was somewhat of a failure at the box office and her last was in 1933 in a film called Hoopla (1933).
She then married cowboy star Rex Bell at 26 and retired from the film world at 28. She doted on her two sons and did everything to please them. Haunted by a weight problem and a mental imbalance, she never re-entered show business. She was confined to sanitariums from time to time and prohibited access to her beloved sons. She died of a heart attack in West Los Angeles, on September 26, 1965 at age 60. Today she is finding a renaissance among movie buffs, who are recently discovering the virtues of silent film. The actress who wanted so much to be like the wonderful young lady in It (1927) has the legacy of her films to confirm that she was a wonderful lady and America's first sex symbol.WAMPAS Baby Star 1924 Born 1905 - Died 1965 aged 65- Actress
Elinor Fair was born Elinor Virginia Crowe on December 21, 1903 in Richmond, Virginia. Sadly her only brother died in 1904 shortly before his third birthday. The family moved to Seattle, Washington where her father was the manager of a credit card company. After her parents divorced Elinor and her mother lived in Paris, France. When she was a child she began her career performing in vaudeville. Her dream was to become a opera star. At the age of twelve she made her film debut in the 1916 drama The End Of The Trail. Fox offered her a five year contract in 1919. Elinor appeared in the films Loves Is Love and Be A Little Sport, and The Miracle Man with Lon Chaney. The beautiful brunette started dating Lew Cody, her costar in Wait For Me. In 1924 she was chosen as one of the Wampas Baby Stars along with Clara Bow. Then Cecille B. Demile cast her in his 1926 film The Volga Boatman costarring William Boyd. She and William fell in love and were married in January of 1926. They worked together in the films The Yankee Clipper and Jim The Conqueror. For a while Elinor put her career on hold and became a full-time housewife. Unfortunately her marriage to William ended in 1930. She returned to acting with a role in the 1932 adventure 45 Calibre Echo. That same year she became engaged to actor Frank Clark. Following a fight with Frank she impulsively married Thomas W. Daniels, a stunt man, on December 27, 1932.
The marriage was annulled a few weeks later. Her final film was the 1934 comedy Broadway Bill. Surprisingly she remarried Thomas W. Daniels in July of 1934. Eleven months later she divorced him claiming he "criticized her and called her unseemly names." By this time she was bankrupt and suffering from alcoholism. Her ex-husband William Boyd began helping her financially. In December of 1936 she was found wandering the streets looking shabby and confused. Elinor was taken to a hospital where she was diagnosed with an acute nervous condition. She married actor Jack White in Las Vegas in 1941. After they divorced in 1944 she married Merle Aubert Martin. The couple moved to Seattle, Washington but Merle struggled to find work. During the early 1950s Elinor was diagnosed with a liver condition caused by her chronic alcoholism. She and her husband briefly returned to California in 1956 ask her Hollywood friends for financial help. Tragically she was hospitalized in the Spring of 1957 and went into a hepatic coma. On April 26, 1957 Elinor died from cirrhosis of the liver at the age of fifty-three. She was cremated and her ashes were given to her husband.WAMPAS Baby Star 1924 Born 1903 - Died 1957 aged 53- The daughter of screenwriter Tom Geraghty and sister of writers Maurice Geraghty and Gerald Geraghty, Carmelita Geraghty was a graduate of Hollywood High School, where she was in charge of the school calendar. Voted a WAMPAS Baby Star in 1924, she spent most of her career as a leading lady, playing with Reed Howes and Estelle Taylor's husband, former heavyweight champion Jack Dempsey.
With the advent of sound Carmelita's star dimmed, and she went on to play the "other woman" in various "Poverty Row" productions. Retiring in the mid-'30s, she married 'Carey Wilson' and later became an accomplished artist. During the last years of her life her artwork was displayed at the "Weil Gardens" in Paris, France.WAMPAS Baby Star 1924 Born 1901 - Died 1966 aged 65 - Gloria Grey was born on 23 October 1909 in Portland, Oregon, USA. She was an actress, known for Blake of Scotland Yard (1927), A Girl of the Limberlost (1924) and Bag and Baggage (1923). She was married to Ramon Romero. She died on 22 November 1947 in Hollywood, California, USA.WAMPAS Baby Star 1924 Born 1909 - Died 1947 aged 38
- Actress
- Additional Crew
Pert, curly-haired Ruth Hiatt was born Ruth Redfern, a WAMPAS Baby Star of 1924, former child actress, dancer and comedienne. She had moved with her family from San Diego and made her screen bow at age eleven. Ruth was briefly under contract with the Lubin company in 1915, later moving on to Educational and then to Mack Sennett's Keystone. Gravitating towards comedy, she was helped along the way by a close friendship with the writer/director Lloyd Bacon, who introduced her to star comedian Lloyd Hamilton. Hamilton, who had been looking for a suitable leading lady, was impressed after meeting the personable, dimple-cheeked and (most of all) photogenic,lass.
One of Ruth's first feature film roles was a small part in Douglas Fairbanks's epic swashbuckler Robin Hood (1922). However, she established herself primarily as a leading lady of one- and two-reelers, often cast in slapstick farce opposite comics like Hamilton (Going East (1924)) or Harry Langdon (Saturday Afternoon (1926)). At the height of her popularity, she co-starred in all 23 instalments of the 'Smith Family' series of domestic comedies (1926-28).
As the 1920's drew to a close, Ruth wisely varied her repertoire and managed to weather the transition from silent pictures to sound. She now showed up in anything from crime dramas (Shanghai Rose (1929)) to Ken Maynard westerns (Sunset Trail (1932)). Ruth continued on in supporting roles of ever diminishing size until 1941, notably as the 'whispering nurse' in The Three Stooges Oscar-nominated short Men in Black (1934). After her retirement from acting, she established a make-up business.WAMPAS Baby Star 1924 Born 1906 - Died 1994 aged 88- Julanne was born in Indianapolis, Indiana, but she and her family briefly lived in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, then settled in Los Angeles, California, where she attended the Hollywood School for Girls. She also studied dancing and went on tour with the Ruth St. Denis Dancers, which led to her first screen part as a dancer. In her post-screen life in Grosse Pointe and Detroit, Michigan, she volunteered actively at the Detroit Institute of Arts.WAMPAS Baby Star 1924 Born 1900 - Died 1988 aged 88
- Hazel Keener was born on 22 October 1904 in Fairbury, Illinois, USA. She was an actress, known for Murder by Invitation (1941), Ten Days (1925) and North of Nevada (1924). She died on 7 August 1979 in Pacific Grove, California, USA.WAMPAS Baby Star 1924 Born 1904 - Died 1979 aged 74
- Actress
- Soundtrack
Dorothy Mackaill was 11 when her parents separated; she then lived with her father. A rebellious teenager, Dorothy -- who had long wanted a career in the theater -- ran away to London and finally persuaded her father to pay for her board and lessons. Her first job was in the chorus; she then traveled to Paris, where she met a Broadway choreographer, who got her a job with the Ziegfeld Follies in New York. At the Follies, Dorothy became friends with ones of its stars, Marion Davies.
By 1921 Dorothy was making movies, but she didn't become a star for three years until The Man Who Came Back (1924). Other successful films included Chickie (1925), Joanna (1925), and The Dancer of Paris (1926). Her career continued into the beginning the sound era, and her silent film The Barker (1928) was reshot as a part-talkie. The industry was in upheaval during that transitional period, and First National didn't renew Dorothy's contract when it expired in 1931. As a free agent, she made some good films at Columbia (Love Affair (1932)), Paramount (No Man of Her Own (1932)), and MGM (The Chief (1933)), but overall her career was idling. The following year brought few prospects, and she wound up making a trio of quickies for the independent market, a particularly poor example being Cheaters (1934) for low-rent Liberty Pictures. Her last part was in Bulldog Drummond at Bay (1937). With that, Dorothy retired from pictures and took care of her invalid mother.WAMPAS Baby Star 1924 Born 1903 - Died 1990 aged 87- Blanche Mehaffey was born in Cincinnati, Ohio in 1907. She began as a dancer with the Ziegfeld Follies before coming to Hollywood. She starred in many comedies, westerns and drama films starting in 1923, initially for the Hal Roach Film Company often playing opposite Charley Chase and later Glenn Tryon, though occasionally appeared in drama and cowboy features. In 1929 she dropped out of filming to study voice and languages for more than a year in New York City, returned to films in 'Sunrise Trail' a western starring Bob Steele in 1931. She was last seen on screen in 1938's 'The Wages of Sin' made at the Willis Kent studios.WAMPAS Baby Star 1924 Born 1907 - Died 1968 aged 60
- Margaret Morris was born on 7 November 1898 in Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA. She was an actress, known for Born to the West (1926), Beasts of Paradise (1923) and The Woman I Love (1929). She died on 7 June 1968 in Los Angeles, California, USA.WAMPAS Baby Star 1924 Born 1898- Died 1968 aged 69
- Actress
- Soundtrack
Marian Nixon was born on October 20, 1904, in Superior, Wisconsin. Her career started in 1923 when she played Agnes Evans in Cupid's Fireman (1923). She was nineteen. Marian always gave a good account for herself when she appeared in films and was much in demand throughout the 1920s. Marian was one of those fortunate actresses who made the successful transition to the "talkie" era. Her final film was as Treasure McGuire in Tango (1936) in 1936. When she retired, Marian had been in 73 productions. On February 13, 1983, Marian died from complications from surgery in Los Angeles, California. She was 78 years old.WAMPAS Baby Star 1924 Born 1904 - Died 1983 aged 78- Lucille Ricksen was born Ingeborg Erickson in Chicago, Illinois on August 22, 1910. She worked a child model and made her film debut at age 5. Her parents separated and her mother took her to Hollywood in 1920, and 10-year-old Lucille was offered a contract with Samuel Goldwyn and starred in a series of short films. She often had to work long hours but she always said she was having fun. In 1922 she starred opposite Marie Prevost in "The Married Flapper." The following year she was given a starring role in the drama "The Rendezvous"; although she was only 13, the studio lied that she was actually 16. The press called her "the youngest leading lady in movies". Lucille developed a close relationship with producer Sydney Chaplin (brother of Charlie Chaplin), who was 25 years her senior. She became one of Hollywood's busiest starlets and was chosen as one of the WAMPAS Baby Stars.
In 1924 Ricksen made 10 films, including "Vanity's Price," "The Galloping Fish," and "The Valley Of The Wolf." Unfortunately, the 14-year-old started to suffer from exhaustion and malnutrition. She was diagnosed with tuberculosis and became bedfast. Her mother kept a bedside vigil, but the stress brought on a fatal heart attack. Following her mother's death, Lucille was looked after by family friends including actress Lois Wilson. During one of her conscious moments Lucille said "Mother wouldn't want me--die--Mother said--Wonderful future--Going to do big things--Won't die! I won't!" But on March 13, 1925, she passed away from complications of tuberculosis, still at only 14 years old. There were rumors that her death had actually been caused by a botched abortion. Lucille was cremated and she was buried with her mother at Forest Lawn in Glendale, California. Her final film, "The Denial," came out 10 days after her death.WAMPAS Baby Star 1924 Born 1910 - Died 1925 aged 14
The shortest lived WAMPAS Baby Star.
