Blanche Sweet
From Wikipedia Sarah Blanche Sweet (June 18, 1896 – September 6, 1986) was an American silent film actress who began her career in the earliest days of the Hollywood motion picture film industry. Sweet is renowned for her energetic, independent roles, at variance with the 'ideal' Griffith type of vulnerable, often fragile, femininity. After many starring roles, her first real landmark film was the 1911 Griffith thriller The Lonedale Operator. In 1913 she starred in Griffith's first feature-length movie, Judith of Bethulia. In 1914 Sweet was initially cast by Griffith in the part of Elsie Stoneman in his epic The Birth of a Nation but the role was eventually given to rival actress Lillian Gish, who was Sweet's senior by three years. That same year Sweet parted ways with Griffith and joined Paramount (then Famous Players-Lasky) for the much higher pay that studio was able to afford. Throughout the 1910s, Sweet continued her career appearing in a number of highly prominent roles in films and remained a publicly popular leading lady. She often starred in vehicles by Cecil B. DeMille and Marshall Neilan, and she was recognised by leading film critics of the time to be one of the foremost actresses of the entire silent era. It was during her time working with Neilan that the two began a publicized affair, which brought on his divorce from former actress Gertrude Bambrick. Sweet and Neilan married in 1922. The union ended in 1929 with Sweet charging that Neilan was a persistent adulterer. During the early 1920s Sweet's career continued to prosper, and she starred in the first film version of Anna Christie in 1923. The film is also notable as being the first Eugene O'Neill play to be made into a motion picture. In successive years, she starred in Tess of the D'Urbervilles and The Sporting Venus, both directed by Neilan. Sweet soon began a new career phase as one of the newly formed MGM studio's biggest stars. Sweet made just three talking pictures, including her critically lauded performance in 1930's Show Girl in Hollywood, before retiring from the screen that same year and marrying stage actor Raymond Hackett in 1935. The marriage lasted until Hackett's death in 1958. Sweet spent the remainder of her performing career in radio and in secondary Broadway stage roles. Eventually, her career in both of these fields petered out, and she began working in a Los Angeles department store. In the late 1960s, her acting legacy was resurrected when film scholars invited her to Europe to receive recognition for her work. On September 24, 1984, a tribute to Blanche Sweet was held at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. Miss Sweet introduced her 1925 film, The Sporting Venus. Sweet died in New York City of a stroke, on September 6, 1986, just weeks after her 90th birthday.
Known For
Credits
- 1982 · Before the Nickelodeon: The Cinema of Edwin S. Porter as Narrator (voice)
- 1980 · Hollywood as Self
- 1959 · The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis as
- 1957 · The Thin Man as
- 1945 · Make Mine Memories as
- 1944 · Twenty Years After as (archive footage)
- 1930 · The Silver Horde as Queenie
- 1930 · Show Girl in Hollywood as Donny Harris
- 1930 · The Woman Racket as Julia
- 1929 · Always Faithful as Mrs. George W. Mason
- 1929 · The Woman in White as Laura Fairlie / Anne Catherick
- 1928 · Fashion News as Self (1930)
- 1927 · Singed as Dolly Wall
- 1926 · Diplomacy as Dora Weymouth
- 1926 · The Far Cry as
- 1926 · Bluebeard's Seven Wives as Juliet
- 1925 · The New Commandment as Renee Darcourt
- 1925 · Why Women Love as Molla Hansen
- 1925 · The Sporting Venus as Lady Gwendolyn
- 1925 · His Supreme Moment as Carla King
- 1924 · Tess of the D'Urbervilles as Teresa "Tess" Durbeyfield
