Bessie Love

Bessie Love
c. 1916
Born	Juanita Horton September 10, 1898 Midland, Texas, United States[1]
Died	April 26, 1986 (aged 87) London, England, United Kingdom[2]
Occupation	Actress
Years active	1915–83
Height	5 ft 0 in (1.52 m)[1]
Weight	100 lb (45 kg)[1]
Spouse(s)	William Hawks (m. 1929; div. 1936)[3]
Children	Patricia (b. 1932)[3]

Bessie Love (September 10, 1898 – April 26, 1986) was an American motion picture actress who achieved prominence mainly in the silent films and early talkies.^[4] With a small frame and delicate features, she played innocent young girls, flappers, and wholesome leading ladies. Her performance in The Broadway Melody (1929) earned her a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actress.^[5]

Early life

Love was born Juanita Horton in Midland, Texas.^[1] She attended school in Midland until she was in the eighth grade, when her chiropractor father moved his family to Arizona, New Mexico, and then to Hollywood.^[2]

Career

The silent era

Bessie Love and Douglas Fairbanks in The Good Bad Man (1916), here listed under the title, Coyote o' The Rio Grande.

On actor Tom Mix's recommendation that she "get into pictures",^[6] Love's mother sent her to Biograph Studios, where she met pioneering film director D.W. Griffith. Griffith, who introduced Bessie Love to films, also gave the actress her screen name. He gave her a small role in his film Intolerance (1916). Love dropped out of Los Angeles High School to pursue her film career, although she completed her degree many years later.^[7]

Her "first role of importance" was in The Flying Torpedo;^[8] she later appeared opposite William S. Hart in The Aryan and with Douglas Fairbanks in The Good Bad Man, Reggie Mixes In, and The Mystery of the Leaping Fish (all 1916). In her early career, she was often compared to Mary Pickford,^[9] even called "Our Mary" by D.W. Griffith.^[10]

Advertisement, 1918

The Wishing Ring Man (1919)

Love took an active role in the management of her career, upgrading her representation to Gerald C. Duffy, the former editor of Picture-Play Magazine,^[11] and publicizing herself by playing the ukulele and dancing for members of the military.^[12] Even glowing reviews of her films criticized the venues in which they were shown, citing this as a reason she was not a more awarded actress.^[13]

In 1922, Love was selected one of the WAMPAS Baby Stars.^[14][15] In 1923, she starred in Human Wreckage with Dorothy Davenport and produced by Thomas Ince.

As her roles got larger, so did her popularity. Because of her performance in The King on Main Street (1925), Love is credited with being the first person to dance the Charleston on film,^[16] popularizing it in the United States. Her technique was documented in instructional guides,^[17] including a series of photographs by Edward Steichen.^[18] She subsequently performed the dance the following year in The Song and Dance Man.^[19]

She starred in The Lost World, a science fiction adventure based on the novel of the same name by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Three years later she starred in The Matinee Idol, a romantic comedy directed by a young Frank Capra.

The sound era and stage work

Love was able to successfully transition to talkies, and in 1929 she was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress for The Broadway Melody. She appeared in several other early musicals, including The Hollywood Revue of 1929 (1929), Chasing Rainbows (1930), Good News (1930), and They Learned About Women (1930).

However, by 1932, her American film career was in decline. She moved to England in 1935 and did stage work and occasional films there. Love briefly returned to the United States in 1936 to seek divorce.^[3][20]

During World War II in Britain, when Love found acting work hard to come by, she was the "continuity girl" on the film drama San Demetrio London (1943), an account of a ship badly damaged in the Atlantic but whose crew managed to bring her to port. She also worked for the American Red Cross.^[21]

After the war, she resumed work on the stage and played small roles in films—often as an American tourist.^[22] Stage work included such productions as Love in Idleness (1944)^[23] and Born Yesterday (1947).^[23][24][25] She wrote and performed in The Homecoming, a semiautobiographical play, which had its opening in Perth, Scotland in 1958.^[26][27] Film work included The Barefoot Contessa (1954) with Humphrey Bogart, Ealing Studios' Nowhere to Go (1958), and The Greengage Summer (1961) starring Kenneth More.^[28] She also played small roles in the James Bond thriller On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969) and in Sunday Bloody Sunday (1971). In addition to playing the mother of Vanessa Redgrave's titular character in Isadora (1968), Love also served as dialect coach to the actress.^[29]

In October 1963, Love was the subject of This Is Your Life, when she was surprised by Eamonn Andrews in central London.^[30]

Love appeared in John Osborne's play West of Suez,^[31] and as "Aunt Pittypat" in a large-scale musical version of Gone With the Wind (1972). She also played Maud Cunard in the TV miniseries Edward & Mrs. Simpson in 1978. Her film work continued in the 1980s with roles in Ragtime (1981), Reds (1981), Lady Chatterley's Lover (1981), and—her final film—The Hunger (1983).