One of the first children to be exploited by parents in Hollywood. Her parents pushing her to work so much was the reason for her illness and subsequent death. - Betty Arlen was born on 9 November 1909 in Providence, Kentucky, USA. She was an actress, known for Crown Theatre with Gloria Swanson (1952). She died on 4 August 1966 in the USA.WAMPAS Baby Star 1925 Born 1904 - Died 1966 aged 61
- Actress
- Soundtrack
Alberta Vaughn was born on 27 June 1904 in Ashland, Kentucky, USA. She was an actress, known for Randy Rides Alone (1934), The Adorable Deceiver (1926) and The Live Wire (1935). She was married to John Robert Thomas (contractor) and Joe Egli. She died on 26 April 1992 in Studio City, California, USA.WAMPAS Baby Star 1924 Born 1904 - Died 1992 aged 87- Violet La Plante was born on 17 January 1908 in St. Louis, Missouri, USA. She was an actress, known for Battling Buddy (1924), The Clean Heart (1924) and My Home Town (1928). She was married to Charles Sorrell Benson. She died on 1 June 1984 in La Jolla, California, USA.WAMPAS Baby Star 1925 Born 1908- Died 1984 aged 76
- Considered one of the most beautiful actresses of the silent era, Olive Borden was a Mack Sennett bathing beauty at 15 and reached the peak of her career in 1926 when she made 11 films for Fox Studios and was earning $1,500 a week. Refusing to take a salary cut, Borden abruptly left Fox in 1928 and made only a few pictures for other studios before retiring from films in 1938. In 1943, she joined the WACS, and after her discharge, returned to Hollywood in a failed attempt to revive her career. At the time she was quoted as saying, "Since I got out of the Army I've gone from job to job. Something always goes wrong." By 1946 she was found scrubbing floors for a living and in 1947, at the age of 40, died of a "stomach ailment" at the Sunshine Mission - a home for destitute women on Los Angeles' Skid Row.WAMPAS Baby Star 1925 Born 1906 - Died 1947 aged 41
- Anne Cornwall was born on 17 January 1897 in Brooklyn, New York, USA. She was an actress, known for College (1927), Dulcy (1923) and The Roughneck (1924). She was married to Ellis Wing Taylor and Charles Maigne. She died on 2 March 1980 in Van Nuys, California, USA.WAMPAS Baby Star 1925 Born 1897 - Died 1980 aged 83
- Ena Gregory was born on 18 April 1907 in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. She was an actress, known for Grinning Guns (1927), In the Palace of the King (1923) and The Rose of Kildare (1927). She was married to Dr. Frank G. Nolan, Albert S. Rogell and Abe Steinberg. She died on 13 June 1993 in Laguna Beach, California, USA.WAMPAS Baby Star 1925 Born 1906 - Died 1993 aged 87
Of all the WAMPAS Baby Stars, only thirteen were born outside the USA. Ena Gregory was born in Australia. - Sophisticated, dark-haired star of silent screen comedy. Of English and Italian ancestry, Madeline was the daughter of engineer John W. Hurlock and his Italian wife Sallie. She was educated in Philadelphia and first appeared on stage there with the Little Theatre. Moving on to New York, Madeline acted and danced in musical comedy at the Century Roof Garden and made her Broadway debut in the ensemble cast of 'The Rose of China' in 1919. After several years of toiling in support, she was spotted in 1923 by the producer Mack Sennett and signed as leading lady for a series of two-reel comedies, cast opposite the likes of Ben Turpin, Harry Langdon and Billy Bevan. In 1925, she was voted a WAMPAS Baby Star which greatly helped to raise her profile in Hollywood.
Madeline was known for her poise and comedy timing, even under trying circumstances, such as, when pinned underneath a lion in Circus Today (1926). Her best known appearance was as Lady Tarbotham in the frenetically-paced early Laurel & Hardy effort, Duck Soup (1927).
Madeline retired from films after the coming of sound and later became affiliated with the New York literary set, via her second husband, the playwright and screenwriter Marc Connelly. She got married a third time to former film critic, turned playwright, Robert E. Sherwood. After his death in 1955, she spent her many remaining years well away from the limelight and died at the age of 89.WAMPAS Baby Star 1925 Born 1899 - Died 1989 aged 89 - Natalie Joyce was born Natalie Marie Johnson in Virginia. She was one of eight children and her family moved to Pennsylvania when she was young. At the age of eighteen Natalie moved to New York to be an actress. She danced in the Ziegfeld Follies and was offered a movie contract at Christie Studios. Natalie was cast a vamp in comedies like Savage Love and Take Your Choice. Meanwhile her cousin Olive Borden had become a successful actress. Natalie and Olive were both chosen to be WAMPAS "Baby Stars" in 1925 and they worked together in the melodrama Dance Hall. Natalie was signed by 20th Century Fox and given the lead role in the Western Whispering Sage. She costarred with Tom Mix in The Circus Ace and with Marie Prevost in A Girl In Every Port. By 1930 her career has stalled and she was appearing in low budget films. Natalie claimed that she never got any good roles because she would not sleep with the producers. She married William Morris Pryce and retired from acting. The couple moved to Hawaii where they opened a successful beauty salon. The had one son named Michael. After Natalie left Hollywood she lost touch with her cousin Olive who died 1947. When asked about Olive many years later Natalie said "She was really something there for a while." Natalie and her husband William later relocated to San Diego. She died on November 9, 1992 at the age of ninety. Her husband died four months later.WAMPAS Baby Star 1925 Born 1902 - Died 1992 aged 90
- June Marlowe was born on 6 November 1903 in St. Cloud, Minnesota, USA. She was an actress, known for Pardon Us (1931), The Life of Riley (1927) and Code of the Air (1928). She was married to Rodney Sprigg. She died on 10 March 1984 in Burbank, California, USA.WAMPAS Baby Star 1925 Born 1903 - Died 1984 aged 80
- Joan Meredith was born on 28 January 1907 in Hot Springs, Arkansas, USA. She was an actress, known for The Count of Luxembourg (1926), The Truthful Sex (1926) and Blue Blood (1925). She died on 13 October 1980 in Los Angeles, California, USA.WAMPAS Baby Star 1925 Born 1907 - Died 1980 aged 73
- Evelyn Pierce was born on 5 February 1907 in Del Rio, Texas, USA. She was an actress, known for Don't (1925), Once a Gentleman (1930) and Sonia (1928). She was married to Robert Allen. She died on 9 August 1960 in Oyster Bay, Long Island, New York, USA.WAMPAS Baby Star 1925 Born 1908 - Died 1960 aged 52
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Silent screen vamp Dorothy Revier (nee Velegra) was born in San Francisco, California on April 18, 1904, the daughter of a musician. As a result, Dorothy found herself leaning towards a career in music, finding work as a chorine and nightclub dancer in her teens. She broke into films at age 17 with Life's Greatest Question (1921), billed then as Doris Velegra. The film's storyline was written by first husband Harry Revier, a sometime director and producer. He also directed Dorothy in her next film The Broadway Madonna (1922), wherein she changed her stage moniker to reflect her married status. As Dorothy Revier, she proved a tempting blonde who specialized in femme fatale types, but inexplicably never hit top-flight stardom during her silent film reign. Typical alluring titles included Dangerous Pleasure (1924), The Fate of a Flirt (1925), The Siren (1927) and The Tigress (1927). A former 'Wampas Baby Star,' Dorothy's most notable effort was as the scheming beauty Milady de Winter in 'Douglas Fairbanks Sr'' The Iron Mask (1929). She was able to make the transition to sound pictures comfortably enough but moved almost exclusively into "B"-level fare, eventually earning the dubious title "Queen of Poverty Row" working for inhabitants of Gower Gulch. Dorothy retired from films after co-starring in the Buck Jones' western The Cowboy and the Kid (1936), and turned to writing and painting. Divorced from Revier in 1926, she later married commercial artist William Pelayo. She died of natural causes in 1993.WAMPAS Baby Star 1925 Born 1904 - Died 1993 aged 89- Duane Thompson was born on 28 July 1903 in Red Oak, Iowa, USA. She was an actress, known for Husband Hunters (1927), April Fool (1926) and The Lodge in the Wilderness (1926). She died on 15 August 1970 in Los Angeles, California, USA.WAMPAS Baby Star 1925 Born 1903 - Died 1970 aged 67
- Lola Todd was born on 14 May 1904 in New York City, New York, USA. She was an actress, known for The Bells (1926), The Tough Guy (1926) and Pocahontas and John Smith (1924). She died on 31 July 1995 in Los Angeles, California, USA.WAMPAS Baby Star 1925 Born 1904 - Died 1995 aged 91
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Mary Astor was born Lucile Vasconcellos Langhanke on May 3, 1906 in Quincy, Illinois to Helen Marie Vasconcellos, an American of Portuguese and Irish ancestry from Illinois, and Otto Ludwig Langhanke, a German immigrant. Mary's parents were very ambitious for her and wanted something better for her than what they had, and knew that if they played their cards right, they could make her famous. Recognizing her beauty, they pushed her into various beauty contests. Luck was with Mary and her parents because one contest came to the attention of Hollywood moguls who signed her when she was 14.
Mary's first movie was a bit part in The Scarecrow (1920). It wasn't much, but it was a start. Throughout 1921-1923 she continued her career with bit or minor roles in a number of motion pictures. In 1924, she landed a plum assignment with a role as Lady Margery Alvaney opposite the great John Barrymore in the film Beau Brummel (1924). This launched her career to stardom, as did a lively affair with Barrymore. However, the affair ended before she could star with him again in the classic Don Juan (1926). By now, Mary was the new cinematic darling, with each film packing the theaters.
By the end of the 1920s, the sound revolution had taken a stronghold on the industry, and Mary was one of those lucky actresses who made the successful transition to "talkies" because of her voice and strong screen presence. Mary's career soared to greater heights. Films such as Red Dust (1932), Convention City (1933), Man of Iron (1935), and The Prisoner of Zenda (1937) kept her star at the top. In 1938, she turned out five feature films that kept her busy and in the spotlight. After that, she churned out films at a lesser rate. In 1941 she won the Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her role as Sandra Kovac in The Great Lie (1941). That same year she appeared in the celebrated film The Maltese Falcon (1941), but her star soon began to fall.