- 1924 · Those Who Dance as Rose Carney
- 1923 · Anna Christie as Anna Christie
- 1923 · Souls for Sale as Self - Celebrity Actress (uncredited)
- 1922 · Quincy Adams Sawyer as Alice Pettengill
- 1921 · That Girl Montana as Montana Rivers
- 1920 · Her Unwilling Husband as Mavis
- 1920 · Girl in the Web as Esther Maitland
- 1920 · The Deadlier Sex as Mary Willard
- 1919 · A Woman of Pleasure as Alice Dane
- 1919 · The Hushed Hour as Virginia Appleton Blodgett
- 1919 · The Unpardonable Sin as Alice Parcot / Dinny Parcot
- 1917 · Those Without Sin as Melanie Landry
- 1917 · The Evil Eye as Dr. Katherine Torrance
- 1916 · The Thousand-Dollar Husband as Olga Nelson
- 1916 · The Ragamuffin as Jenny
- 1915 · The Secret Sin as Edith Martin / Grace Martin
- 1915 · The Case of Becky as Dorothy/Becky
- 1915 · The Clue as Christine Lesley
- 1915 · Stolen Goods as Margery Huntley
- 1915 · The Captive as Sonya Matinovich
- 1915 · The Warrens of Virginia as Agatha Warren
- 1914 · The Little Country Mouse as Dorothy
- 1914 · The Odalisque as May, a Stock Girl
- 1914 · The Tear That Burned as Meg - the Wild Girl
- 1914 · For Her Father's Sins as Mary Ashton
- 1914 · Her Awakening as Mary
- 1914 · The Second Mrs. Roebuck as Mabel Mack
- 1914 · The Avenging Conscience as The Sweetheart
- 1914 · Men and Women as Agnes Rodman - Stephen's Daughter
- 1914 · The Painted Lady as Jane - the Elder Sister
- 1914 · Home, Sweet Home as The Wife
- 1914 · Judith of Bethulia as Judith
- 1914 · Strongheart as Dorothy Nelson, Frank's Sister
- 1914 · Classmates as Sylvia Randolph
- 1913 · The House of Discord as The Wife
- 1913 · A Cure for Suffragettes as
- 1913 · Two Men of the Desert as The Authoress
- 1913 · Death's Marathon as The Wife
- 1913 · If We Only Knew as The Mother
- 1913 · The Stolen Bride as The Grower's Daughter
- 1913 · The Hero of Little Italy as Maria
- 1913 · Near To Earth as
- 1913 · Broken Ways as The Road Agent's Wife
- 1913 · Love in an Apartment Hotel as The Young Woman
- 1913 · A Chance Deception as The Wife
- 1913 · Oil and Water as Mlle. Genova
- 1913 · Pirate Gold as The Daughter
- 1913 · Three Friends as The Wife
- 1913 · The Coming of Angelo as Theresa
- 1912 · The God Within as The Woman of the Camp
- 1912 · The Massacre as Stephen's Ward
- 1912 · A Sailor’s Heart as The Sailor's Second Sweetheart
- 1912 · The Painted Lady as The Older Sister
- 1912 · The Chief's Blanket as The Young Woman
- 1912 · Blind Love as The Young Woman
- 1912 · With the Enemy's Help as The Prospector's Wife
- 1912 · A Temporary Truce as Alice Hardy - the Prospector's Wife
- 1912 · The Lesser Evil as The Young Woman
- 1912 · One Is Business, the Other Crime as Rich Wife
- 1912 · The Goddess of Sagebrush Gulch as The Goddess
- 1912 · Under Burning Skies as Emily
- 1912 · The Transformation of Mike as The Tenement Girl
- 1912 · For His Son as The Son's Fiancée
- 1912 · The Eternal Mother as Martha, the Wife
- 1911 · A Woman Scorned as
- 1911 · The Miser's Heart as Neighbor
- 1911 · Through Darkening Vales as Grace
- 1911 · The Battle as The Boy's Sweetheart
- 1911 · Love in the Hills as The Mountain Girl
- 1911 · The Long Road as Edith
- 1911 · The Making of a Man as Young Woman
- 1911 · The Villain Foiled as Miss Page
- 1911 · The Last Drop of Water as Mary
- 1911 · A Country Cupid as Edith
- 1911 · Fighting Blood as
- 1911 · The Primal Call as
- 1911 · Enoch Arden as Woman on the Beach
- 1911 · Enoch Arden: Part I as
- 1911 · The Lonedale Operator as Daughter of the Lonedale Operator
- 1911 · His Daughter as
- 1910 · A Flash of Light as
- 1910 · All on Account of the Milk as The Maid
- 1910 · The Rocky Road as
- 1909 · The Day After as The New Year
- 1909 · To Save Her Soul as Stage Dancer
- 1909 · A Corner in Wheat as