Forgotten 'Silent' Ladies of the Silver screen. - Page 2

**VintageKell** · December 24th, 2011, 06:33 PM

Dorothy Christy was an American actress. She acted with Will Rogers, Buster Keaton and the Marx Brothers and my personal selection of her high points with Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy in several movies, notably in the role of Mrs Laurel in the film 'Sons of the Desert' in 1933. She was also Queen Tika of Murania in 'The Phantom Empire', Gene Autry’s 1935 cliffhanger serial. She concluded her 106 film movie career in 1953, having successfully survived the transition to talkies.

Dorothy Christy died five days shy of her seventy-seventh birthday in 1977 of natural causes.

Pictures:

NB: I have a particular softspot for the ladies of the serial shorts such as Carol Forman.... they were on when I saw my first movies (times were different), and made the biggest impression on a young lad!!

**VintageKell** · December 25th, 2011, 09:28 PM

Kathryn Adams (b. Ethalinda Colson) was an American silent film actress. She entered films in 1915 after a brief and rather unsuccessful stint in musical comedy. After a number of successful leading roles, she drifted into supporting roles in the 1920's, and except for a brief appearance in the 1931 version of 'The Squaw Man', Adams disappeared from films after 1925, in all she had made 46 films.

On February 17, 1959, Adams died of a myocardial infarction in her Hollywood home, and is buried at Calvary Cemetery, Los Angeles.

Trivia:

Height - 5' 7" (1.70 m)
In the film 'Raffles, the Amateur Cracksman' in which she featured in 1917 - There are scenes filmed at the Staten Island Cricket Club.

Pictures:

**VintageKell** · December 26th, 2011, 03:34 PM

Elizabeth "Betty" Boyd was an American film actress in the early days of Hollywood in the silent film era of Hollywood. Her first film role, which was uncredited, was in the 1927 film 'The Show' ... with her first credited role was that same year in 'Off Again'. In 1930 she made a successful transition to "talking films" but by 1933 her career was all but over. She had only two film acting roles afterward, both in the late 1940s. Her last role in her 27 movie career was in 1949 when she was cast uncredited in Samson and Delilah.

Boyd retired, but had married Charles N. Over Jr. in the 1930's, a marriage which ended in divorce. She died on September 16, 1971, in Los Angeles

Trivia:

She was named as one of thirteen WAMPAS Baby Stars of 1929
She was something of a 1930's B Movie Queen.
Height:5' 5" (1.65 m)

Pictures:

**VintageKell** · December 27th, 2011, 04:53 PM

Viola Emily Allen was an American stage actress who also briefly tried her hand at movies when she appeared in three silent films. Her last professional appearance was in 1918, at a benefit supporting war relief. She married a horse breeder Peter C. Duryea until his death in 1944. She died in New York City in 1948.

Trivia:

She remained an active supporter of charitable and theatrical organizations
She is buried in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, Sleepy Hollow, New York.

Pictures:

**VintageKell** · December 28th, 2011, 07:52 PM

Peggy Allenby was an American silent film actress who made 11 silent movies and continued long enough to be a performer in television, where she was best-known for her role as "Mattie Lane Grimsley" on the CBS-TV soap opera Edge of Night. In between she performed on stage on Broadway, and from 1930 to 1950, her voice was a part of such radio broadcasts as 'David Harum' and 'Road of Life'.

She was married to actor John McGovern. She died aged 65 in 1966 in Park West Hospital after a short illness.

Pictures:

**VintageKell** · December 31st, 2011, 07:49 PM

Leah Baird was an American actress of the silent screen, and a screenwriter. She made her name in summer stock and traveling stock companies, and then began her film career in 1910 in 'Jean and the Waif' opposite Jean, who was in fact the Vitagraph Dog. She played several leads opposite Douglas Fairbanks. In the late 1910's she played in 15 episodes of the serial 'Wolves of Kultur'. Her credited roles ended with the advent of sound in the late 1920's, but in the 1940's she became a bit part character actress, and in all she played in 177 movies up until 1957 (the latter roles mostly uncredited).