Because of her three divorces, her first husband Kenneth Hawks' death in a plane crash, alcoholism, a suicide attempt, and a persistent heart condition, Mary started to get smaller film roles. She appeared in only five productions throughout the 1950s. Her final fling with the silver screen was as Jewell Mayhew in Hush...Hush, Sweet Charlotte (1964).Although it was her final film, she had appeared in a phenomenal 123 motion pictures in her entire career.
Mary lived out her remaining years confined to the Motion Picture Country Home, where she died of a heart attack on September 25, 1987. She was 81.WAMPAS Baby Star 1926 Born 1906 - Died 1987 aged 81
Won an Oscar in 1942- Actress
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Dubbed "The Sweetest Girl in Pictures", Mary Brian started life as Louise Byrdie Datzler. She was born in Corsicana, Texas, and went to high school in Dallas. Her widowed mother had big plans for young Louise and took her to California in 1923, with the intention of getting her into the film business. After several unsuccessful attempts, a bathing beauty competition in Long Beach resulted in a second-prize letter of introduction to Herbert Brenon at Paramount and the girl with the dark brown curls and blue/gray eyes wound up being screen-tested for the role of Wendy in Peter Pan (1924), co-starring Betty Bronson and Esther Ralston (with whom she would form lifelong friendships). She not only got the part but a five-year contract with Paramount (1925-30) and a new name.
In 1926 she became one of the WAMPAS Baby Stars, which further enhanced her popularity. During the next few years she played ornamental leads and second leads as adolescent heroines, co-eds and ingénues. Many of those early silent features no longer exist today (Paris at Midnight (1926), among others), though surviving reels of some, like The Air Mail (1925), can still be accessed at the Library of Congress. Mary effortlessly made the transition from silents to talkies, co-starring with Gary Cooper as a feisty schoolmarm on the frontier in The Virginian (1929). One of her biggest hits was as Gwen Cavendish in the urbane comedy The Royal Family of Broadway (1930), with Ina Claire and Fredric March. A thinly disguised caricature of the private lives of the Barrymore dynasty, it hit the mark to the extent that Ethel Barrymore even threatened to sue Paramount. Mary acted three times opposite W.C. Fields, first as his daughter in Running Wild (1927), later reprising her role for The Man on the Flying Trapeze (1934) (the third was Two Flaming Youths (1927), another lost film).
Signing up for another four-year contract, Mary was one of the all-star cast in the musical Paramount on Parade (1930) and then was given another good part in the first talkie version of The Front Page (1931). However, she was dropped from her contract (alongside her more illustrious colleagues Fay Wray and Jean Arthur) when Paramount began to forsake innocence and charm in favor of glamour and sophistication. From 1932 Mary freelanced and also performed occasionally in vaudeville at the Palace Theater. Arguably her last good picture was the romantic comedy Hard to Handle (1933), with James Cagney as a grifter (hilariously promoting grapefruit diets, spoofing his infamous scene with Mae Clarke in The Public Enemy (1931)). In 1936 Mary went to England, where she co-starred opposite Cary Grant in The Amazing Adventure (1936). She then made several pictures for Poverty Row companies such as Majestic and Monogram, including the low-budget potboiler I Escaped from the Gestapo (1943).
Mary's motion picture career faded after 1937 and she turned towards the stage. In 1940 she went on tour with "Three after Three" , alongside Simone Simon and Mitzi Green and later entertained American troops in the South Pacific as part of the USO. In the 1950's, she enjoyed a brief resurgence on television as the mother of a "Gidget"-type teen in the syndicated sitcom Meet Corliss Archer (1954). After the death of her second husband, the film editor George Tomasini, Mary spent her retirement fulfilling a lifelong passion for portrait painting.WAMPAS Baby Star 1926 Born 1906 - Died 2002 aged 96- Actress
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Joyce Compton was born on 27 January 1907 in Lexington, Kentucky, USA. She was an actress, known for The Awful Truth (1937), Christmas in Connecticut (1945) and Bedtime Story (1941). She was married to William Francis Kaliher. She died on 13 October 1997 in Los Angeles, California, USA.WAMPAS Baby Star 1926 Born 1907 - Died 1997 aged 90- Actress
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Dolores Costello was once known as the Goddess of the Silent Screen but is probably best remembered today as Drew Barrymore's grandmother. She was born in 1905 to actors Maurice Costello and Mae Costello. Her father began his film career in 1908 and soon became the most popular matinée idol of his day. He gave Dolores and her sister Helene Costello their screen debuts in 1911. Dolores appeared in numerous pictures throughout the 1910s and the early 1920s, mostly with her father and sister. She later appeared on the New York stage with her sister in "George White Scandals of 1924." They were then signed by Warner Bros. where Dolores met future husband John Barrymore.
Barrymore soon made Dolores his costar in The Sea Beast (1926). During their lengthy kissing scene Dolores fainted in John's arms. They married in 1928 despite the misgivings of her mother, who would die the following year at age 45. They had two children, DeDe in 1931 and John Drew Barrymore in 1932. Dolores took time off from her movie career in the early 1930s to raise her young children. Her sister Helene and her new husband, actor Lowell Sherman, successfully convinced Dolores to divorce Barrymore in 1935, mainly because of his excessive drinking.
After the divorce Dolores returned to acting, appearing in several big-budget pictures, and her career seemed to be back on track. Her physical appearance, however, was greatly damaged from the harsh studio makeup used in the early years. The skin on her cheeks was in the process of deteriorating, forcing her into early retirement. She lived in semi-seclusion on her Southern California avocado farm, Fallbrook Ranch, where much of the memorabilia and papers from both the Barrymore and Costello family were destroyed in a flood.WAMPAS Baby Star 1926 Born 1903 - Died 1979 aged 75
Only sisters to be WAMPAS Baby Stars were Delores and Helene Costello
Known as the Goddess of the Silent Screen- Actress
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Joan Crawford was born Lucille Fay LeSueur on March 23, 1906, in San Antonio, Texas, to Anna Belle (Johnson) and Thomas E. LeSueur, a laundry laborer. By the time she was born, her parents had separated, and by the time she was a teenager, she'd had three stepfathers. It wasn't an easy life; Crawford worked a variety of menial jobs. She was a good dancer, though, and -- perhaps seeing dance as her ticket to a career in show business -- she entered several contests, one of which landed her a spot in a chorus line. Before long, she was dancing in big Midwestern and East Coast cities. After almost two years, she packed her bags and moved to Hollywood. Crawford was determined to succeed, and shortly after arriving she got her first bit part, as a showgirl in Pretty Ladies (1925).
Three films quickly followed; although the roles weren't much to speak of, she continued toiling. Throughout 1927 and early 1928, she was cast in small parts, but that ended with the role of Diana Medford in Our Dancing Daughters (1928), which elevated her to star status. Crawford had cleared the first big hurdle; now came the second, in the form of talkies. Many stars of the silents saw their careers evaporate, either because their voices weren't particularly pleasant or because their voices, pleasing enough, didn't match the public's expectations (for example, some fans felt that John Gilbert's tenor didn't quite match his very masculine persona). But Crawford wasn't felled by sound. Her first talkie, Untamed (1929), was a success. As the 1930s progressed, Crawford became one of the biggest stars at MGM. She was in top form in films such as Grand Hotel (1932), Sadie McKee (1934), No More Ladies (1935), and Love on the Run (1936); movie patrons were enthralled, and studio executives were satisfied.
By the early 1940s, MGM was no longer giving her plum roles; newcomers had arrived in Hollywood, and the public wanted to see them. Crawford left MGM for rival Warner Bros., and in 1945 she landed the role of a lifetime. Mildred Pierce (1945) gave her an opportunity to show her range as an actress, and her performance as a woman driven to give her daughter everything garnered Crawford her first, and only, Oscar for Best Actress. The following year she appeared with John Garfield in the well-received Humoresque (1946). In 1947, she appeared as Louise Graham in Possessed (1947); again she was nominated for a Best Actress from the Academy, but she lost to Loretta Young in The Farmer's Daughter (1947). Crawford continued to choose her roles carefully, and in 1952 she was nominated for a third time, for her depiction of Myra Hudson in Sudden Fear (1952). This time the coveted Oscar went to Shirley Booth, for Come Back, Little Sheba (1952). Crawford's career slowed after that; she appeared in minor roles until 1962, when she and Bette Davis co-starred in What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962). Their longstanding rivalry may have helped fuel their phenomenally vitriolic and well-received performances. (Earlier in their careers, Davis said of Crawford, "She's slept with every male star at MGM except Lassie", and Crawford said of Davis, "I don't hate [her] even though the press wants me to. I resent her. I don't see how she built a career out of a set of mannerisms instead of real acting ability. Take away the pop eyes, the cigarette, and those funny clipped words, and what have you got? She's phony, but I guess the public really likes that.")
Crawford's final appearance on the silver screen was in the flop Trog (1970). Turning to vodka more and more, she was hardly seen afterward. On May 10, 1977, Joan died of a heart attack in New York City. She was 71 years old. She had disinherited her adopted daughter Christina and son Christopher; the former wrote a tell-all book called "Mommie Dearest", The Sixth Sense published in 1978. The book cast Crawford in a negative light and was cause for much debate, particularly among her friends and acquaintances, including Douglas Fairbanks Jr., Crawford's first husband. (In 1981, Faye Dunaway starred in Mommie Dearest (1981) which did well at the box office.) Crawford is interred in the same mausoleum as fellow MGM star Judy Garland, in Ferncliff Cemetery in Hartsdale, New York.WAMPAS Baby Star 1926 Born 1906 - Died 1977 aged 71
Won an Oscar in 1945 and was nominated in 1947 and 1953- Actress
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The younger sister of actress Alice Day, Marceline achieved stardom in the mid-1920s, appearing opposite such stars as John Barrymore and Lon Chaney. Adept at comedy, she also starred with such top comics as Buster Keaton and Harry Langdon. Her career faltered in the early 1930s, however, and she was soon reduced to appearing in low-budget thrillers and action pictures. She retired in the mid-1930s.WAMPAS Baby Star 1926 Born 1908 - Died 2000 aged 91- Actress
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Dolores del Rio was the one of the first Mexican movie stars with international appeal and who had meteoric career in the 1920s/1930s Hollywood. Del Rio came from an aristocratic family in Durango. In the Mexican revolution of 1916, however, the family lost everything and emigrated to Mexico City, where Dolores became a socialite. In 1921 she married Jaime Del Río (also known as Jaime Martínez Del Río), a wealthy Mexican, and the two became friends with Hollywood producer/director Edwin Carewe, who "discovered" del Rio and invited the couple to move to Hollywood where they launched careers in the movie business (she as an actress, Jaime as a screenwriter). Eventually they divorced after Carewe cast her in her first film Joanna (1925), followed by High Steppers (1926), and Pals First (1926). She had her first leading role in Carewe's silent version of Pals First (1926) and soared to stardom in 1928 with Carewe's Ramona (1928). The film was a success and del Rio was hailed as a female Rudolph Valentino. Her career continued to rise with the arrival of sound in the drama/romance Bird of Paradise (1932) and hit musical Flying Down to Rio (1933). She later married Cedric Gibbons, the well-known art director and production designer at MGM studios.
