Vintage postcard.Photo: Fox Film Corporation. Betty Blythe in The Queen of Sheba (J. Gordon Edwards, 1922). Collection: Marlene Pilaete.
British Real Photograph postcard.
German postcard by Ross Verlag, Berlin, no. 690/2. Photo: Terra-Film, Berlin. Liane Haid, Warwick Ward and Betty Blythe in the British-Austrian silent film Südliche Liebe/ Southern Love (Herbert Wilcox, 1923). It is based on the verse drama 'The Spanish Student' by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. It is known by the alternative title 'Woman's Secret'. The plot deals with Dolores (Blythe), a young gypsy woman, who escapes from an arranged marriage and makes a living as a dancer.
German postcard by Ross Verlag, Berlin, no. 1334/1, 1927-1928. Photo: Fox.
The notorious Betty B.
Betty Blythe was born as Elizabeth Blythe Slaughter in 1893 in Los Angeles. She attended Westlake School for Girls and the University of Southern California. She had already shortened her name to Betty Blythe when she and three other women posed for a photo shoot of the newest swim fashion for women, a bathing suit. Prior to then, women were expected to wear stockings with full dresses or skirts into the water.
I.S. Mowis at IMDb about her notoriety: "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."
She worked in vaudeville as the 'California Nightingale' singing songs such as 'Love Tales from Hoffman'. In 1915, she had an unbilled part in Bella Donna (Edwin S. Porter, Hugh Ford, 1915) with Pauline Frederick, for Famous Players Film Company.
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 for A Game With Fate (Paul Scardon, 1918). Two years later, she wound up in Hollywood and was signed by Fox Studios as a replacement for Theda Bara.
She became the protégé of J. Gordon Edwards, the 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 (J. Gordon Edwards, 1921). Betty later recalled that she was given 28 costumes to wear, all of which would have fitted comfortably into a shoebox. Alas, only a few stills of the movie survive, a fate shared by most of her other silent films.
British postcard by Cinema Chat. Photo: Vitagraph.
Italian postcard by Vettori, Bologna, no. 345. Photo: James Abbe. Betty Blythe in Chu Chin Chow (Herbert Wilcox, 1923).
German postcard by Ross Verlag, Berlin, no. 691/6. Photo: Terra Film. Betty Blythe and probably Warwick Ward in Southern Love/A Woman's Secret (Herbert Wilcox, 1924). Collection: Marlene Pilaete.
Revealing hits in England
Betty Blythe's career was put on hold when J. Gordon Edwards quarrelled 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 (Herbert Wilcox, 1923) and She (Leander De Cordova, G.B. Samuelson, 1925). She was also seen to good advantage in less revealing films like Nomads of the North (David Hartford, 1920) with Lon Chaney and In Hollywood with Potash and Perlmutter (Alfred E. Green, 1924), produced by Samuel Goldwyn.
In addition, she did 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 of many an A-grade production.
In 1960, she was awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 1708 Vine Street. Her last film appearance was a small role in the ballroom scene of My Fair Lady (George Cukor, 1964).
Blythe was married to film director Paul Scardon from 1919 until his death in 1954. She reportedly made $3,500,000 when she sold a section of land that is now part of the Sunset Strip. She lost her fortune in the 1929 stock market crash. In 1972, Betty Blythe died of a heart attack in Woodland Hills, Los Angeles, at the age of 78. She was interred at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale, California.
British Real Photograph postcard. Sent by mail in 1928.
French postcard by Cinémagazine-Edition, Paris, no. 218.
French postcard. Betty Blythe and Léon Mathot in Le puits de Jacob/A Daughter of Israel (Edward José, 1925). Collection: Marlene Pilaete.
Sources: I.S. Mowis (IMDb), Wikipedia, and IMDb.
This post was last updated on 11 June 2023.
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