She later became a screenwriter and contributed to a number of Clara Bow features. She was married just the once to producer Arthur F. Beck. Leah Baird died at age 88 and is buried at Hollywood Forever Cemetery.

Pictures:

**VintageKell** · January 1st, 2012, 09:22 AM

Estelle Brody was an American actress but who briefly became one of the biggest female stars of British silent film in the late 1920's. Her career was then derailed by a series of ill-advised decisions and she disappeared from sight for many years before re-emerging from the late 1940's and the 1960's in small supporting roles in film and television.

She began her career as a dancer in vaudeville, working as part of a touring troupe travelling round the U.S. until she moved to England in the 1920's to find work in London's West End theatres. She then broke into silent movies when offerred a supporting role in the 1926 film 'White Heat'. She then followed this up with the lead in the huge popular success and World War I drama 'Mademoiselle from Armentieres'

The advent on talkies saw her make the mistake of going back to Hollywood, and she failed to get any parts ... the main part of her 17 movie film career ended. She returned to England in the mid 1930's and married Robert Fenn, an actors agent, settling into private life. The late 1940's saw her in a minor role in 'I Was a Male War Bride' and for the next decade she made sporadic film appearances, with her final credited role coming in 'Never Take Sweets from a Stranger' in 1960. She also appeared occasionally in British TV productions in the 1950's and early 1960's with a opart in the 1980 'Martian Chronicles' sealing her last appearance. In 1969, Brody and Fenn relocated to Malta, where Brody died in Valletta on 3 June 1995, aged 94.

Trivia:

'Mademoiselle from Armentieres' was reportedly the highest-grossing British-made film of 1926.
She pretended to be Canadian in British publicity
Daughter of renowned Yiddish Theater composer Joseph Brody
Sister of Composer Murray L. Brody

Pictures:

**VintageKell** · January 1st, 2012, 08:06 PM

Alma Bennett was an American film actress of the silent era. She vamped the comic Harry Langdon in her only remembered film, 'Long Pants' in 1927, but less than two years later she was reduced to playing a typist in 'My Lady's' ... She appeared in 63 films between 1915 and 1931. She was born in Seattle, Washington and died in Los Angeles, California.

Trivia:

She was in the first adapation of 'The Lost World' in 1925 which was the first full-length feature film to utilize stop-motion animation in the creation of its creatures.
Height:5' 4½" (1.64 m).

Pictures:

**VintageKell** · January 2nd, 2012, 11:54 AM

Belle Bennett was a stage and screen actress. She started as a trapeze performer in her fathers circus and then graduated into performances with stock companies. This led her to Broadway and then a professional career in vaudeville. She then started working in numerous minor Hollywood motion pictures like the western film 'A Ticket to Red Horse Gulch' in 1914. But she got a big break when Samuel Goldwyn selected her from among seventy-three actresses for the leading role in ''Stella Dallas' in 1925. Her performance in the film was described as "A memorable performance in the history of the films". However after being cast in the mother role in Stella Dallas Bennett was typecast for the remainder of her 86 film career.

Married three times, her last husband was the film director Fred Windermere. She collapsed on stage while performing in vaudeville and although initially she returned to work on stage and films, she had cancer and died at the age of 41.

Trivia:

She had lied about her age when starting in movies by knocking a decade off her true age.
While filming the movie her son, sixteen-year-old William Howard Macy, died. She had posed as his brother for some time because of her fear that her employers might find out her true age. She was actually thirty-four rather than the twenty-four, which she had claimed to be when he died.
She has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
Late in her life Bennett came to believe in the power of prayer after a practitioner of Christian Science influenced her.

Pictures:

**VintageKell** · January 4th, 2012, 07:25 PM

Bartine Burkett was an American film actress. She started as a stock company ingénue but is best known for her comedy work (starting opposite Oliver Hardy), she also starred with Buster Keaton in his first solo film, The "High Sign" (released 1921), but she didn't receive on-screen billing and her career failed to take off.

She left films to marry in 1926, but when widowed she surprisingly resumed her acting career in the late 1960's, prompted, she said, by friends and family. In all she appeared in more than 57 films between 1916 and 1981 of which the last was in 'The Devil and Max Devlin' as an uncredited angel. She went on to star in several high-profile national commercials and earned guest stints on such television shows as 'Mary Tyler Moore' show, 'The Rockford Files', and 'Alice' in a career which only ended in 1984.