Dolores returned to Mexico in 1942. Her Hollywood career was over, and a romance with Orson Welles--who later called her "the most exciting woman I've ever met"--caused her second divorce. Mexican director Emilio Fernández offered her the lead in his film Wild Flower (1943), with a wholly unexpected result: at age 37, Dolores del Río became the most famous movie star in her country, filming in Spanish for the first time. Her association with Fernández' team (cinematographer Gabriel Figueroa, writer Mauricio Magdaleno and actor Pedro Armendáriz) was mainly responsible for creating what has been called the Golden Era of Mexican Cinema. With such pictures as Maria Candelaria (1944), Las abandonadas (1945) and Bugambilia (1945), del Río became the prototypical Mexican beauty. career included film, theater and television. In her last years she received accolades because of her work for orphaned children. Her last film was The Children of Sanchez (1978).WAMPAS Baby Star 1926 Born 1904 - Died 1983 aged 78
Cousin of Ramon Novarro
Of all the WAMPAS Baby Stars, only thirteen were born outside the USA. Delores del Rio was born in Mexico.- Actress
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Janet Gaynor was born Laura Gainor on October 6, 1906, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. As a child, she & her parents moved to San Francisco, California, where she graduated from high school in 1923. She then moved to Los Angeles where she enrolled in a secretarial school. She got a job at a shoe store for the princely sum of $18 per week. However, since L.A. was the land of stars and studios, she wanted to try her hand at acting. She managed to land unbilled bit parts in several feature films and comedy shorts. She bided her time, believing "Good things come to those who wait." She didn't have to wait too long, either. In 1926, at the age of 20, she turned in a superb performance as Anna Burger in The Johnstown Flood (1926). The Hollywood moguls knew they had a top star on their hands and cast her in several other leading roles that year, including The Shamrock Handicap (1926), The Blue Eagle (1926), The Midnight Kiss (1926) and The Return of Peter Grimm (1926). The next year she turned in acclaimed performances in two classic films, 7th Heaven (1927) and Sunrise (1927). Based on the strength of those two films plus Street Angel (1928), Janet received the very first Academy Award for best actress. This was the first and only time an actress won the Oscar for multiple roles. When "talkies" replaced silent films, Janet was one of the few who made a successful transition, not only because of her great acting ability but for her charming voice as well. Without a doubt, Janet had already lived a true rags-to-riches story. Throughout the mid-1930s she was the top drawing star at theaters. She turned in grand performances in several otherwise undistinguished films.
Then came A Star Is Born (1937). She was very convincing as Vicki Lester (aka Esther Blodgett), struggling actress trying for the big time. Told by the receptionist at Central casting "You know what your chances are? One in a hundred thousand," Esther/Vicki replies, "But maybe--I'm that one." For her outstanding performance she was nominated for another Oscar, but lost to Luise Rainer's performance in The Good Earth (1937), her second in as many tries. After appearing in The Young in Heart (1938), Janet didn't appear in another film until 1957's Bernardine (1957). Her last performance was in a Broadway version of Harold and Maude. Although the play was a flop, Janet's performance salvaged it to any degree - she still had what it took to entertain the public. On September 14, 1984, Janet passed away from pneumonia in Palm Springs, California, at the age of 77.WAMPAS Baby Star 1926 Born 1906 - Died 1984 aged 77
Won an Oscar in 1929 and was nominated in 1938- Sally Long was born on 5 December 1901 in Kansas City, Missouri, USA. She was an actress, known for The Kid Sister (1927), The King of the Jungle (1927) and Cock o' the Walk (1930). She was married to Leo Bovette Toohey and Jean Schwartz (I). She died on 12 August 1987 in Newport Beach, California, USA.WAMPAS Baby Star 1926 Born 1901 - Died 1987 aged 85
- Edna Marion was born on 12 December 1906 in Chicago, Illinois, USA. She was an actress, known for The Still Alarm (1926), Readin', 'Ritin', 'Rithmetic (1926) and The Call of the Wilderness (1926). She was married to William E. Paxson and Herbert P. Naisbitt. She died on 2 December 1957 in Hollywood, California, USA.WAMPAS Baby Star 1926 Born 1906 - Died 1957 aged 50
- Actress
- Soundtrack
Cute-as-a-button, diminutive (5'2"), green-eyed brunette Sally O'Neil (sometimes billed as Sally O'Neill was a silent and early sound leading lady who maintained her leading status throughout her movie career. Born on October 23, 1908, in Bayonne, New Jersey, her father, Thomas Francis Patrick Noonan, was a judge and her mother, Hannah Kelly, a one-time singer with the Metropolitan Opera. One of 11 children, Sally's younger sister, who billed herself as Molly O'Day, became a well-known movie actress around the same time.
Sally was educated in a convent and started in vaudeville where she was billed as "Chotsie Noonan" (her real name was Virginia Louise Concepta Noonan). She started in silents at age 17 and found an early penchant for playing unassuming Pickford-like innocents in short films.
Sally moved quickly into starring roles with the lightweight feature film Don't (1925) opposite John Patrick that was billed as "a rip-roaring picture of rebellious youth!" in which she plays a Clara Bow-type party girl. She quickly found stardom with her second film, the dramedy Sally, Irene and Mary (1925) co-starring as flighty, naïve chorus girl Mary opposite the more worldly Constance Bennett and virtuous Joan Crawford. As a result of this success, she was named (as was sister Molly) a Wampas Baby Star in 1926.
The actress became a mildly popular MGM commodity (in both lead and second lead categories) in a number of films, including Mike (1926) opposite William Haines; the comedy The Auction Block (1926) starring Charles Ray and Eleanor Boardman in which she played a third wheel flirt; the action romancer Battling Butler (1926) opposite Buster Keaton; the sports comedy Slide, Kelly, Slide (1927) again opposite Haines; the title romantics in both Frisco Sally Levy (1927) and Becky (1927); and the dramedy The Callahans and the Murphys (1927) as the Callahan daughter of feisty Marie Dressler.
Elsewhere for other studios, Sally co-starred with her sister Molly in the silent romantic drama The Lovelorn (1927) as well as the dramatic features Mad Hour (1928) and Bachelor's Paradise (1928) and the romantic musical comedy Broadway Fever (1929).
Possessing a strong New Jersey accent and developing a severe case of stage fright did not help things come the advent of talking pictures. While Sally certainly maintained in pictures for nearly another decade, her star diminished and she never made it into the top tier. Such representative early sound films include another feature opposite sister Molly (Sisters (1930)) and the flashy title roles in Kathleen Mavourneen (1930) and The Brat (1931). She played a Broadway gold-digger in Ladies Must Love (1933); a vixen in the drama By Appointment Only (1933); a woman caught between two men in the adventure Sixteen Fathoms Deep (1934); and a female reporter in Too Tough to Kill (1935). Her last picture was a starring role as an Irish lass in the obscure British production Kathleen (1937).
Following this, Sally faded view, but turned to Broadway with "When We Are Married" (1939) and "The Old Foolishness" (1940). She also toured with the USO until the 1950s. Divorced from James Kenaston in 1952, Sally married businessman Stewart S. Battles a year later. They divorced in 1957, but would remarry. She died of pneumonia at the age of 59 on June 18, 1968.WAMPAS Baby Star 1926 Born 1908 - Died 1968 aged 59- Vera Reynolds was born on 25 November 1899 in Nebraska, USA. She was an actress, known for Golf Widows (1928), The Monster Walks (1932) and Silence (1926). She was married to Robert Ellis and Earl Montgomery. She died on 22 April 1962 in Los Angeles, California, USA.WAMPAS Baby Star 1926 Born 1899 - Died 1962 aged 62
- Actress
- Writer
- Camera and Electrical Department
Canadian-born Fay Wray was brought up in Los Angeles and entered films at an early age. She was barely in her teens when she started working as an extra. She began her career as a heroine in westerns at Universal during the silent era. In 1926 the Western Association of Motion Picture Advertisers selected 13 young starlets it deemed most likely to succeed in pictures. Fay was chosen as one of these starlets, along with Janet Gaynor and Mary Astor. Fame would indeed come to Fay when she played another heroine in Erich von Stroheim's The Wedding March (1928). She continued playing leads in a number of films, such as the good-bad girl in Thunderbolt (1929). By the early 1930s she was at Paramount working with Gary Cooper and Jack Holt in a number of average films, such as Master of Men (1933). She also appeared in such horror films as Doctor X (1932) and The Vampire Bat (1933). In 1933 Fay was approached by producer Merian C. Cooper, who told her that he had a part for her in a picture in which she would be working with a tall, dark leading man. What he didn't tell her was that her "tall, dark leading man" was a giant gorilla, and the picture turned out to be the classic King Kong (1933). Perhaps no one in the history of pictures could scream more dramatically than Fay, and she really put on a show in "Kong". Her character provided a combination of sex appeal, vulnerability and lung capacity as she was stalked by the giant beast all the way to the top of the Empire State Building. That was as far as Fay would rise, however, as this was, after all, just another horror movie. After "Kong", she began a slow decline that put her into low-budget action films by the mid '30s. In 1939 her 11-year marriage to screenwriter John Monk Saunders ended in divorce, and her career was almost finished. In 1942 she remarried and retired from the screen, forever to be remembered as the "beauty who killed the beast" in "King Kong". However, in 1953 she made a comeback, playing mature character roles, and also appeared on television as Catherine, Natalie Wood's mother, in The Pride of the Family (1953). She continued to appear in films until 1958 and television into the 1960s.WAMPAS Baby Star 1926 Born 1907 - Died 2004 aged 96
Of all the WAMPAS Baby Stars, only thirteen were born outside the USA. Fay Wray was born in Canada.- Patricia Avery was born on 19 November 1902 in Boston, Massachusetts, USA. She was an actress, known for Annie Laurie (1927), Night Life (1927) and A Light in the Window (1927). She was married to Merrill Pye. She died on 21 August 1973 in La Crescenta, California, USA.WAMPAS Baby Star 1927 Born 1902 - Died 1973 aged 70
- Rita Carewe was born Violette Fox on September 9, 1909 in New York City. Her father was Native American director Edwin Carewe. The family moved to Hollywood in 1914 after he was hired by United Artists. When Rita was a teenager her father helped her get contract at First National. She made her film debut in the 1925 silent comedy Joanna. Then she appeared in High Steppers and Resurrection which were both directed by her father. Rita became known for polishing her legs to give the impression she was wearing silk stockings. In 1927 she was chosen to be a WAMPAS Baby Star along with Sally Rand and Adamae Vaughn. The beautiful blonde auditioned for the role of Lorelei Lee in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes but Ruth Taylor got the part.
