Actresses

Talia Shire (born April 25, 1946) is an American actress most known for her roles as Connie Corleone in The Godfather films and Adrian Balboa in Rocky series (I to V). Personal life Shire was born Talia Rose Coppola in Lake Success, New York, the daughter of Italia and arranger/composer Carmine Coppola. Talia is the sister of director and producer Francis Ford Coppola and academic August Coppola, the aunt of actor Nicolas Cage and director Sofia Coppola, and the niece of composer and conductor Anton Coppola. She was married to composer David Shire, with whom she had a son, Matthew Orlando Shire. She has two other sons, actors/musicians Jason Schwartzman and Robert Carmi…

June Collyer (August 19, 1906 – March 16, 1968) was an American film actress of the 1920s and 1930s. Early life and career Born Dorothea Heermance in New York City, Collyer chose to use her mother's maiden name when she decided to pursue acting. A society girl chosen by Allan Dwan, she had her first starring role in 1927 when she starred in East Side, West Side. She did a total of eleven films during the silent film era, and unlike many of that period she made a successful transition to sound movies. In 1928 she was one of thirteen girls selected as "WAMPAS Baby Stars", an honor her future sister-in-law Marian Shockley would also receive later on in 1932. In 1930 Coll…

Helene Costello (June 21, 1906 - January 26, 1957) was an American motion picture actress, most notably of the silent film era. Lou Costello took his professional name from the actress. Biography Born in New York City, New York, USA she was the daughter of the prominent stage and pioneering film actor Maurice Costello and his actress wife Mae Costello and the younger sister of actress Dolores Costello. Helene first appeared onscreen (opposite her father) in the 1909 film adaptation of Victor Hugo's Les Misérables. She would continue acting in films throughout the 1910s as a child actor and reach her peak of public popularity in the 1920s, although never quite rivalling…

Marguerite De La Motte (June 22, 1902 – March 10, 1950) was an American film actress, most notably of the silent film era. Career Born in Duluth, Minnesota, De La Motte began her entertainment career studying ballet under Anna Pavlova. In 1919 she became the dance star of Sid Grauman on the stage of his theater. In 1918, at the age of 16, she made her screen debut in the Douglas Fairbanks, Sr directed romantic comedy film Arizona. That same year she lost both of her parents in an automobile accident and film producer J.L. Frothingham assumed guardianship of her and her younger sister. De La Motte spent the 1920s appearing in numerous films, often cast by Douglas Fairba…

Rosalind Russell (June 4, 1907 – November 28, 1976) was an American actress of stage and screen, perhaps best known for her role as a fast-talking newspaper reporter in the Howard Hawks screwball comedy His Girl Friday, as well as the role of Mame Dennis in the film Auntie Mame. She won all 5 Golden Globes for which she was nominated, and was tied with Meryl Streep for wins until 2007 when Streep was awarded a sixth. Russell won a Tony Award in 1953 for Best Performance by an Actress in a Musical for her portrayal of Ruth in the Broadway show Wonderful Town. Russell was known for playing character roles, exceptionally wealthy, dignified ladylike women. She had a wide car…

Constance Collier (22 January 1878 – 25 April 1955) was a British-born American film actress and acting coach. Life and career Born Laura Constance Hardie, in Windsor, Berkshire, Collier made her stage debut at the age of 3, when she played Fairy Peasblossom in A Midsummer's Night Dream. In 1893, at the age of 15, she joined the Gaiety Girls, the famous dance troupe based at the Gaiety Theatre in London. She was a very beautiful woman and soon became so tall that she towered over all the other dancers. In addition, she had an enormous personality and considerable determination. She naturally attracted considerable attention. On 27 December 1906, Beerbohm Tree's extravag…

Shannon Day was born on August 5, 1896 in New York City. Shannon appeared in her first motion picture in 1921 in FORBIDDEN FRUIT. Numerous films followed in both bit parts and some with a little more meat to them. She was never to establish herself among the big names of the time however. Shannon retired from films after she appeared in HOTEL VARIETY in 1933. On February 24, 1977, Shannon died in the city of her birth at the age of 80. She had been in a total of 29 motion pictures

Pia Zadora (born Pia Alfreda Schipani, May 4, 1954) is an American actress and singer. After working as a child actress on Broadway, in regional theater, and in the film Santa Claus Conquers the Martians (1964), she came to national attention in 1981 when, following her starring role in the critically mauled Butterfly, she won a Golden Globe Award as New Star of the Year. When her film career failed to take off, she became a singer of popular standards and made several successful albums backed by a symphonic orchestra; as a singer she earned the respect of critics who had previously written her off. Early life Zadora was born Pia Alfreda Schipani in Hoboken, New Jersey…

