Blanche Sweet
Born
June 16, 1896
Died
September 6, 1986 (90 years old)
Known For
Acting
Place of Birth
Chicago, Illinois, USA
From Wikipedia
Sarah Blanche Sweet (June 18, 1896 – September 6, 1986) was an American silent film actress who began her career in the earliest days of the Hollywood motion picture film industry.
Sweet is renowned for her energetic, independent roles, at variance with the 'ideal' Griffith type of vulnerable, often fragile, femininity. After many starring roles, her first real landmark film was the 1911 Griffith thriller The Lonedale Operator. In 1913 she starred in Griffith's first feature-length movie, Judith of Bethulia. In 1914 Sweet was initially cast by Griffith in the part of Elsie Stoneman in his epic The Birth of a Nation but the role was eventually given to rival actress Lillian Gish, who was Sweet's senior by three years. That same year Sweet parted ways with Griffith and joined Paramount (then Famous Players-Lasky) for the much higher pay that studio was able to afford.
Throughout the 1910s, Sweet continued her career appearing in a number of highly prominent roles in films and remained a publicly popular leading lady. She often starred in vehicles by Cecil B. DeMille and Marshall Neilan, and she was recognised by leading film critics of the time to be one of the foremost actresses of the entire silent era. It was during her time working with Neilan that the two began a publicized affair, which brought on his divorce from former actress Gertrude Bambrick. Sweet and Neilan married in 1922. The union ended in 1929 with Sweet charging that Neilan was a persistent adulterer.
During the early 1920s Sweet's career continued to prosper, and she starred in the first film version of Anna Christie in 1923. The film is also notable as being the first Eugene O'Neill play to be made into a motion picture. In successive years, she starred in Tess of the D'Urbervilles and The Sporting Venus, both directed by Neilan. Sweet soon began a new career phase as one of the newly formed MGM studio's biggest stars.
Sweet made just three talking pictures, including her critically lauded performance in 1930's Show Girl in Hollywood, before retiring from the screen that same year and marrying stage actor Raymond Hackett in 1935. The marriage lasted until Hackett's death in 1958.
Sweet spent the remainder of her performing career in radio and in secondary Broadway stage roles. Eventually, her career in both of these fields petered out, and she began working in a Los Angeles department store. In the late 1960s, her acting legacy was resurrected when film scholars invited her to Europe to receive recognition for her work.
On September 24, 1984, a tribute to Blanche Sweet was held at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. Miss Sweet introduced her 1925 film, The Sporting Venus.
Sweet died in New York City of a stroke, on September 6, 1986, just weeks after her 90th birthday.
Known For
Before the Nickelodeon: The Cinema of Edwin S. Porter
Narrator (voice)
1982
Hollywood
Self · (13 episodes)
1980
The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis
(1 episode)
1959
The Thin Man
(2 episodes)
1957
Make Mine Memories
1945
Twenty Years After
(archive footage)
1944
The Silver Horde
Queenie
1930
Show Girl in Hollywood
Donny Harris
1930
The Woman Racket
Julia Barnes Hayes
1930
Always Faithful
Mrs. George W. Mason
1929
The Woman in White
Laura Fairlie / Anne Catherick
1929
Singed
Dolly Wall
1927
Diplomacy
Dora Weymouth
1926