Rita was briefly engaged to Tom McDonald, a real estate dealer. The couple never made it down the aisle. She married actor LeRoy Mason in 1928. Unfortunately her career never took off. Her final film was the 1930 comedy Radio Kisses with Marjorie Beebe. She divorced LeRoy in 1936 claiming he drank too much and had threatened her with a gun. They never had children, With her acting days behind her she started working as a saleswoman in a dress shop. Sadly in 1954 she was diagnosed with mouth cancer. On October 22, 1955 she died from the disease. Rita was only forty-six years old. She was cremated and buried in an unmarked grave at Angelus Rosedale Cemetery in Los Angeles, California.WAMPAS Baby Star 1927 Born 1909 - Died 1955 aged 46 - Actress
- Soundtrack
Some of Helene Costello's films available on video are Her Crowning Glory (1911), Lulu's Doctor (1912) and Lights of New York (1928), the first all-talking feature. She worked for a time as a reader for 20th Century Fox in the early 1940s. Miss Costello died on January 26, 1957, in California's Patton State Hospital. She left behind a daughter Deirdre by her fourth husband. Deirdre now resides in Winston Salem, NCWAMPAS Baby Star 1927 Born 1906 - Died 1957 aged 50
Only sisters to be WAMPAS Baby Stars were Delores and Helene Costello- A pretty, diminutive (4'11") actress of the silent and early sound era, Barbara Cloutman (later Kent) was born in Gadsby, Alberta, Canada on December 16, 1907. Upon graduating from Hollywood High School in 1925, Kent won the Miss Hollywood Pageant, and set her sights on a career in the movies. She was 18 when Universal Studios signed her; she made her film debut in the western Prowlers of the Night (1926). That same year, Kent established herself with the classic romantic melodrama Flesh and the Devil (1926), in which she played the rival to femme fatale Greta Garbo's affections for John Gilbert. She was loaned to MGM for that movie. Kent was selected as one of the WAMPAS Baby Stars of 1927 as a result of the popularity of her film No Man's Law (1927), in which she had a nude scene.
Kent subsequently appeared opposite Richard Barthelmess in The Drop Kick (1927) and had a starring role in another silent classic, Lonesome (1928), before smoothly making the transition to talkies. She played Harold Lloyd's love interest in his first two sound movies, Welcome Danger (1929) and Feet First (1930). Kent had supporting parts opposite Gloria Swanson in Indiscreet (1931) and Marie Dressler in Emma (1932), as well as playing the role of the aunt in Oliver Twist (1933) (notable since the character is often omitted from dramatizations of the novel).
In 1933, Kent took a year-long hiatus from acting so that her new husband, talent agent Harry E. Edington, could groom her for what he intended to be a high-profile return. Unfortunately, Kent's popularity had declined by the time she did return. She made three more films between 1935 and 1941, before retiring from the screen.
Edington died in 1949, and Kent remarried in 1954, to Jack Monroe, an engineer. They settled in Palm Desert, California, where Kent remained after Monroe's death. Her retirement was long and peaceful; she passed away on October 13, 2011 at the age of 103.WAMPAS Baby Star 1927 Born 1907 - Died 2011 aged 103
Of all the WAMPAS Baby Stars, only thirteen were born outside the USA. Barbara Kent was born in Canada.
Longest lived of all the WAMPAS Baby Stars - She traced her lineage back to the first Spanish governor of California. Her great-grandfather on her mother's side was Hungarian-born Agoston Haraszthy, dubbed the father of Californian viticulture. Leggy, olive-complexioned Natalia Ringstrom grew up and was educated in the San Francisco Bay area. Little is known of her early years, except that she was trained in traditional Spanish dance (including La Jota, the folk dance of Aragon), and, while still in her early teens, travelled the short distance to San Francisco to perform in cabaret. She was spotted there as a blossoming talent by the renowned ballroom dancers Fanchon and Marco, eventually joining their revue on tour. Next stop: Broadway. Now billed as Natalie Kingston, she was featured as one of the chorines of the 1920 "Brevities" at the Winter Garden Theatre. There was to be no career on the stage, however, since Natalie returned to California, soon to becoming a Mack Sennett Bathing Beauty.
Natalie joined Sennett's Keystone 'Fun Factory' sometime in 1923. Over the next three years, the soulful-eyed brunette worked her way steadily up the cast list, from ornamental bit parts and walk-ons to fifth billing(Romeo and Juliet (1924)); fourth (Wall Street Blues (1924)); third (Galloping Bungalows (1924)); to finally co-starring with comic greats Harry Langdon, Billy Bevan and Ben Turpin in a series of classic two-reel farces, including Remember When? (1925) and His First Flame (1927) (as a gold digger). When Natalie eventually left Sennett for Paramount, she had every intention of finding 'serious' dramatic work. Instead, the studio continued to use her as a bankable comedy asset in three back-to-back six-reel features: Wet Paint (1926), Miss Brewster's Millions (1926) and The Cat's Pajamas (1926), all palpable box-office hits. In between flappers and 'nice girls', Natalie also had a turn as a vamp in Eddie Cantor's Kid Boots (1926). Her first dramatic role finally arrived as second lead in Ronald Colman's The Night of Love (1927). By this time, her status had grown by virtue of being selected a WAMPAS Baby Star by the Western Association of Motion Picture Advertisers (an event for actresses deemed to have potential, usually accompanied by substantial media coverage). Now under contract at First National, Natalie was given full star billing for her role as a Russian sculptress in the military burlesque Lost at the Front (1927).
The following year, she came to the fore as girl castaway Mary Trevor in Tarzan the Mighty (1928). The film generated sufficient revenue for Universal to warrant an immediate sequel, Tarzan the Tiger (1929), in which Natalie continued on as the heroine (albeit now as the screen's fifth 'Jane'). From then, it was pretty much all downhill. With the advent of talking pictures, Natalie became one of many silent stars and starlets who, for one reason or another, failed to make the transition. There were a few supporting roles in B-graders with prophetic titles like Forgotten (1933). Her final credited effort was an incongruously cast romantic comedy, His Private Secretary (1933), starring a very young John Wayne. After that, Miss Kingston faded from the scene and back into obscurity.WAMPAS Baby Star 1927 Born 1905 - Died 1991 aged 85 - Frances Lee was born on 5 May 1906 in Eagle Grove, Iowa, USA. She was an actress, known for Her Splendid Folly (1933), Divorce Made Easy (1929) and The Carnation Kid (1929). She died on 10 October 1999 in Cardiff-by-the Sea, California, USA.WAMPAS Baby Star 1927 Born 1906 - Died 2000 aged 94
- Mary McAllister was born on 27 May 1909 in Los Angeles, California, USA. She was an actress, known for On Trial (1917), The Devil's Skipper (1928) and The Midnight Watch (1927). She died on 1 May 1991 in Del Mar, California, USA.WAMPAS Baby Star 1927 Born 1909 - Died 1991 aged 81
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Gladys McConnell was born on 22 October 1905 in Oklahoma City, Indian Territory, USA [now Oklahoma, USA]. She was an actress, known for The Glorious Trail (1928), The Tiger's Shadow (1928) and The Fire Detective (1929). She was married to A. Ronald Button and Arthur Q. Hagerman. She died on 4 March 1979 in Fullerton, California, USA.WAMPAS Baby Star 1927 Born 1905 - Died 1979 aged 73- Sally Phipps was born on 25 May 1911 in Oakland, California, USA. She was an actress, known for Why Sailors Go Wrong (1928), Bertha, the Sewing Machine Girl (1926) and Joy Street (1929). She was married to Alfred Marion Harned and Benedict Gimbel Jr. She died on 17 March 1978 in Brooklyn, New York, USA.WAMPAS Baby Star 1927 Born 1909 - Died 1978 aged 68
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She's considered an American icon in the world of entertainment although most contemporaries have no idea who she is until her legendary risqué "fan dance" is brought up. Then they put two and two together. Burlesque star Sally Rand was born in the Ozark region (Missouri) in 1904, her father a corporal in the Spanish-American War and her mother a Pennsylvania Dutch Quaker.
Inspired by the legendary ballerina Anna Pavlova, Sally became interested in dance at a young age and left home to join a carnival as a teen. She invariably became a cigarette girl, chorine, café dancer, artist's model and circus performer (Ringling) through a series of introductions. She subsequently joined a repertory theater company and took acting seriously for the first time. During the 20s she appeared in a number of stage shows. Films came her way as she was able to score work (due to her agile background in the circus) from Mack Sennett and Hal Roach in a few of their daredevil slapstick shorts. A Wampas Baby Star of 1927, she joined mentor Cecil B. DeMille's stock company and entered feature films with a new name that DeMille gave her -"Sally Rand."
She decorated a number of silents, including westerns with Hoot Gibson and others, but a pronounced lisp hurt her career come the advent of sound. It was at this juncture that the shapely dame decided to work on incorporating her talent for dancing back into her career. With the right mixture of enticement, imagination and intricate feathery placement, Sally Rand came upon her secret formula to success. As an exotic burlesque performer, she not only winningly ignited male libidos but found a steady gig for the rest of her days. A long-standing job at the Paramount Club in 1932 is where the idea of her "fan dance" was created. Her "Lady Godiva" stunt at the Chicago's World's Fair had her arrested on lewd charges but she was eventually released. All the brouhaha just increased her notoriety. She later created the "bubble dance" in which she did a taunting dance with a huge five foot specially constructed translucent bubble to the delight of male audiences.
In the 1930s she also appeared in legit plays including a stint as Sadie Thompson in "Rain" in 1935 opposite Humphrey Bogart. She would appear in later years at various revues, expositions and fairs still teasing and playing "hide and peek" with the guys, her act seldom straying from its original concept. She was arrested a few more times than she was married (at least three husbands can be credited to her marriage account). She continued to appear on stage doing her fan dance past age 60 and once replaced an ailing burlesque star Ann Corio in the stage show "This Was Burlesque" in the 1960s. She also shared the stage with burlesque topliners Tempest Storm and Blaze Starr. Sally's final appearance took place in Kansas City in 1978 and she died the following year.WAMPAS Baby Star 1927 Born 1904 - Died 1979 aged 75- Actress
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On stage from the age of seven, Martha Sleeper began on screen in her early teens as a comic actress for Hal Roach. After her successful debut in the independently produced farce The Mailman (1923), she found herself cast in a series of child comedies with Buddy Messinger and a brace of one- and two-reel shorts opposite Charley Chase with titles like All Wet (1924) and Crazy Like a Fox (1926). Being voted a WAMPAS Baby Star in 1927 was a further boon to her popularity. An attempt was made to turn her into an eccentric knockabout comedienne in the vein of Gale Henry, but this failed to come off. She was subsequently used in rather more subtle domestic farce, such as in Pass the Gravy (1928) , as Max Davidson's daughter, frenetically trying to communicate with him by mime. Her last role of note in silent comedy was as a rather perfunctory leading lady in Stan Laurel's last solo effort, Should Tall Men Marry? (1928).
