Betty Blythe

Biography

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).