Marceline Day (April 24, 1908 – February 16, 2000) was an American motion picture actress whose career began as a child in the 1910s and ended in the 1930s. Born Marceline Newlin in Colorado Springs, Colorado and raised in Salt Lake City, Utah, she was the younger sister of film actress Alice Day. Marceline Day began her film career after her sister, Alice Day, became a featured actress as a Mack Sennett "Bathing Beauty" in one and two-reel comedies for Keystone Studios. Day made her first film appearance alongside her sister in the 1924 Sennett comedy Picking Peaches before being cast in a string of comedy shorts opposite actor Harry Langdon and a stint in early Hollyw…

Teresa Wright (October 27, 1918 – March 6, 2005) was an American actress. Early life She was born Muriel Teresa Wright in Harlem, New York City, the daughter of Martha and Arthur Wright, who was an insurance agent. She grew up in Maplewood, New Jersey. During her years at Columbia High School, she became seriously interested in acting and spent her summers working in Provincetown theater productions. Following her high school graduation in 1938, she returned to New York and was hired to understudy the role of Emily (played by Dorothy McGuire and later Martha Scott) in Thornton Wilder's Our Town. She took over the role when Martha Scott went to Hollywood to make the film…

Marjorie Daw (January 19, 1902 – March 18, 1979) was an American film actress of the silent era. She appeared in 68 films between 1914 and 1927. Biography Born Margaret House in Colorado Springs, Colorado, Daw began acting as a teen to support her and her younger brother after the death of their parents. Daw made her film debut in 1914 and worked steadily during the 1920s. She retired from acting after the advent of sound film. Daw was married twice; her first marriage was to director A. Edward Sutherland and produced no children. After divorcing Sutherland in 1925, she married Myron Selznick in 1929. The marriage ended in 1942. Daw died on March 18, 1979 in Huntington…

Helene Chadwick (November 25, 1897–September 4, 1940) was an American actress in silent motion pictures and in early sound films. Early life and career Chadwick was born in the small town of Chadwick, New York, which was named for her grandfather. Her mother was a singer who performed on the stage and her father was a business man. She began making films for Pathe Pictures in Manhattan, New York. A director was impressed by Chadwicks's talent as an equestrian, thus she began acting as a western star but this did not continue with the exodus of film production from the east to the west coast. Signed by Samuel Goldwyn, Chadwick went to California in 1913 and entered sil…

Ethel Clayton (November 8, 1882 – June 6, 1966) was an American actress of the silent film era. Career Clayton's screen debut came in 1909, in a short called Justified. She jockeyed her early film appearances with a burgeoning stage career. Her pretty blond looks were reminiscient of the famous Gibson Girl drawings by Charles Dana Gibson. On the stage she appeared mainly in musicals or musical reviews such as The Ziegfeld Follies of 1911. These musical appearances indicate a singing talent Clayton may have possessed but went unused in her many silent screen performances. In 1912 she appeared in "The Country Boy" on stage at the Lyceum Theatre in Rochester New York and m…

Victoria Principal (born January 3, 1950) is an American actress, best known for her role as Pamela Barnes Ewing on the CBS nighttime drama Dallas from 1978 to 1987. Biography Early life Victoria Principal was born in Fukuoka, Japan, the eldest daughter of a United States Air Force sergeant. Her paternal grandparents were immigrants from Italy; her mother was born in Georgia and was of English descent. Since her father was a career sergeant in the Air Force, they moved often and she grew up in London, Puerto Rico, Florida, Massachusetts, and Georgia, among other places. She attended 17 different schools, including studying at the Royal Academy of Ballet while her fam…

Dorothy Dalton (September 22, 1893 – April 13, 1972) was an American silent film actress and stage personality who worked her way from a stock company to a movie career. Beginning in 1910, Dalton was a player in stock companies in Chicago and Holyoke, Massachusetts. She joined the Keith-Albee-Orpheum Corporation vaudeville circuits. By 1914 she was in Hollywood. Career Born in Chicago, Illinois, Dalton made her movie debut in 1914 in Pierre of the Plains, co-starring Edgar Selwyn, followed by the lead role in Across the Pacific that same year. In 1915, she appeared with William S. Hart in The Disciple. This production came before she left Triangle Film Corporation and w…

Virginia Cherrill (April 12, 1908 - November 14, 1996) was an American actress best known for her role as the blind flower girl in Charlie Chaplin's City Lights (1931). Due to marrying an English earl in the 1940s, she is also known as Virginia Child-Villiers, Countess of Jersey. Virginia Cherrill was born on a farm in rural Carthage, Illinois, to James E. and Blanche Cherrill. She was a Chicago society girl with no thoughts of a film career when she went to Hollywood for a visit and met Charlie Chaplin when he sat next to her at a boxing match. He had failed to find the girl he wanted for his film but decided she would do and cast her in City Lights in which she gave th…

Thelma Alice Todd (July 29, 1906 – December 16, 1935) was an American actress. Appearing in about 120 pictures between 1926 and 1935, she is best remembered for her comedic roles in films like Marx Brothers' Monkey Business and Horse Feathers, a number of Charley Chase's short comedies, and co-starring with Buster Keaton and Jimmy Durante in Speak Easily. She also had roles in several Laurel and Hardy films, the last of which (The Bohemian Girl) featured her in a part that was truncated by her death. Early life Todd was born in Lawrence, Massachusetts to Jim and Bertha Todd, and was a bright student who achieved good academic results. She intended to become a school tea…