Her contract with Roach was not renewed due to a fiscal downsizing of the company in 1928, so Martha moved over to FBO. This was a Poverty Row outfit that specialized in low-budget features--often westerns--for the Midwest market. No prints of the six films Martha made for FBO are believed to have survived. After 1930, she bounced around among the studios, appearing in supporting roles--often as the "other woman"--in melodramas for MGM, Paramount and RKO. At the same time, growing ever more restless in Hollywood, she sought work on the stage. In an interview, she asserted that she had been given "permission to take jobs in the theater in downtown Los Angeles. That's unheard of, a contract player wanting to have time for stage work" (NY Times, April 7,1983).
In 1936, Martha and her actor-husband Hardie Albright left the West Coast for New York to begin a ten-year run on- and off-Broadway. At the same time she developed a lucrative sideline of designing idiosyncratic costume jewelry, mostly made from bakelite, wood and metal. This blossomed into a respectable $300,000-a-year business and earned Martha the sobriquet of "The Gadget Girl". Her varied creations--including tarantula brooches, necklaces of sun-drenched strawberries and collars of champagne bubbles and swizzle sticks--were hugely popular with the general public, the jet set and film stars like Dolores Del Río and Fay Wray.
In 1949, Martha settled on the island of Puerto Rico, sold her possessions in New York and reinvented herself yet again, as proprietor of a boutique in San Juan, designing and manufacturing fashionable women's clothes. She remained on the island until her retirement in 1969, spending her remaining years on her second husband's plantation near Charleston in South Carolina.WAMPAS Baby Star 1927 Born 1907 - Died 1983 aged 75- Iris Stuart was born Frances McCann on February 2, 1903 in Brooklyn, New York. Her parents, Thomas and Mary McCann, had both been born in Ireland. After graduating from high school Iris briefly attended secretarial college. The beautiful brunette dropped out to become an artist's model. Soon she started appearing in advertisements and on magazines covers. Iris became known as "the girl with a million faces". In an interview she said "To be a model is pleasant enough but it isn't any good for a girl who is ambitious" B.P. Schulberg offered her a film contract at Paramount in 1926. She made her film debut in the drama Stranded In Paris.
Then she appeared in Children Of Divorce with Clara Bow. Iris was chosen to be one of the 1927 WAMPAS Baby Stars along with Helen Costello and Sally Rand. Unfortunately in the Spring of 1927 she came down with tuberculosis and had to be hospitalized. She wanted to continue acting but her health was too fragile. Her final film was the comedy Wedding Bills. Iris married publisher Bert MacKinnon on January 3, 1928. The couple lived a quiet life in Mt. Vernon, New York. Tragically in 1936 her tuberculosis returned. She passed away on December 21, 1936 at the young age of thirty-three. Iris was buried at Gate of Heaven Cemetery Hawthorne, New York.WAMPAS Baby Star 1927 Born 1903 - Died 1936 aged 33 - Actress
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Adamae Vaughn was born on November 8, 1905 in Ashland, Kentucky. Her older sister Alberta had been born in 1904. After their parents divorced their mother remarried and the family moved to California. Both sisters decided to pursue show business careers. Adamae made her film debut in the 1921 comedy short Stop Kidding. Then she had a role in the drama The Courtship Of Myles Standish (she was sometimes billed as Ada Mae Vaugn). FBO signed her to a long term contract in 1926 and she was cast as Tom Tyler's leading lady in The Arizona Streak. She married Albert Hindman, a contractor, in May of 1926. They were divorced a year later with Adamae claiming he drank too much and abused her. The couple reconciled in 1927 but they broke up soon after. She was chosen to be one of the 1927 WAMPAS baby stars. The beautiful blonde was so excited that she fainted at the ceremony.
Unhappy with the way her nose looked she decided to have plastic surgery. On June 17, 1934 she married her longtime boyfriend, automobile executive Val D'Auvray. The couple had been engaged for more than five years. While her sister Alberta Vaughn had became a successful actress Adamae's career never took off. Her final role was a bit part in the 1936 Carole Lombard film Love Before Breakfast. For a while she worked as a stand-in for actress Gertrude Michael. She divorced her husband and moved in with her mother, Martha, in Studio City. In April of 1937 she underwent abdominal surgery which left her with multiple adhesion's. This eventually caused an intestinal blockage and she was hospitalized in 1943. Tragically on September 11, 1943 she died at the young age of thirty-seven. Adamae was buried at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale, California.WAMPAS Baby Star 1927 Born 1905 - Died 1943 aged 37- Journalist Adela Rogers St. Johns once dubbed Lina Basquette "The Screen Tragedy Girl." In retrospect, Lina's private life bore a similar description. While six of her eight marriages ended up "I Don'ts" (she was widowed twice), she would also have to contend with a flurry of legal confrontations, stormy affairs and suicide attempts. Once she gave a fond farewell to her entertainment career in the late 1930s, her life literally went to the dogs.
The full-faced, raven-haired California-born actress was christened Lena Baskette, the daughter of Frank Baskette, a drug store owner. Lina trained in dance while very young and at the San Francisco World's Fair of 1915, the eight-year-old was featured as a baby ballerina for the Victor Talking Machine Company's exhibition. Movie maker Carl Laemmle saw her perform and signed her to a long-term contract with his Universal Pictures company at $50 a week. Lina headlined her very own short programs, the "Lena Baskette Featurettes," between 1916-1917, and also garnered young leads in a number of full-length features including What Love Can Do (1916), Shoes (1916), A Prince for a Day (1917), The Weaker Vessel (1919) and, more notably, Penrod (1922).
In 1916, Lena's father died and mother Gladys remarried. Gladys and her new husband, dance director Ernest Belcher, had a daughter together who became Lena's half-sister and future dancing star Marge Champion. Lena's mother was an avid stage mother and eventually, with Belcher's help, managed to prod Lena into the Ziegfeld Follies of 1923. She stayed with the Follies for a couple of years. Billed third as "America's Prima Ballerina," Lena's marquee name was changed to the more exotic spelling of "Lina Basquette." Her act was caught by the legendary Russian ballerina Anna Pavlova, who offered to take on Lina as her protégée. Lina's mother nixed the offer, wishing to make bigger bucks for her daughter with the Follies and other shows, Texas Guinan's notorious speakeasies notwithstanding.
At age 18, Lina married 38-year-old Warner Bros. mogul Sam Warner. Lina greatly influenced Warner to pursue sound pictures and even encouraged him to star Al Jolson in The Jazz Singer (1927). Sam died unexpectedly at age 40 of a brain hemorrhage the night before the film's premiere. This heartbreak jump-started an avalanche of problems for Lina. She not only became embroiled in a series of legal battles with her in-laws over her husband's estate, she lost custody of her daughter Lita in the process. She would not see her daughter for another 30 years. This crisis led to Lina's first attempt at suicide.
Lina valiantly returned to films and made such silents as Ranger of the North (1927), The Noose (1928) and Wheel of Chance (1928), while scoring two noteworthy roles in Frank Capra's The Younger Generation (1929) and Cecil B. DeMille's The Godless Girl (1928). In the latter she played an avowed atheist. This powerful film should have made Lina a sultry star had it not been released as a silent film right at the advent of talkies.
Within a very short time Lina married twice more -- a quickie union to cameraman J. Peverell Marley, and in 1931 the widow (once again) of third husband, actor Ray Hallam, who suddenly died at the age of 26 after only a few months of wedded bliss. Lina subsequently started up a highly publicized affair with famed boxer Jack Dempsey. Their stormy breakup led to her second suicide try and a rebound marriage to his personal trainer Theodore Hayes in December of 1931. This fourth marriage was not valid as it was discovered that Hayes was already married. The couple remarried in 1933 and had a son, Edward Alvin, in 1934 before divorcing the following year.
At this juncture Lina's private life received more interest from the public than her films. Her career had down-sized to "B" westerns opposite such stars as Buck Jones and Hoot Gibson and a few mellers here and there. After touring the stages of Australia, New Zealand and various South African cities in the plays "Private Lives," "Black Limelight" and "Idiot's Delight" in 1938 and 1939, and after appearing in the films Rose of the Rio Grande (1938), Four Men and a Prayer (1938) and A Night for Crime (1943), she called it quits.
Misfortune, however, continued to follow her. In August of 1943 she brought up assault and rape charges against a 22-year-old Army GI. The soldier was found guilty and sentenced to 20 years in the brig. Completely retired, she found emotional solace with her new post-war profession -- the breeding and handling of Great Danes. In 1949, she became the owner of Honey Hollow Kennels, a 25 acre estate in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. There she bred and raised champion dogs for best-in-shows and also became a respected judge. More marriages came and fell by the wasteside and at least one of her later unions lost out to an either/or ultimatum with her Great Danes. Lina also wrote the non-fiction book "Your Great Dane" in 1972. She moved to Wheeling, West Virginia, in 1975 and lived there until her death of lymphoma at age 87 on September 30, 1994.
Out of nowhere, the octogenarian grandmother had one last chance to bask in the limelight when she was touchingly cast as Nada in Daniel Boyd's independent feature Paradise Park (1992) playing an Appalachian trailer park granny who dreams that God is coming and granting a wish on all its residents. The film also featured country music stars Porter Wagoner and Johnny PayCheck. Boyd had met the actress at a West Virginia film festival.WAMPAS Baby Star 1928 - Jane (Flora) Bramley was born in Ashford Kent, England to Thomas, a professional classical musician, and Ethel Pridmore Bramley. After appearing on stage in musical revues, Flora visited America with her family where she and her sister Alma attempted to start careers in Hollywood. Her paternal aunt (Ann) was married to I.C. Freud, a business associate of studio executive Joseph M. Schenck. Her first film (for Film Booking Offices of America), The Dude Cowboy (1926) was followed by three more films, all for United Artists. Harry Brand, general manager of the Buster Keaton studios, arranged for her appearance in Buster Keaton's College (1927). She appeared onstage at the Empire Theatre for the 1927 production, Interference.
