Lila Lee

Lila Lee (born Augusta Wilhelmena Fredericka Appel, on July 25, 1905 – November 13, 1973) was a prominent screen actress, primarily a leading lady of the silent film and early sound film eras. In 1918, she was chosen for a film contract by Hollywood film mogul Jesse Lasky for Famous Players-Lasky Corporation, which later became Paramount Pictures. Her first feature The Cruise of the Make-Believes, garnered the teenaged starlet much public acclaim and Lasky quickly in the late of Lee on an arduous publicity campaign. Critics lauded Lila for her wholesome persona and sympathetic to the character of the party. Lee quickly rose to the ranks of leading lady and often starred opposite such matinee heavies as Conrad Nagel, Gloria Swanson, Wallace Reid, Roscoe 'Fatty' Arbuckle, and Rudolph Valentino. Lee bore more than a slight resemblance to Ann, Little, a former Tv star, and frequent, Reid's co-star, who was leaving the business, and at this stage in her career, an even stronger resemblance to the Marguerite Clark. In 1922 Lee was cast as Carmen in the enormously popular film Blood and Sand, opposite matinee idol Rudolph Valentino and the silent screen vamp Nita Naldi; Lee subsequently won the first WAMPAS Baby Stars award for that year. Lee continued to be a highly popular leading lady throughout the 1920s and made scores of critically praised and widely watched films. As the Roaring Twenties drew to a close, Lee's popularity began to wane and Lee positioned herself for the transition to the talkies. She is one of the few leading ladies of the silent screen whose popularity did not nosedive in with the coming of sound. She went back to working with the major studios and appeared, most notably, in The Unholy Three, in 1930, opposite Lon Chaney, Sr. in his only talkie. However, a series of bad career choices and bouts of recurring tuberculosis and alcoholism hindered further projects and Lee was relegated to taking parts in mostly grade B movies.