Brunette, buxom matinee idol Betty Blythe capitalised on the 'roaring
20's' infatuation with exotic screen sirens to achieve a brief period
of stardom. She was, notoriously, one of the first actresses to ever
appear nude (or in various stages of undress) on screen. It wasn't that
Betty couldn't act, as well; in fact, she had studied art in Paris and
at USC and had appeared on stage in a number of traditional plays like
"So Long Letty" in both London and New York. In 1918, she joined a
roommate on a visit to the Vitagraph Studio in Brooklyn and found
immediate employment when one of the directors needed a leading lady.
Two years later, she wound up in Hollywood, was signed by Fox Studios
as a replacement for
Theda Bara and became
the protégée of
J. Gordon Edwards
(grandfather of
Blake Edwards of
'Pink Panther' fame. She was eventually cast as the star of one of the
most lavishly produced films of the decade,
The Queen of Sheba (1921),
directed, of course, by Edwards. Betty later recalled that she was
given 28 costumes to wear, all of which would have fit comfortably
into a shoe box. Alas, only a few stills of the movie survive, a fate
shared by most of her other silent films.
Betty's career was put on hold when Edwards quarreled with Fox and
left the studio. For a while, she freelanced, playing leads in films
for lesser studios. She did have a couple of hits in England with
Chu-Chin-Chow (1923) and
She (1925), in addition to doing theatrical
work, which helped her to smoothly make the transition from silent to
talking pictures. By that time, however, public tastes had changed and
Betty had aged sufficiently to be classified as a character actress. To
her credit, she persisted and appeared in support in many an A-grade
production, her swan song being a small role in the ballroom scene of
My Fair Lady (1964).
My Fair Lady(1964)as Lady at Ball
The Lineup(1954)as Mrs. DeSues
The O. Henry Playhouse(1957)as Adelphia Montclair
The Helen Morgan Story(1957)as Party Guest
Dr. Hudson's Secret Journal(1955)as Mrs. Wentworth, Mrs. Willette
The Merv Griffin Show(1962)as Self
Behind the Scenes(1924)as Self
Sex at 24 Frames Per Second(2003)as Self (from Queen of Sheba)
Screen Snapshots, Series 18, No. 12(1939)as Self