In 1928, she was selected to be a WAMPAS Baby Star (sometimes miscredited as Flora Bromley), selling more tickets and boxes to the Wampas Frolic than any other candidate. That year, her third film, We Americans (1928) was released. In late 1929, she appeared on stage at the Fulton in Oakland, California on 1 December 1929, as Laurel in Stella Dallas. After appearing in The Flirting Widow (1930,) Flora returned to England and continued her acting career in London. She married William Hartman-Cee in London in 1947, and sometime during the 1960s she and her husband moved to Moline, Illinois near her sister Norgie. Her husband died in 1982, and she was an avid gardener in her later life. She died at the Trinity Medical Center in Moline on Wednesday, June 23, 1993.WAMPAS Baby Star 1928 Born 1904 - Died 1993 aged 88
Of all the WAMPAS Baby Stars, only thirteen were born outside the USA. Flora Bramley was born in England. - Actress
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Sue Carol was born Evelyn Jeannette Lederer on October 30, 1906 in Chicago, Illinois to Caroline (Schmidt) and Samuel Lederer. Her parents were Jewish immigrants from Bohemia and Germany. She was 20 years old when she entered film work. Her first role was a bit part in Soft Cushions (1927) in 1927. Directors liked the way she took instruction and gave her a more substantial part later that year in Slaves of Beauty (1927). While she didn't land the roles her contemporaries did, Sue was a very competent actress. She was married to actor Alan Ladd. Actor/producer David Ladd is one of her children, and actress Jordan Ladd is one of her grandchildren. Sue died in Los Angles, California on February 4, 1982.WAMPAS Baby Star 1928 Born 1906 - Died 1982 aged 75- Actress
Tiny, blue-eyed Ann Christy started in films with a bit part in Long Pants (1927) with Harry Langdon. She was then signed by one of the three major producers of silent comedy, Al Christie, to appear in a series of short comedies filmed at Paramount. It was there that she was spotted by Harold Lloyd, who saw in her the perfect down-to-earth New York girl he needed as co-star for his next film, Speedy (1928). This gag-laden comedy was filmed on location in New York and was popular with the public and critics alike. That same year she was selected as a WAMPAS baby star, but the promise of stardom was never fulfilled. Upon her return from New York, only minor roles in minor films came her way. She appeared in The Water Hole (1928), a Zane Grey western, and then ended up in a film for Chesterfield Pictures--a "Poverty Row" outfit--and Mack Sennett short comedies. Her career over before it had really begun, Ann Christy retired from film acting in 1932.WAMPAS Baby Star 1928 Born 1905 - Died 1987 aged 82- Actress
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June Collyer was born Dorothea Heermance in New York City on August 19, 1906. She began her career in the film East Side, West Side (1927). After making the successful change to the sound era, June continued to work, something some of her counterparts couldn't do. She appeared on the silver screen until her last meaningful film, A Face in the Fog (1936). From 1950 to 1955, June appeared on the television series The Stu Erwin Show (1950).WAMPAS Baby Star 1928 Born 1904 - Died 1968 aged 63- Actress
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Alice Day began her film career as a Mack Sennett Bathing Beauty in her mid-teens, and by age 18 was starring in features. Her younger sister, Marceline Day, was also an actress, but Alice never managed to eclipse her sister's career. She was soon working mainly in B pictures and shorts, and managed to stay steadily employed at various studios until 1932 when she retired after Gold (1932).WAMPAS Baby Star 1928 Born 1905 - Died 1995 aged 89- Actress
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Sally Eilers enjoyed lunch with a classmate from drama school, Jane Peters (who would later become known as Carole Lombard), at the Sennett Studios cafeteria. There she was spotted by Mack Sennett and instantly became one of his "discoveries". Having already appeared in several bit parts, beginning with The Red Mill (1927) in 1927, she was offered a role in The Good-Bye Kiss (1928), a rare dramatic feature for the studio. Either Sennett or Florenz Ziegfeld Jr. (depending on which version of the story is to be believed) tagged Sally with the publicity line "the most beautiful girl in movies".
The vivacious former brunette (quickly transformed by Hollywood into a blonde) spent her apprenticeship as a leading actress co-starring in westerns with her future husband Hoot Gibson and with Buster Keaton in Doughboys (1930). In 1931 director Frank Borzage cast her (instead of established star Janet Gaynor) in the depression-era film Bad Girl (1931). What could have been maudlin melodrama was enlivened by excellent direction and some snappy dialogue (winning Academy Awards for both direction and screenplay) and elicited from Sally in the title role (as "Dot Haley") the best performance of her career. There were to be other films of note: Reducing (1931) with Marie Dressler, the original State Fair (1933) with Will Rogers (with Sally playing a "carny") and Sailor's Luck (1933), with her Bad Girl (1931) co-star James Dunn, in which a reviewer described her performance as "highly satisfactory".
Alas, most of her subsequent parts were in lesser features and she never made the grade as a top star. Sally continued to act in films, eventually reduced to supporting roles, until the late 1940s. She was married four times.WAMPAS Baby Star 1928 Born 1908 - Died 1978 aged 69- Audrey Ferris was born on 30 August 1909 in Detroit, Michigan, USA. She was an actress, known for Fancy Baggage (1929), The Little Wildcat (1928) and Beware of Bachelors (1928). She was married to Archie Huntington (Archer H. Saki). She died on 3 May 1990 in Los Angeles, California, USA.WAMPAS Baby Star 1928 Born 1909 - Died 1990 aged 80
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As an avid movie fan, Dorothy got her chance to go to Hollywood when she won a Salt Lake City beauty contest sponsored by Universal Pictures. Signed by Universal after her successful screen test, Dorothy became one of the many contract actors working in small bit parts. She became well known due to her roles in series and serial movies from 'College Love (1929)' to 'The Last Frontier (1932)'. Dorothy appeared in a number of low budget Westerns such as 'In Old Cheyenne (1931)' and 'The Fighting Marshal (1932)'. Over the years that she appeared in Westerns, she worked with actors such as Jack Hoxie, Hoot Gibson, Wild Bill Elliott and John Wayne. By 1933, Dorothy found that her roles had become so small that in the film 'King Kong (1933)', she would be credited as "Girl". For the rest of the decade, she appeared in but a handful of films which were mostly 'B' movie Westerns. After that, she left films.WAMPAS Baby Star 1928 Born 1908 - Died 1997 aged 88- She was one of the archetypal flappers of the Jazz Age. Blonde, blue-eyed and impeccably coiffured, we recall Gwen Lee as tall, blonde flibbertigibbets and gold-digging vamps in films of the late 1920s and early '30s. Gwen was born in Nebraska and attended school in Omaha. Having suitably shortened her name from 'Gwendolyn LePinski' to 'Gwen Lee', she began her career as a department store model. An early foray to the stage as a dancer then led to her 'discovery' by the director Monta Bell and a contract with MGM in 1925. Gwen was named a WAMPAS baby star in 1928 and was duly rewarded with starring or co-starring roles in pictures like Lucky Boy (1929), A Lady of Chance (1928) and The Actress (1928). Once it became apparent that silent pictures were on the way out she began to ardently take voice lessons. Her time in the limelight turned out to be rather brief, alas. Her career and public image took a substantial hit when the synchronization of an early talkie, Untamed (1929), went badly awry: during a dancing sequence with Robert Montgomery, poor Gwen could be heard mouthing the dialogue of her partner (and vice versa) -- no doubt to the great amusement of the audience. Not long after, her dizzy screen personae apparently carried over into real life, as she was twice sued by department stores for non-payment of goods. In 1931, she was also taken to court by her mother who claimed guardianship, charging that her daughter was 'incompetent to handle her affairs'. Inevitably, Gwen's movie roles declined both and quality and in quantity. Down to bit parts, her career came to a swift end in 1938 after appearing in a bottom-of-the-bill potboiler at one of the Poverty Row outfits. After that, she faded from the scene. Gwen died in Reno, Nevada, in 1961, almost forgotten, at the age of 56.WAMPAS Baby Star 1928 Born 1904 - Died 1961 aged 56
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Molly O'Day was born on 16 October 1911 in Bayonne, New Jersey, USA. She was an actress, known for The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come (1928), The Patent Leather Kid (1927) and Bars of Hate (1935). She was married to James Kenaston and Jack Durant. She died on 22 October 1998 in Avila Beach, California, USA.WAMPAS Baby Star 1928 Born 1911 - Died 1998 aged 87- Ruth Alice Taylor was born on January 13, 1905 (some sources say 1908) in Grand Rapids, Michigan. When she was a child her family moved to Oregon. At the age of nineteen Ruth went to Hollywood and started her career as an extra at Universal Studios. In 1925 she signed a two year contract with Mack Sennett and became one of his bathing beauties. With her perky smile and blonde spit curls Ruth quickly became one of Sennett's most popular actresses. She had supporting roles in several comedies including A Yankee Doodle Duke and The Pride Of Pikeville. Ruth was nicknamed "The Little Girl With A Big Personality".