Personal life

Love married agent William Hawks (January 29, 1901 Neenah, Wisconsin – January 10, 1969 Santa Monica, California) at St. James Episcopal Church in Pasadena, California on December 27, 1929.^[32] Mary Astor (William's sister-in-law), Carmel Myers, and Norma Shearer were among her bridesmaids; William's brother Howard Hawks and Irving Thalberg ushered. They then lived at the Havenhurst Apartments in Hollywood. They had a daughter, Patricia Hawks (February 19, 1932, Los Angeles, California),^[3] who had some bit parts in movies in 1952. They divorced in 1936.^[3]

Love was a Christian Scientist.^[31] She died in London, England from natural causes on April 26, 1986.

Legacy

Star on Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6777 Hollywood Blvd.

Love was periodically interviewed by film historians, and wrote a series of articles about her experiences for The Christian Science Monitor.^[33] In 1977, Love published an autobiography based on these articles, entitled, From Hollywood with Love.^[34]

She was interviewed in the television documentary series Hollywood: A Celebration of the American Silent Film (1980).^[35]

Love has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6777 Hollywood Boulevard, Los Angeles, California.

Filmography

Silent films: 1915–1928

Year	Title	Role	Studio	Notes
1916	Acquitted	Helen Carter	Triangle	lost
1916	The Flying Torpedo	Hulda	Triangle	lost
1916	The Aryan	Mary Jane Garth	Triangle	extant
1916	The Good Bad Man	Amy	Triangle	extant
1916	Reggie Mixes In	Agnes	Triangle	extant
1916	The Mystery of the Leaping Fish	The Little Fish Blower	Triangle	extant
1916	Stranded	The Girl	Triangle	lost
1916	Intolerance	The Bride	Triangle	extant
1916	Hell-to-Pay Austin	Briar Rose Dawson	Triangle	lost
1916	A Sister of Six	Prudence	Triangle	lost
1916	The Heiress at Coffee Dan's	Waffles	Triangle	lost
1917	Nina, the Flower Girl	Nina	Triangle	lost
1917	A Daughter of the Poor	Rose Eastman	Triangle	lost
1917	Cheerful Givers	Judy	Triangle	lost
1917	The Sawdust Ring	Janet Magie	Triangle	extant
1917	Wee Lady Betty	Wee Lady Betty	Triangle	lost
1917	Polly Ann	Polly Ann	Triangle	lost
1918	The Great Adventure	Rags	Pathé	extant[36]
1918	How Could You, Caroline?	Caroline Rogers	Pathé	lost
1918	A Little Sister of Everybody	Celeste Janvier	Pathé	lost
1918	The Dawn of Understanding	Sue Prescott	Vitagraph	lost
1919	The Enchanted Barn	Shirley Hollister	Vitagraph	lost
1919	Carolyn of the Corners	Carolyn May Cameron	Pathé	lost
1919	The Wishing Ring Man	Joy Havenith	Vitagraph	lost
1919	A Yankee Princess	Patsy O'Reilly	Vitagraph	lost
1919	The Little Boss	Peggy Winston (The Little Boss)	Vitagraph	lost
1919	Cupid Forecloses	Geraldine Farleigh	Vitagraph	lost
1919	Over the Garden Wall	Peggy Gordon	Vitagraph	lost
1919	A Fighting Colleen	Alannah Malone	Vitagraph	lost
1920	The Midlanders	Aurelie Lindstrom	Federated Film Exchanges	fragment found[37][38]
1920	Pegeen	Pegeen O'Neill	Vitagraph	lost
1920	Bonnie May	Bonnie May	Federated Film Exchanges	lost
1921	Penny of Top Hill Trail	Penny	Federated Film Exchanges	lost
1921	The Honor of Ramirez (short)[39]	Ramirez's Bride	Pathé
1921	The Spirit of the Lake (short)[39]		Pathé
1921	The Swamp	Mary	Robertson-Cole	extant[40][41][42]
1921	The Sea Lion	Blossom Nelson	Associated Producers	extant
1922	The Vermilion Pencil	Hyacinth	Robertson-Cole	lost
1922	Forget Me Not	Ann, The Girl	Metro Pictures	lost
1922	Bulldog Courage	Gloria Phillips	Clinton	extant[43]
1922	The Village Blacksmith	Rosemary Martin, the Daughter	Fox	lost[44]
1922	Deserted at the Altar	Anna Moore (the country girl)	Phil Goldstone	extant
1923	The Adventures of Prince Courageous[45][46]	Bernice	Anchor
1923	Three Who Paid	John Caspar/Virginia Cartwright	Fox	lost
1923	The Ghost Patrol	Effie Kugler	Universal	lost
1923	The Purple Dawn	Mui Far	Aywon/State's Rights	lost
1923	Mary of the Movies	Herself	Columbia/Robertson-Cole	incomplete[47]
1923	Human Wreckage	Mary Finnegan	FBO	lost
1923	The Eternal Three	Hilda Gray	Goldwyn	lost
1923	St. Elmo	Edna Earle	Fox	lost[48]
1923	Slave of Desire	Pauline Gaudin	Goldwyn	extant[42][49][50]
1923	Gentle Julia	Julia	Fox	lost
1924	Torment	Marie	Tourneur/Associated First National	lost
1924	The Woman on the Jury	Grace Pierce	Associated First National	lost
1924	Those Who Dance	Veda Carney	Ince/Associated First National	lost
1924	The Silent Watcher	Mary Roberts	First National	lost
1924	Dynamite Smith	Violet	Ince/Pathé	lost
1924	Sundown	Ellen Crawley	First National	lost
1924	Tongues of Flame	Lahleet	Paramount	lost
1925	The Lost World	Paula White	First National	extant
1925	Soul-Fire	Teita	First National	extant
1925	A Son of His Father	Nora Shea	Paramount	lost
1925	New Brooms	Geraldine Marsh	Paramount	lost
1925	The King on Main Street	Mary Young	Paramount	extant
1926	The Song and Dance Man	Leola Lane	Paramount	extant[51][52][53]
1926	Lovey Mary	Lovey Mary	MGM	incomplete[54]
1926	Meet the Prince		Producers Distributing Corporation	lost
1926	Young April	Victoria	Producers Distributing Corporation	extant
1926	Going Crooked	Marie	Fox	extant[55][56]
1927	The American		Natural Vision Pictures	never released theatrically[42]
1927	Rubber Tires	Mary Ellen Stack	Producers Distributing Corporation	extant
1927	A Harp in Hock	Nora Banks	Pathé	lost[57]
1927	Amateur Night (short)	Uncredited	Warner Brothers/Vitaphone
1927	Dress Parade	Janet Cleghorne	Pathé	extant
1928	The Matinee Idol	Ginger Bolivar	Columbia	extant
1928	Sally of the Scandals	Sally Rand	FBO	extant[58]
1928	Anybody Here Seen Kelly?	Mitzi Lavelle	Universal	lost[59]

