Years active: 1916 - 1964 (started around 22 years old; 48 years in the business)
About Betty Blythe
Betty Blythe (born Elizabeth Blythe Slaughter; September 1, 1893 – April 7, 1972) was an American actress best known for her dramatic roles in exotic silent films such as The Queen of Sheba (1921). She appeared in 63 silent films and 56 sound films over the course of her career.
She was born Elizabeth Blythe Slaughter in Los Angeles, where she attended Westlake School for Girls and the University of Southern California. Betty had 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. Previously, women were expected to wear stockings with full dresses or skirts into the water.
Blythe began her stage work in such theatrical pieces as So Long Letty and The Peacock Princess. 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 for Famous Players Film Company. After her first Vitagraph Studios role in the 1917 vehicle, she was given a leading role in the studio's 1918 film A Game with Fate.
As famous for her revealing costumes as for her dramatic skills, she became a star in such exotic films as The Queen of Sheba (1921) (in which she at times wore little above the waist except a string of beads), Chu-Chin-Chow (made in 1923; released by MGM in the US 1925) and She (1925). She was seen to good advantage in films like Nomads of the North (1920) with Lon Chaney and In Hollywood with Potash and Perlmutter (1924), produced by Samuel Goldwyn. Other roles were as an opera star, unbilled, in Garbo's The Mysterious Lady. She continued to work as a character actress. One of her later roles was a small, uncredited role in a crowd scene in 1964's My Fair Lady.
Blythe was married to the movie director Paul Scardon from 1919 until his death in 1954. She reportedly made $3.5 million 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.
She died of a heart attack in Woodland Hills, Los Angeles, California in 1972, aged 78. She is buried at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale, California.
For her contributions to the film industry, Betty Blythe has a motion pictures star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame located at 1708 Vine Street.
Her name lives on through the Betty Blythe Vintage Tearoom in West Kensington, London, England.
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