Betty Blythe

Betty Blythe, born Elizabeth Blythe Slaughter on September 1, 1893, in Los Angeles, was an American actress whose career spanned both silent and sound film as well as the Broadway stage. She received her early education at the Westlake School for Girls and later attended the University of Southern California. She adopted the professional name Betty Blythe early in her career, and went on to appear in 63 silent films and 56 sound films over the course of her working life.

Blythe's stage beginnings included theatrical productions such as So Long Letty and The Peacock Princess, and she also performed in vaudeville under the billing "California Nightingale," where she sang numbers including "Love Tales from Hoffman." Her film career commenced with an unbilled part in the 1915 Famous Players Film Company production Bella Donna, followed by her first Vitagraph Studios appearance in 1917. The studio cast her in a leading role the following year in A Game with Fate. She appeared alongside Lon Chaney in Nomads of the North in 1920 and in the Samuel Goldwyn production In Hollywood with Potash and Perlmutter in 1924. Her most celebrated film role came in The Queen of Sheba in 1921, a performance that made her a star and for which she wore costumes that drew considerable public attention. She went on to appear in Chu-Chin-Chow, released in the United States by MGM in 1925, and She, also from 1925. She took an unbilled role as an opera star in Greta Garbo's The Mysterious Lady and continued working as a character actress into the sound era, including an uncredited appearance in a crowd scene in the 1964 film My Fair Lady.

On Broadway, Blythe was active from 1930 to 1944, appearing in the play Paging Danger, the drama Public Relations, and the play House Afire. These stage credits placed her career alongside her extensive film work during a period when she continued to pursue roles across multiple performance mediums.

In her personal life, Blythe was married to film director Paul Scardon from 1919 until his death in 1954. She accumulated considerable wealth, reportedly earning $3.5 million from the sale of a parcel of land that became part of the Sunset Strip, though she lost her fortune in the stock market crash of 1929. Blythe died of a heart attack on April 7, 1972, in the Woodland Hills neighborhood of Los Angeles at the age of 78, and was buried at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale, California. In recognition of her contributions to the film industry, she holds a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 1708 Vine Street.