Sound films: 1929–1983

Year	Title	Role	Studio	Notes
1929	The Broadway Melody	Hank Mahoney	MGM	extant
1929	The Idle Rich	Helen Thayer	MGM	extant
1929	The Hollywood Revue of 1929[60]	Herself	MGM
1929	The Girl in the Show	Hattie Hartley	MGM	extant
1930	Chasing Rainbows[61]	Carlie Seymour	MGM	extant
1930	They Learned About Women	Mary Collins	MGM	extant
1930	Conspiracy	Margaret Holt	RKO	extant
1930	Good News	Dixie O'Day	MGM	missing Technicolor ending[62]
1930	See America Thirst	Ellen	Universal	extant[63]
1931	Morals for Women	Helen Huston	Tiffany	extant
1936	I Live Again	Kathleen Vernon	National Provincial Film Distributors-UK
1941	Atlantic Ferry (a.k.a. Sons of the Sea)	Begonia Baggot	Warner Brothers
1945	London Scrapbook[64]		Spectator Short Films
1945	Journey Together	Mrs. Mary McWilliams
1951	No Highway in the Sky	Aircraft passenger (uncredited)
1951	The Magic Box	Wedding group member
1954	The Weak and the Wicked[64]	Prisoner
1954	The Barefoot Contessa	Mrs. Eubanks
1954	Beau Brummell	Maid (uncredited)
1955	Touch and Go	Mrs. Baxter
1957	The Story of Esther Costello	Matron in Art Gallery
1958	Next to No Time	Becky Wiener
1958	Nowhere to Go	Harriet P. Jefferson
1960	Too Young to Love	Mrs. Busch
1961	The Greengage Summer[65]	American tourist
1961	The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone	Bunny
1963	The Wild Affair	Marjorie's Mother
1963	Children of the Damned	Mrs. Robbins, Mark's Grandmother
1964	I Think They Call Him John[65]	Narrator	Samaritan Films
1965	Promise Her Anything	Pet Shop Customer
1966	The Poppy Is Also a Flower	Uncredited
1967	Battle Beneath the Earth	Matron
1967	I'll Never Forget What's'isname	American tourist
1968	Isadora	Mrs. Duncan
1969	On Her Majesty's Secret Service	American tourist	Eon-Danilag Productions
1971	Sunday Bloody Sunday[66]	Answering Service Lady
1971	Catlow	Mrs. Frost
1974	Vampyres	American Lady
1974	Mousey (a.k.a. Cat and Mouse)[66]	Mrs. Richardson
1976	The Ritz	Maurine
1977	Gulliver's Travels[66]
1978	Edward & Mrs. Simpson	Maud Cunard		television
1981	Reds	Mrs. Partlow
1981	Ragtime	Old T.O.C. Lady
1981	Lady Chatterley's Lover	Flora
1983	The Hunger	Lillybelle