She was born in Robeline, Louisiana and died in Burbank, California.

Trivia:

Her adverts included 'Boone’s Farm', 'Strawberry Hill Wine' and the would-be baker of 'Grandma’s Cookies'.
When she started in movies she was offered a three day guarantee at five dollars a day. She worked at Lasky Studios about three months until one day she was told that L-KO (pronounced by Bartine as ELCO) studios needed somebody for a comedy series ....
Her verifiable claim of having been Keaton's first leading lady earned Burkett quite a bit of press as well and she appeared in the 1987 television documentary 'Buster Keaton: A Hard Act to Follow'.

Interview:

Seen here discussing Oliver Hardy.

Pictures:

December 24th, 2011, 06:33 PM	#11
VintageKell Vintage Member Join Date: Jun 2008 Location: Underground in the Mountains of Madness Posts: 2,790 Thanks: 1,012 Thanked 96,978 Times in 2,804 Posts	Actress: Dorothy Christy Dorothy Christy was an American actress. She acted with Will Rogers, Buster Keaton and the Marx Brothers and my personal selection of her high points with Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy in several movies, notably in the role of Mrs Laurel in the film 'Sons of the Desert' in 1933. She was also Queen Tika of Murania in 'The Phantom Empire', Gene Autry’s 1935 cliffhanger serial. She concluded her 106 film movie career in 1953, having successfully survived the transition to talkies. Dorothy Christy died five days shy of her seventy-seventh birthday in 1977 of natural causes. Pictures: NB: I have a particular softspot for the ladies of the serial shorts such as Carol Forman.... they were on when I saw my first movies (times were different), and made the biggest impression on a young lad!! Last edited by VintageKell; September 12th, 2012 at 07:06 AM..

December 25th, 2011, 09:28 PM	#12
VintageKell Vintage Member Join Date: Jun 2008 Location: Underground in the Mountains of Madness Posts: 2,790 Thanks: 1,012 Thanked 96,978 Times in 2,804 Posts	Actress: Kathryn Adams Kathryn Adams (b. Ethalinda Colson) was an American silent film actress. She entered films in 1915 after a brief and rather unsuccessful stint in musical comedy. After a number of successful leading roles, she drifted into supporting roles in the 1920's, and except for a brief appearance in the 1931 version of 'The Squaw Man', Adams disappeared from films after 1925, in all she had made 46 films. On February 17, 1959, Adams died of a myocardial infarction in her Hollywood home, and is buried at Calvary Cemetery, Los Angeles. Trivia: Height - 5' 7" (1.70 m) In the film 'Raffles, the Amateur Cracksman' in which she featured in 1917 - There are scenes filmed at the Staten Island Cricket Club. Pictures: Last edited by Wendigo; August 2nd, 2020 at 12:18 PM.. Reason: removed dead image

December 26th, 2011, 03:34 PM	#13
VintageKell Vintage Member Join Date: Jun 2008 Location: Underground in the Mountains of Madness Posts: 2,790 Thanks: 1,012 Thanked 96,978 Times in 2,804 Posts	Actress: Betty Boyd Elizabeth "Betty" Boyd was an American film actress in the early days of Hollywood in the silent film era of Hollywood. Her first film role, which was uncredited, was in the 1927 film 'The Show' ... with her first credited role was that same year in 'Off Again'. In 1930 she made a successful transition to "talking films" but by 1933 her career was all but over. She had only two film acting roles afterward, both in the late 1940s. Her last role in her 27 movie career was in 1949 when she was cast uncredited in Samson and Delilah. Boyd retired, but had married Charles N. Over Jr. in the 1930's, a marriage which ended in divorce. She died on September 16, 1971, in Los Angeles Trivia: She was named as one of thirteen WAMPAS Baby Stars of 1929 She was something of a 1930's B Movie Queen. Height:5' 5" (1.65 m) Pictures: Last edited by VintageKell; December 26th, 2011 at 03:49 PM..