The Far Cry
1926
Bluebeard's Seven Wives
Juliet
1926
The New Commandment
Renee Darcourt
1925
Why Women Love
Molla Hansen
1925
The Sporting Venus
Lady Gwendolyn
1925
His Supreme Moment
Carla King
1925
Tess of the D'Urbervilles
Teresa "Tess" Durbeyfield
1924
Those Who Dance
Rose Carney
1924
Anna Christie
Anna Christie
1923
Souls for Sale
Self - Celebrity Actress (uncredited)
1923
Quincy Adams Sawyer
Alice Pettengill
1922
That Girl Montana
Montana Rivers
1921
Her Unwilling Husband
Mavis
1920
Girl in the Web
Esther Maitland
1920
The Deadlier Sex
Mary Willard
1920
A Woman of Pleasure
Alice Dane
1919
The Hushed Hour
Virginia Appleton Blodgett
1919
The Unpardonable Sin
Alice Parcot / Dinny Parcot
1919
Those Without Sin
Melanie Landry
1917
The Evil Eye
Dr. Katherine Torrance
1917
The Thousand-Dollar Husband
Olga Nelson
1916
The Ragamuffin
Jenny
1916
The Secret Sin
Edith Martin / Grace Martin
1915
The Case of Becky
Dorothy/Becky
1915
The Clue
Christine Lesley
1915
Stolen Goods
Margery Huntley
1915
The Captive
Sonya Matinovich
1915
The Warrens of Virginia
Agatha Warren
1915
The Little Country Mouse
Dorothy
1914
The Odalisque
May, a Stock Girl
1914
The Tear That Burned
Meg - the Wild Girl
1914
For Her Father's Sins
Mary Ashton
1914
Her Awakening
Mary
1914
The Second Mrs. Roebuck
Mabel Mack
1914
The Avenging Conscience
The Sweetheart
1914
Men and Women
Agnes Rodman - Stephen's Daughter
1914
The Painted Lady
Jane - the Elder Sister
1914
Home, Sweet Home
The Wife
1914
Judith of Bethulia
Judith
1914
Strongheart
Dorothy Nelson, Frank's Sister
1914
Classmates
Sylvia Randolph
1914
The House of Discord
The Wife
1913
A Cure for Suffragettes
1913
Two Men of the Desert
The Authoress
1913
Death's Marathon
The Wife
1913
If We Only Knew
The Mother
1913
The Stolen Bride
The Grower's Daughter
1913
The Hero of Little Italy
Maria
1913
Near To Earth
1913
Broken Ways
The Road Agent's Wife
1913
Love in an Apartment Hotel
The Young Woman
1913
A Chance Deception
The Wife
1913
Oil and Water
Mlle. Genova
1913
Pirate Gold
The Daughter
1913
Three Friends
The Wife
1913
The Coming of Angelo
Theresa
1913
The God Within
The Woman of the Camp
1912
The Massacre
Stephen's Ward
1912
A Sailor’s Heart
The Sailor's Second Sweetheart
1912
The Painted Lady
The Older Sister
1912
The Chief's Blanket
The Young Woman
1912
Blind Love
The Young Woman
1912
With the Enemy's Help
The Prospector's Wife
1912
A Temporary Truce
Alice Hardy - the Prospector's Wife
1912
The Lesser Evil
The Young Woman
1912
One Is Business, the Other Crime
Rich Wife
1912
The Goddess of Sagebrush Gulch
The Goddess
1912
A String of Pearls
The Brother's Sweetheart
1912
Under Burning Skies
Emily
1912
The Transformation of Mike
The Tenement Girl
1912
For His Son
The Son's Fiancée
1912
The Eternal Mother
Martha, the Wife
1912
The Voice of the Child
The Wife
1911
A Woman Scorned
1911
The Miser's Heart
Neighbor
1911
Through Darkening Vales
Grace
1911
The Battle
The Boy's Sweetheart
1911
Love in the Hills
The Mountain Girl
1911
The Long Road
Edith
1911
The Making of a Man
Young Woman
1911
The Villain Foiled
Miss Page
1911
The Last Drop of Water
Mary
1911
A Country Cupid
Edith
1911
Fighting Blood
1911
The Primal Call
1911
Enoch Arden
Woman on the Beach
1911
Enoch Arden: Part I
1911
The Lonedale Operator
Daughter of the Lonedale Operator
1911
His Daughter
1911
A Flash of Light
1910
All on Account of the Milk
The Maid
1910
The Rocky Road
1910
The Day After
The New Year
1909
To Save Her Soul
Stage Dancer
1909
A Corner in Wheat
1909