References

Notes

1. Stars of the Photoplay. Chicago: Photoplay magazine. 1924.
2. Folkart, Burt A. (29 April 1986). "Bessie Love, Silent Screen Actress Discovered in 1915, Dies at 87". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 20 June 2014.
3. Kidd, Charles (1986). Debrett Goes to Hollywood. New York: St. Martin's Press. p. 67. ISBN 0312005881.
4. Obituary Variety, April 30, 1986.
5. "Oscar History: 1930a". Retrieved 6 June 2014.
6. Love 1977, p. 25
7. "Little Whisperings from Everywhere in Playerdom". Motion Picture Magazine 18 (8): 104. September 1919.
8. "Bessie Love's Popularity Growing". The Moving Picture World: 1233. March 1, 1919.
9. Side 1980, p. 84
10. Side 1980, pp. 12–13
11. "Cinema Truth in Flashes". Photo-Play Journal: 46. February 1919.
12. "Hobnobbing with Bessie Love". Photo-Play Journal: 11, 56. February 1919.
13. Essex, Bert D. (April 1919). "The Silent Trend". Photo-Play Journal: 36.
14. "Wampas Baby Stars of 1922–1934 with Photos of Each Class". Immortal Ephemera. Retrieved January 6, 2015.
15. Anderson, Chuck. "The WAMPAS Baby Stars". The Old Corral. Retrieved January 6, 2015.
16. In The King on Main Street:
    • "Crimson Playgoer: The Metropolitan Opens its Doors to an Unlimited Public and a Very Fair Opening Attraction". The Harvard Crimson. October 21, 1925. Bessie Love too, who does a very jazzy version of the Charleston
    • "The King on Main Street". Theatre Magazine. January 1926. …it is memorable … for the fact that Bessie Love gives a perfect exhibition of the Charleston, proving that it can be danced with extreme grace and agility, and yet without a single hint of wriggling vulgarity. We hereby award Miss Love the palm as the greatest Charleston expert on the screen if not on the stage – which is by way of being a miracle, for ordinarily a film dance looks as silly as the capering of goats.
17. "Everybody's Doing It Now; Bessie Love Shows You How". Photoplay. October 1925.
18. Feeney, Mark (July 19, 2009). "Steichen: A man for all styles – Exhibits showcase breadth of his career". The Boston Globe.
19. In The Song and Dance Man:
    • "Newspaper Opinions". The Film Daily 35 (30): 8. February 5, 1926. The picture is well worth viewing, however, if for no other reason than to watch Bessie Love dance the Charleston.
    • "Stage and Screen". The Cornell Daily Sun XLVI (134): 4. 25 March 1926. Bessie Love is well cast as the girl – she surely can do the Charleston.
    • "George M. Cohan's "Song and Dance Man" Comes to State". Reading Times (Reading, Pennsylvania). March 22, 1926. p. 8. Bessie Love, the diminutive film favorite and the screen's foremost exponent of the 'Charleston,' is happily cast as the small time performer who eventually wins fame and for tune in the musical comedy field.
    • "Lincoln Way Theatre". The Gettysburg Times (Gettysburg, Pennsylvania). August 31, 1926. p. 6. See Bessie Love, the screen's Charleston champ, strut her stuff!
20. "Bessie Love Back". Titusville Herald 72 (90) (Titusville, Pennsylvania). September 28, 1936. p. 1.
21. "Bessie Love". AllMovie Guide. Retrieved November 22, 2014.
22. "In Short". Billboard 58 (47): 36. November 23, 1946.
23. Love 1977, p. 136
24. "London Garrick Theatre – Born Yesterday – Laurence Olivier". Retrieved 20 June 2014.
25. "'Born Yesterday' Hit In Glasgow Opening Before London Deb". Billboard 58 (48): 4. November 30, 1946.
26. "Silent Film Star a Playwright". Tri-City Herald (Pasco, Washington). April 21, 1958. p. 2.
27. "Little Action in New Play". The Glasgow Herald. April 22, 1958. p. 3.
28. "Bessie Love – Silent and Sound Film Actress". Golden Silents. Retrieved 20 June 2014.
29. Love 1977, p. 140
30. Bessie Love's appearance on This Is Your Life