In 1928 she beat out dozens of other actresses for the role of Lorelei Lee in the film version of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. That same year she was named one of the WAMPAS Baby Stars. Ruth was offered a contract at Paramount and starred in the comedy The College Coquette. In 1930 she married stockbroker Paul Steinberg Zuckerman and had a son. She decided to quit making movies and became a housewife. Her final acting role was in the comedy short Scrappily Married. Ruth and Paul lived in Palm Springs and were happily married until his death in 1965. Their son, Buck Henry, became a successful screenwriter. Ruth died on April 12, 1984 at the age of seventy-nine. She is buried at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Hollywood Hills, California.WAMPAS Baby Star 1928 Born 1908 - Died 1984 aged 76 - Actress
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Lupe Velez was born on July 18, 1908, in San Luis Potosi, Mexico, as Maria Guadalupe Villalobos Velez. She was sent to Texas at the age of 13 to live in a convent. She later admitted that she wasn't much of a student because she was so rambunctious. She had planned to become a champion roller skater, but that would change. Life was hard for her family, and Lupe returned to Mexico to help them out financially. She worked as a salesgirl for a department store for the princely sum of $4 a week. Every week she would turn most of her salary over to her mother, but she kept a little for herself so she could take dancing lessons. With her mature shape and grand personality, she thought she could make a try at show business, which she figured was a lot more glamorous than dancing or working as a salesclerk. In 1924 Lupe started her show business career on the Mexican stage and wowed audiences with her natural beauty and talent. By 1927 she had emigrated to Hollywood, where she was discovered by Hal Roach, who cast her in a comedy with Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy. Douglas Fairbanks then cast her in his feature film The Gaucho (1927) with himself and wife Mary Pickford. Lupe played dramatic roles for five years before she switched to comedy. In 1933 she played the lead role of Pepper in Hot Pepper (1933). This film showcased her comedic talents and helped her to show the world her vital personality. She was delightful. In 1934 Lupe appeared in three fine comedies: Strictly Dynamite (1934), Palooka (1934) and Laughing Boy (1934). By now her popularity was such that a series of "Mexican Spitfire" films were written around her. She portrayed Carmelita Lindsay in Mexican Spitfire (1939), Mexican Spitfire Out West (1940), The Mexican Spitfire's Baby (1941) and Mexican Spitfire's Blessed Event (1943), among others. Audiences loved her in these madcap adventures, but it seemed at times that she was better known for her stormy love affairs. She married one of her lovers, Johnny Weissmuller, but the marriage only lasted five years and was filled with battles. Lupe certainly did live up to her nickname. She had a failed romance with Gary Cooper, who never wanted to wed her. By 1943 her career was waning. She went to Mexico in the hopes of jump-starting her career. She gained her best reviews yet in the Mexican version of Naná (1944). Bolstered by the success of that movie, Lupe returned to the US, where she starred in her final film as Pepita Zorita, Ladies' Day (1943). There were to be no others. On December 13, 1944, tired of yet another failed romance, with a part-time actor named Harald Maresch, and pregnant with his child, Lupe committed suicide with an overdose of Seconal. She was only 36 years old.WAMPAS Baby Star 1928 Born 1908 - Died 1944 aged 36
Of all the WAMPAS Baby Stars, only thirteen were born outside the USA. Lupe Velez was born in Mexico.- Actress
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This marvelous screen comedienne's best asset was only muffled during her seven years' stint in silent films. That asset? It was, of course, her squeaky, frog-like voice, which silent-era cinema audiences had simply no way of perceiving, much less appreciating. Jean Arthur, born Gladys Georgianna Greene in upstate New York, 20 miles south of the Canadian border, has had her year of birth cited variously as 1900, 1905 and 1908. Her place of birth has often been cited as New York City! (Herein we shall rely for those particulars on Miss Arthur's obituary as given in the authoritative and reliable New York Times. The date and place indicated above shall be deemed correct.) Following her screen debut in a bit part in John Ford's Cameo Kirby (1923), she spent several years playing unremarkable roles as ingénue or leading lady in comedy shorts and cheapie westerns. With the arrival of sound she was able to appear in films whose quality was but slightly improved over that of her past silents. She had to contend, for example, with the consummately evil likes of Dr. Fu Manchu (played by future "Charlie Chan" Warner Oland). Her career bloomed with her appearance in Ford's The Whole Town's Talking (1935), in which she played opposite Edward G. Robinson, the latter in a dual role as a notorious gangster and his lookalike, a befuddled, well-meaning clerk. Here is where her wholesomeness and flair for farcical comedy began making themselves plain. The turning point in her career came when she was chosen by Frank Capra to star with Gary Cooper in the classic social comedy Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (1936). Here she rescues the hero - thus herself becoming heroine! - from rapacious human vultures who are scheming to separate him from his wealth. In Capra's masterpiece Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939), she again rescues a besieged hero (James Stewart), protecting him from a band of manipulative and cynical politicians and their cronies and again she ends up as a heroine of sorts. For her performance in George Stevens' The More the Merrier (1943), in which she starred with Joel McCrea and Charles Coburn, she received a Best Actress Academy Award nomination, but the award went to Jennifer Jones in The Song of Bernadette (1943) (Coburn, incidentally, won for Best Supporting Actor). Her career began waning toward the end of the 1940s. She starred with Marlene Dietrich and John Lund in Billy Wilder's fluff about post-World War II Berlin, A Foreign Affair (1948). Thereafter, the actress would return to the screen but once, again for George Stevens but not in comedy. She starred with Alan Ladd and Van Heflin in Stevens' western Shane (1953), playing the wife of a besieged settler (Heflin) who accepts help from a nomadic gunman (Ladd) in the settler's effort to protect his farm. It was her silver-screen swansong. She would provide one more opportunity for a mass audience to appreciate her craft. In 1966 she starred as a witty and sophisticated lawyer, Patricia Marshall, a widow, in the TV series The Jean Arthur Show (1966). Her time was apparently past, however; the show ran for only 11 weeks.WAMPAS Baby Star 1929 Born 1900 - Died 1991 aged 90
Nominated for an Oscar in 1944- Actress
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Although this lovely, light brown-haired leading lady would wind up better known as one of Loretta Young's two elder acting sisters, Sally Blane nevertheless enjoyed a lively albeit modest "B" film career during the late 1920s and 1930s. The resemblance to her "A"-level sister was very strong -- the same graceful, elongated face and fawn-like, wide-set eyes. Unlike her younger sister, however, Sally lacked strong determination and ambition. Although she remained on the second or third Hollywood tier throughout her career, her film output was considerable if mostly routine.
Sally was born Elizabeth Jane Young in Salida, Colorado in 1910 while her mother was en route by train to the family home in Salt Lake City, Utah (the train actually had to make an unscheduled stop so that her mother could give birth). Her parents, Gladys and John, separated when she was five years old and her mother moved her four children to Hollywood where one of Gladys's sisters lived, later running a boarding house. All the children pitched in financially by becoming movie extras. Sally and her younger brother John R. Young (better known as Jack) both appeared uncredited in the silent film Sirens of the Sea (1917) starring Jack Mulhall, in which Sally played a sea nymph. Sally also had an unbilled part in Rudolph Valentino's smoldering classic The Sheik (1921).
Her beauty only heightened as she grew up. Director Wesley Ruggles noticed the teen dancing at the Café Montmartre (now known as Montmartre Lounge) and tested her for his "Collegian" film series. She was cast and soon signed by Paramount, which insisted on the new marquee name of Sally Blane. Around the same time, younger (by three years) sister Loretta (born Gretchen Young) signed with First National Pictures. During their early build-up both Sally and Loretta were dubbed "Wampas Baby Stars of 1929". Throughout this time their mother maintained a firm hand in the girls' personal and professional lives.
One of Sally's first leading roles was in the western Shootin' Irons (1927) and she went on to play a number of prairie flowers opposite Hollywood's top cowboys. She starred opposite Tom Mix in three pictures: Horseman of the Plains (1928), King Cowboy (1928), and Outlawed (1929). Her career peaked early, however, and Sally seemed content to freelance for such Poverty Row studios as Monogram, Excelsior, Chesterfield and Artclass in a variety of genres--crime thrillers, light comedies, mysteries, action adventures. She eventually developed a "nice girl" image.
A two-year lull occurred following the filming of Fox's This Is the Life (1935), and Sally never tried very hard to regain her momentum. Much of this had to do with her meeting of (in 1935) and marriage to (in 1937) director and one-time actor Norman Foster, who had once dated Loretta. Although Sally returned to films in 1937, she was already focused on her marriage and having a family. She and sisters Polly Ann Young and Georgiana Young, however, did make it a family affair at Loretta's insistence when they were given featured roles in Loretta's The Story of Alexander Graham Bell (1939). They all played, of course, Loretta's sisters and this was to be the only time all four girls ever appeared together. One of Sally's last pictures was in the whodunit Charlie Chan at Treasure Island (1939), directed by her husband. During WWII, the family, which now included a son and daughter, lived in Mexico where Foster was directing Spanish-language pictures. She appeared in one of them (La fuga (1944), with Ricardo Montalban). Later the family relocated to Beverly Hills and Sally officially ended her cinematic career with a small part in A Bullet for Joey (1955).
Comfortably retired for many decades, Foster died of cancer in 1976. Sally herself succumbed to the disease more than two decades later, on August 27, 1997. Cancer had claimed sister Polly just months earlier that same year. John R. Young also died in 1997, of undisclosed causes. Loretta would die of ovarian cancer in 2000. Sally was survived by her two children, Robert and Gretchen.WAMPAS Baby Star 1929 Born 1910 - Died 1997 aged 87- Betty Boyd was born on 11 May 1908 in Kansas City, Missouri, USA. She was an actress, known for Paradise Island (1930), A Royal Romance (1930) and Along Came Youth (1930). She was married to Mason Browne Olmstead and Charles Henry Over, Jr.. She died on 16 September 1971 in Los Angeles, California, USA.WAMPAS Baby Star 1929 Born 1908 - Died 1971 aged 63
- Ms. Clair, a natural happy extrovert, starred in silent comedies, Westerns, and serials. She was most popular in Westerns opposite cowboy stars such as Hoot Gibson although her career was less than a decade long. She made her Hollywood debut in a series of comedies called 'The Newlyweds and Their Baby', and her national reputation was boosted by two serials The Vanishing Rider (1928) and Queen of the Northwoods (1929). In 1929, Ms. Clair was named by the Western Association of Motion Picture Advertisers (or WAMPAS) as one of 13 Baby Stars, along with Helen Twelvetrees and Loretta Young. Unfortunately for her, her voice wasn't deemed to resonate well in talkies and her career was cut short.WAMPAS Baby Star 1929 Born 1904 - Died 1996 aged 91
- Doris Dawson was born on 16 April 1909 in Goldfield, Nevada, USA. She was an actress, known for The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come (1928), His Captive Woman (1929) and Broadway Scandals (1929). She was married to Robert Davis Levy. She died on 20 April 1986 in Coral Gables, Florida, USA.WAMPAS Baby Star 1929 Born 1909 - Died 1986 aged 77
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Convent-educated Mary Josephine Dunn got her start in the chorus line of 'Good Morning, Dearie' at the age of 15. She was briefly in the Ziegfeld Follies and, in 1924, had a walk-on in 'Dear Sir' on Broadway. Two years later, she was picked by a talent scout to join the Paramount acting school for hopeful young debutantes. A ravishing blue-eyed blonde, she made an impression in D.W. Griffith's The Sorrows of Satan (1926), Our Modern Maidens (1929) and had good reviews in the Ernst Lubitsch-directed operetta One Hour with You (1932) as Mademoiselle Martel. She had a rare co-starring role in Safety in Numbers (1930) alongside Carole Lombard, but third-billing was as good as it got for Josephine. By early 1933, she was reduced to playing vamps and mercenary wives and retired from the screen five years later, making sporadic appearances in summer stock during the 1940's.WAMPAS Baby Star 1929 Born 1906 - Died 1983 aged 76- Actress
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Helen Foster was born on 23 May 1906 in Independence, Kansas, USA. She was an actress, known for The Road to Ruin (1928), The Primrose Path (1931) and Is There Justice? (1931). She died on 25 December 1982 in Los Angeles, California, USA.WAMPAS Baby Star 1929 Born 1906 - Died 1982 aged 76- Doris Hill was born on 21 March 1905 in Roswell, New Mexico, USA. She was an actress, known for Men Are Like That (1930), Galloping Romeo (1933) and Code of Honor (1930). She was married to Monte Brice and George L. Derrick. She died on 3 March 1976 in Kingman, Arizona, USA.WAMPAS Baby Star 1929 Born 1905 - Died 1976 aged 70
- Caryl Lincoln was born on 16 November 1903 in Oakland, California, USA. She was an actress, known for The Lost Special (1932), Wolf Fangs (1927) and Charlie Chan's Courage (1934). She was married to Bert Stevens. She died on 20 February 1983 in Woodland Hills, Los Angeles, California, USA.WAMPAS Baby Star 1929 Born 1903 - Died 1983 aged 79