Lilian Bond

Biography

An attractive, wavy-haired brunette Londoner, Lilian Bond graduated from Brompton Oratory School and began her show business career in pantomimes and revues as a teenager. She travelled to America in 1926 to appear on Broadway in the 'Ziegfeld Follies' and for Earl Carroll's 'Vanities', as well as playing Rosamanda in 'Fioretta' with Fanny Brice. One of her subsequent roles was in 'Stepping Out' (1929) with Lionel Atwill, a part she later reprised on screen. Her film roles generally saw her as the 'other woman', except for a notable performance as Gladys DuCane, one of the temporary lodgers at The Old Dark House (1932) and, of course, Lily Langtry in The Westerner (1940). A beauty in her time, once photographed in the nude by Alfred Cheney Johnston and later romantically linked to Howard Hughes, she retired from films at the age of 50.