Miriam Cooper (November 7, 1891 – April 12, 1976) was a silent film actress who is best known for her work in early film including Birth of a Nation and Intolerance for D.W. Griffith and The Honor System and Evangeline for her husband Raoul Walsh. She retired from acting in 1923 but was rediscovered by the film community in the 1960s, and toured colleges lecturing about silent films. Early life Miriam Cooper was born to Julian Cooper and Margaret Stewart in Baltimore, Maryland on November 7, 1891. Her mother was from a devout Catholic family with a long history in Baltimore. Her paternal grandfather had helped discover Navassa Island and made his wealth from selling gua…

Ruth Chatterton (December 24, 1892 – November 24, 1961) was an American actress and novelist. She also flew planes and knew Amelia Earhart. Early life Born in New York City on Christmas Eve 1892, of English and French extraction to Walter Smith and Lillian Reed Chatterton. She was a descendant of the English poet Thomas Chatterton. She was on Broadway by the age of 14, as a dancer. Career After leaving a private school at the age of 14, Ruth started off as a chorus girl in a stage play and was a star on the American stage by age eighteen. Her first film was Sins of the Fathers in 1928, and almost all of her films were pre-Code. She was nominated for the Academy Awar…

June Caprice (November 19, 1895 – November 9, 1936) was an American silent film actress. Early life and career Born Helen Elizabeth Lawson in Arlington, Massachusetts, she began her acting career in live theatre and in 1916 signed with the Fox Film Corporation. In 1916 William Fox searched to find a "second Mary Pickford." By the summer of that year he believed he had located the woman he predicted would be the best known female on the screen within six months time. She made her debut on July 9 at the Academy of Music (Manhattan) on 14th Street (Manhattan), in Caprice of the Mountains. A New York Times film critic said of her, "she is young, pretty, graceful, petite, …

Fernanda Arrias Machado (born 10 October 1980, Maringá, Paraná, Brazil) is a Brazilian film, television and stage actress. She is perhaps best known for her role as Maria in the film Tropa de Elite. Television * 2009 - Caras & Bocas .... Lais * 2008 Queridos Amigos - Lorena * 2007 Paraíso Tropical - Joana * 2005 Alma Gêmea - Dalila * 2004 Começar de Novo - Sonya Karamazov Film * 2007 Tropa de Elite - Maria * 2007 Inesquecível - Wife Theatre * 2006 O Beijo no Asfalto

Agnes Ayres (April 4, 1898 – December 25, 1940) was an American actress who rose to fame during the silent film era. Early life and career Born as Agnes Eyre Henkel in Carbondale, Illinois, she began her career in 1914 when she was noticed by an Essanay Studios staff director and cast as an extra in a crowd scene. After moving to New York City with her mother to pursue a career in acting, Ayres was spotted by actress Alice Joyce. Joyce noticed the physical resemblance the two shared which eventually led to Ayres being cast in Richard the Brazen (1917), as Joyce's character's sister. Ayres' career began to gain momentum when Paramount Pictures founder Jesse Laksy began …

(From Wikipédia) Jessica Phyllis Lange (born April 20, 1949) is an American stage and screen actress. With a career that has spanned thirty-five years and six Academy Award nominations (including two wins), she may be most notable for her performances in Frances, Tootsie, Sweet Dreams, Blue Sky, and Grey Gardens. Lange, the third of four children, was born in Cloquet, Minnesota, the daughter of Dorothy Florence (née Sahlman) and Albert John Lange, who was a teacher and salesman. Her maternal grandparents were of Finnish descent, while her paternal grandparents were German and Dutch.She studied art briefly at the University of Minnesota before going to Paris, France, whe…

Ann Marie Blyth (born August 16, 1928) is an American actress and singer, often cast in Hollywood musicals, but also successful in dramatic roles. Her performance as Veda Pierce in the 1945 film Mildred Pierce was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. Life and career Blyth was born in Mount Kisco, New York, to parents who divorced shortly after her birth. She was raised a devout Roman Catholic by her mother. Blyth began her acting career initially as "Anne Blyth," changing the spelling of her name back to the original (Ann) at the beginning of her film career. Her first acting role was on Broadway in Watch on the Rhine (from 1941 until 1942). She w…

Nejla Ates was a Turkish belly dancer and actress born on march 7, 1932 in Romania as Necla Batirin. Notably, she appeared the film Son of Sinbad and Fanny, her first Broadway musical in 1954. She also performed at many clubs. In January of 1963, she married producer Francis Elwood Semone. They divorced in March 1964. She also married writer Ozer Bayscurlins until her death. She tried to commit suicide twice by overdosing on pills. She died in Istanbul, Turkey in April of 2005 There is a statue of her in Central Park.