31. Hollander, Zander (August 28, 1972). "Bessie Love—74 Years Young and Still Acting". The Dispatch 91 (99) (Lexington, NC). p. 21.
32. Love 1977, p. 125
33. The twenty-one articles were published over eighteen years:
    • First article: Love, Bessie (May 9, 1962). "An Aryan in Sulphur Canyon". The Christian Science Monitor: 8.
    • Last article: Love, Bessie (October 20, 1980). "The second time around". The Christian Science Monitor: 21.
34. Love 1977
35. Brownlow, Kevin; Gill, David (1980). "The Man With The Megaphone". Hollywood: A Celebration of the American Silent Film. Episode 10. Thames Video Production. Retrieved 1 September 2014.
36. "The Great Adventure (1918)". BFI National Film and Television.
37. "The Midlanders / Bessie Love [motion picture]". Library of Congress – Performing Arts Encyclopedia. Retrieved November 9, 2014.
38. "Lost 35 mm Nitrate Film FOUND!". NitrateVille. January 18, 2014. Retrieved September 5, 2014.
39. Love 1977, p. 150
40. "The Swamp". Silent Era. Retrieved November 9, 2014.
41. "The Swamp / Colin Campbell [motion picture]". Library of Congress – Performing Arts Encyclopedia. Retrieved November 9, 2014.
42. The American Film Institute (1971). The American Film Institute catalog of motion pictures produced in the United States: Feature Films: 1921–1930. R.R. Bowker Co. OCLC 504274291.
43. "Bulldog Courage (1922)". British Film Institute.
44. "The Village Blacksmith". Silent Era. Retrieved November 9, 2014.
45. Love 1977, pp. 82–83
46. Love 1977, p. 151
47. Kehr, Dave (June 7, 2010). "Trove of Long-Lost Silent Films Returns to America". The New York Times. Retrieved February 20, 2015.
48. "St. Elmo". Silent Era. Retrieved November 9, 2014.
49. "Slave of Desire / George D Baker [motion picture]". Library of Congress – Performing Arts Encyclopedia. Retrieved November 9, 2014.
50. "Slave of Desire". Silent Era. Retrieved November 9, 2014.
51. "The Song and Dance Man". Silent Era. Retrieved November 9, 2014.
52. Andersen, Arne. "The Lost Films of Paramount Pictures". Lost Film Files. Retrieved November 8, 2014.
53. "The Song and Dance Man / Herbert Brenon [motion picture]". Library of Congress – Performing Arts Encyclopedia. Retrieved November 9, 2014.
54. Lovey Mary / King Baggot
55. "Going Crooked". Silent Era. Retrieved November 9, 2014.
56. "Going Crooked / George Melford [motion picture]". Library of Congress – Performing Arts Encyclopedia. Retrieved November 9, 2014.
57. Andersen, Arne. "The Lost Films of Pathé Exchange". Lost Film Files. Retrieved November 8, 2014.
58. "Sally of the Scandals / Lynn Shores [motion picture]". Library of Congress – Performing Arts Encyclopedia. Retrieved November 9, 2014.
59. Andersen, Arne. "The Lost Films of Universal Studios". Lost Film Files. Retrieved November 8, 2014.
60. Love 1977, p. 153
61. Dickstein, Martin (24 February 1930). "The Cinema Circuit". The Brooklyn Daily Eagle (Brooklyn). Retrieved 6 June 2014.
62. "GOOD NEWS color sequence". NitrateVille. May 17, 2010. Retrieved November 9, 2014.
63. Catalog of Holdings The American Film Institute Collection and The United Artists Collection at The Library of Congress by The American Film Institute (1978)
64. Love 1977, p. 154
65. Love 1977, p. 155
66. Love 1977, p. 156

Bibliography

• Love, Bessie (1977). From Hollywood with Love: An Autobiography of Bessie Love. London: Elm Tree Books. OCLC 734075937.
• Side, Anthony (1980). The Kindergarten of the Movies: A History of the Fine Arts Company. Metuchen, NJ & London: The Scarecrow Press. ISBN 0-8108-1358-0.

External links

• Bessie Love at the Internet Movie Database
• Bessie Love at AllMovie
• Bessie Love at Find a Grave
• Literature on Bessie Love