Blanche Sweet

Acting · 0.5 popularity

Age

130

Movies

121

Born: June 16, 1896 – September 6, 1986
From: Chicago, Illinois, USA

Biography

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.

Works

121 films

Public Opinion

1916

The Sowers

1916

Fighting Cressy

191910.0

Judith of Bethulia

19146.1

Twenty Years After

19448.0

Show Girl in Hollywood

19305.8

Through Darkening Vales

19114.5

Souls for Sale

19236.3

Classmates

1914

The Ragamuffin

1916

Oil and Water

1913

Simple Souls

19208.0

The Stolen Bride

1913

To Save Her Soul

19095.2

Blind Love

19123.0

Three Friends

19135.0

The Massacre

19125.9

The Silver Horde

19305.5

The Meanest Man in the World

19237.0

The Blind Princess and the Poet

1911

The Avenging Conscience

19145.9

The Far Cry

19267.0

Home, Sweet Home

19145.0

Death's Marathon

19135.7

The Secret Orchard

1915

Men and Women

1914

Quincy Adams Sawyer

192210.0

Help Wanted - Male

19208.0

The Unpardonable Sin

191910.0

How She Triumphed

1911

The Deadlier Sex

19207.5

Those Who Dance

192410.0

A Country Cupid

19115.6

Two Men of the Desert

1913

The Hero of Little Italy

1913

The Case of Becky

1915

A Flash of Light

19105.0

Strongheart

19145.0

Love in the Hills

1911

The Tear That Burned

1914

The House of Discord

1913

The Indian Brothers

19114.0

Her Unwilling Husband

192010.0

The Woman Racket

19306.0

The New Dress

1911

If We Only Knew

19135.0

A Woman Scorned

1911

The Second Mrs. Roebuck

1914

The Eternal Mother

19124.8

The Two Paths

1911

The Painted Lady

19125.7

The Painted Lady

1914

The Transformation of Mike

19124.3

The Spanish Gypsy

1911

The Captive

19156.0

Before the Nickelodeon: The Cinema of Edwin S. Porter

19826.1

The Making of a Man

19116.3

The Broken Cross

1911

Anna Christie

19236.3

The Primal Call

19114.0

The Miser's Heart

19116.0

Bluebeard's Seven Wives

192610.0

A Corner in Wheat

19096.2

A Sailor’s Heart

1912

Fighting Blood

19116.3

The Lonedale Operator

19116.1

Those Without Sin

1917

The Little Country Mouse

19145.0

Love in an Apartment Hotel

1913

The Woman in White

19298.0

The Day After

19092.8

The Warrens of Virginia

1915

The Lesser Evil

19125.3

For Her Father's Sins

1914

His Supreme Moment

192510.0

Near To Earth

1913

Broken Ways

1913

Why Women Love

19259.0

Singed

192710.0

The Battle

19114.6

The Goddess of Sagebrush Gulch

1912

The God Within

1912

A String of Pearls

1912

The Sporting Venus

19256.7

Girl in the Web

19209.0

A Temporary Truce

19124.0

The Long Road

1911

Enoch Arden

19116.0

The Chief's Blanket

1912

The Last Drop of Water

19115.1

Pirate Gold

1913

A Woman of Pleasure

19198.0

That Girl Montana

19218.0

The Rocky Road

19104.0

The Hushed Hour

19198.0

Under Burning Skies

19124.7

The Villain Foiled

19116.0

Diplomacy

19268.0

All on Account of the Milk

19105.3

Stolen Goods

1915

Tess of the D'Urbervilles

19246.5

The Clue

1915

For His Son

19125.5

The Evil Eye

1917

The Coming of Angelo

1913

With the Enemy's Help

19123.0

The Storm

1916

Enoch Arden: Part I

19115.6

Make Mine Memories

19455.0

Always Faithful

19299.0

The New Commandment

192510.0

A Chance Deception

1913

In the Palace of the King

192310.0

One Is Business, the Other Crime

19125.8

His Daughter

19114.0

The Thousand-Dollar Husband

1916

The Secret Sin

1915

Her Awakening

1914

A Cure for Suffragettes

19139.0

The Odalisque

1914

The Voice of the Child

1911