December 27th, 2011, 04:53 PM	#14
VintageKell Vintage Member Join Date: Jun 2008 Location: Underground in the Mountains of Madness Posts: 2,790 Thanks: 1,012 Thanked 96,978 Times in 2,804 Posts	Actress: Viola Emily Allen Viola Emily Allen was an American stage actress who also briefly tried her hand at movies when she appeared in three silent films. Her last professional appearance was in 1918, at a benefit supporting war relief. She married a horse breeder Peter C. Duryea until his death in 1944. She died in New York City in 1948. Trivia: She remained an active supporter of charitable and theatrical organizations She is buried in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, Sleepy Hollow, New York. Pictures: Last edited by Wendigo; May 1st, 2016 at 09:33 PM.. Reason: removed dead image

December 28th, 2011, 07:52 PM	#15
VintageKell Vintage Member Join Date: Jun 2008 Location: Underground in the Mountains of Madness Posts: 2,790 Thanks: 1,012 Thanked 96,978 Times in 2,804 Posts	Actress: Peggy Allenby Peggy Allenby was an American silent film actress who made 11 silent movies and continued long enough to be a performer in television, where she was best-known for her role as "Mattie Lane Grimsley" on the CBS-TV soap opera Edge of Night. In between she performed on stage on Broadway, and from 1930 to 1950, her voice was a part of such radio broadcasts as 'David Harum' and 'Road of Life'. She was married to actor John McGovern. She died aged 65 in 1966 in Park West Hospital after a short illness. Pictures:

December 31st, 2011, 07:49 PM	#16
VintageKell Vintage Member Join Date: Jun 2008 Location: Underground in the Mountains of Madness Posts: 2,790 Thanks: 1,012 Thanked 96,978 Times in 2,804 Posts	Actress: Leah Baird Leah Baird was an American actress of the silent screen, and a screenwriter. She made her name in summer stock and traveling stock companies, and then began her film career in 1910 in 'Jean and the Waif' opposite Jean, who was in fact the Vitagraph Dog. She played several leads opposite Douglas Fairbanks. In the late 1910's she played in 15 episodes of the serial 'Wolves of Kultur'. Her credited roles ended with the advent of sound in the late 1920's, but in the 1940's she became a bit part character actress, and in all she played in 177 movies up until 1957 (the latter roles mostly uncredited). She later became a screenwriter and contributed to a number of Clara Bow features. She was married just the once to producer Arthur F. Beck. Leah Baird died at age 88 and is buried at Hollywood Forever Cemetery. Pictures:

January 1st, 2012, 09:22 AM	#17
VintageKell Vintage Member Join Date: Jun 2008 Location: Underground in the Mountains of Madness Posts: 2,790 Thanks: 1,012 Thanked 96,978 Times in 2,804 Posts	Actress: Estelle Brody Estelle Brody was an American actress but who briefly became one of the biggest female stars of British silent film in the late 1920's. Her career was then derailed by a series of ill-advised decisions and she disappeared from sight for many years before re-emerging from the late 1940's and the 1960's in small supporting roles in film and television. She began her career as a dancer in vaudeville, working as part of a touring troupe travelling round the U.S. until she moved to England in the 1920's to find work in London's West End theatres. She then broke into silent movies when offerred a supporting role in the 1926 film 'White Heat'. She then followed this up with the lead in the huge popular success and World War I drama 'Mademoiselle from Armentieres' The advent on talkies saw her make the mistake of going back to Hollywood, and she failed to get any parts ... the main part of her 17 movie film career ended. She returned to England in the mid 1930's and married Robert Fenn, an actors agent, settling into private life. The late 1940's saw her in a minor role in 'I Was a Male War Bride' and for the next decade she made sporadic film appearances, with her final credited role coming in 'Never Take Sweets from a Stranger' in 1960. She also appeared occasionally in British TV productions in the 1950's and early 1960's with a opart in the 1980 'Martian Chronicles' sealing her last appearance. In 1969, Brody and Fenn relocated to Malta, where Brody died in Valletta on 3 June 1995, aged 94. Trivia: 'Mademoiselle from Armentieres' was reportedly the highest-grossing British-made film of 1926. She pretended to be Canadian in British publicity Daughter of renowned Yiddish Theater composer Joseph Brody Sister of Composer Murray L. Brody Pictures:

January 1st, 2012, 08:06 PM	#18
VintageKell Vintage Member Join Date: Jun 2008 Location: Underground in the Mountains of Madness Posts: 2,790 Thanks: 1,012 Thanked 96,978 Times in 2,804 Posts	Actress: Alma Bennett Alma Bennett was an American film actress of the silent era. She vamped the comic Harry Langdon in her only remembered film, 'Long Pants' in 1927, but less than two years later she was reduced to playing a typist in 'My Lady's' ... She appeared in 63 films between 1915 and 1931. She was born in Seattle, Washington and died in Los Angeles, California. Trivia: She was in the first adapation of 'The Lost World' in 1925 which was the first full-length feature film to utilize stop-motion animation in the creation of its creatures. Height:5' 4½" (1.64 m). Pictures: Last edited by Wendigo; May 1st, 2016 at 09:34 PM.. Reason: removed dead images

January 2nd, 2012, 11:54 AM	#19
VintageKell Vintage Member Join Date: Jun 2008 Location: Underground in the Mountains of Madness Posts: 2,790 Thanks: 1,012 Thanked 96,978 Times in 2,804 Posts	Actress: Belle Bennett Belle Bennett was a stage and screen actress. She started as a trapeze performer in her fathers circus and then graduated into performances with stock companies. This led her to Broadway and then a professional career in vaudeville. She then started working in numerous minor Hollywood motion pictures like the western film 'A Ticket to Red Horse Gulch' in 1914. But she got a big break when Samuel Goldwyn selected her from among seventy-three actresses for the leading role in ''Stella Dallas' in 1925. Her performance in the film was described as "A memorable performance in the history of the films". However after being cast in the mother role in Stella Dallas Bennett was typecast for the remainder of her 86 film career. Married three times, her last husband was the film director Fred Windermere. She collapsed on stage while performing in vaudeville and although initially she returned to work on stage and films, she had cancer and died at the age of 41. Trivia: She had lied about her age when starting in movies by knocking a decade off her true age. While filming the movie her son, sixteen-year-old William Howard Macy, died. She had posed as his brother for some time because of her fear that her employers might find out her true age. She was actually thirty-four rather than the twenty-four, which she had claimed to be when he died. She has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Late in her life Bennett came to believe in the power of prayer after a practitioner of Christian Science influenced her. Pictures:

January 4th, 2012, 07:25 PM	#20
VintageKell Vintage Member Join Date: Jun 2008 Location: Underground in the Mountains of Madness Posts: 2,790 Thanks: 1,012 Thanked 96,978 Times in 2,804 Posts	Actress: Bartine Burkett Bartine Burkett was an American film actress. She started as a stock company ingénue but is best known for her comedy work (starting opposite Oliver Hardy), she also starred with Buster Keaton in his first solo film, The "High Sign" (released 1921), but she didn't receive on-screen billing and her career failed to take off. She left films to marry in 1926, but when widowed she surprisingly resumed her acting career in the late 1960's, prompted, she said, by friends and family. In all she appeared in more than 57 films between 1916 and 1981 of which the last was in 'The Devil and Max Devlin' as an uncredited angel. She went on to star in several high-profile national commercials and earned guest stints on such television shows as 'Mary Tyler Moore' show, 'The Rockford Files', and 'Alice' in a career which only ended in 1984. She was born in Robeline, Louisiana and died in Burbank, California. Trivia: Her adverts included 'Boone’s Farm', 'Strawberry Hill Wine' and the would-be baker of 'Grandma’s Cookies'. When she started in movies she was offered a three day guarantee at five dollars a day. She worked at Lasky Studios about three months until one day she was told that L-KO (pronounced by Bartine as ELCO) studios needed somebody for a comedy series .... Her verifiable claim of having been Keaton's first leading lady earned Burkett quite a bit of press as well and she appeared in the 1987 television documentary 'Buster Keaton: A Hard Act to Follow'. Interview: Seen here discussing Oliver Hardy. Pictures:

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