Billie Dove

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Billie Dove (1921)

Billie Dove (born May 14, 1903 in New York City as Bertha Bohny , † December 31, 1997 in Woodland Hills , California ) was an American actress who was a major Hollywood star in the 1920s.

life and career

Billie Dove was born in New York City in 1903 - but were also incorrectly mentioned for a long time in 1900 and 1901 - as the daughter of the Swiss immigrants Charles and Bertha Bohny. As a teenager she worked as a model for face creams, whereupon she discovered the famous show producer Florenz Ziegfeld junior and let her perform on Broadway at his Ziegfeld Follies , where she received the highest salary of all the girls in the choir and was equipped with an elegant wardrobe. Dove quickly became popular and made her film debut in Get Rich Quick Wallingford , directed by Frank Borzage , in 1921, at the age of just 17 .

The actress starred in a variety of genres and turned with actors like John Gilbert , Warner Baxter , Tom Mix , Hoot Gibson and Lon Chaney . The majority of Dove's films are now missing, but in the 1920s many of them were released in German cinemas. Studio boss Louis B. Mayer saw her as “the most beautiful woman in Hollywood”, which was also reflected in her public nickname “the American Beauty” . This moniker was also the title of one of her films in 1927 in which she starred under director Richard Wallace . Her best-known film today is the adventure flick Der Seeräuber (1926), in which Douglas Fairbanks senior appeared as her partner. She made the transition to talkies at the end of the 1920s.

From 1922 until the divorce in 1929, she was married to the film director Irvin Willat , who directed some of her films. For three and a half years from the late 1920s, she had a love affair with Howard Hughes , who allegedly wanted to marry her. Hughes reportedly paid Willat $ 35,000 to divorce Dove. She also starred in several Hughes-produced films in the early 1930s. After an appearance in the musical film Blondie of the Follies (1932) on the side of Marion Davies , Dove retired from the film business. She later said of her retirement when she was not even 30 years old:

I thought that I had achieved everything I wanted to achieve and I wanted to live like other people. I wanted a family. I had seen a few of the other girls who wanted to hold onto their careers when they went down the drain. I swore it wouldn't happen to me.

In 1933 she married Robert Kenaston, a wealthy farmer and manager of an oil company, and had two children with him. In 1962 she was to be in front of the camera for the first time in 30 years in the film The King of Hawaii . But even though the publicity around the film was promoting Dove's planned comeback , her scenes have been cut and she cannot be seen in the film. After Kenaston's death in 1973 she entered into a third marriage with the architect John Miller, but this soon failed. In 1985 she made one last public appearance on the television show Night of the 100 Stars . She spent her twilight years at Rancho Mirage, California, and later at the Motion Picture & Television Country House and Hospital , a senior center for filmmakers. Billie Dove died on New Year's Eve 1997 at the age of 94 after developing pneumonia. She was buried in the Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale, California .

Honors and reception

Billie Dove (1922)

For her film work, Bille Dove was awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame . The legendary jazz singer Billie Holiday , born Elenora Fagan , chose her artist's first name around 1930 after the actress.

Filmography (selection)

  • 1921: Get-Rich-Quick Wallingford
  • 1923: Seemannslos (All the Brothers Were Valiant)
  • 1925: Lords of the Skies (The Air Mail)
  • 1925: Wild Horse Mesa
  • 1926: The Black Pirate (The Black Pirate)
  • 1926: Five Minutes of Fear (Kid Boots)
  • 1927: Sensation Seekers
  • 1927: What a Beautiful Woman Desires (The American Beauty)
  • 1929: Landing in Paradise (The Man and the Moment)
  • 1930: A Notorious Affair
  • 1930: One Night at Susie's
  • 1932: Blondie of the Follies
  • 1962: The King of Hawaii (Diamond Head) (scenes cut)

Web links

Commons : Billie Dove  - Collection of Images

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Billie Dove | Close-ups and long-shots. Accessed March 9, 2018 .
  2. ↑ Billie Dove - Hollywood Star Walk - Los Angeles Times. Accessed March 9, 2018 .
  3. ↑ Billie Dove | Biography, Movie Highlights and Photos | AllMovie. Retrieved March 9, 2018 .
  4. ↑ Billie Dove - Hollywood Star Walk - Los Angeles Times. Accessed March 9, 2018 .
  5. ↑ Billie Dove | Biography, Movie Highlights and Photos | AllMovie. Retrieved March 9, 2018 .
  6. ↑ Billie Dove - Hollywood Star Walk - Los Angeles Times. Accessed March 9, 2018 .
  7. ↑ Billie Dove | Biography, Movie Highlights and Photos | AllMovie. Retrieved March 9, 2018 .
  8. ↑ BILLIE DOVE DIES AT 97 . In: Washington Post . January 4, 1998, ISSN  0190-8286 ( washingtonpost.com [accessed March 9, 2018]).
  9. ↑ Miss Billie Dove. Retrieved March 9, 2018 .
  10. ↑ BILLIE DOVE DIES AT 97 . In: Washington Post . January 4, 1998, ISSN  0190-8286 ( washingtonpost.com [accessed March 9, 2018]).
  11. ↑ Excerpt from YouTube :: Night of 100 Stars features Silent Screen Actresses. October 5, 2008, accessed March 9, 2018 .
  12. ↑ BILLIE DOVE DIES AT 97 . In: Washington Post . January 4, 1998, ISSN  0190-8286 ( washingtonpost.com [accessed March 9, 2018]).
  13. ↑ Billie Holiday. Retrieved March 9, 2018 (American English).
personal data
SURNAME Dove, Billie
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Bohny, Bertha (maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION US-american actress
DATE OF BIRTH May 14, 1903
PLACE OF BIRTH New York City , United States
DATE OF DEATH December 31, 1997
Place of death Woodland Hills , California , United States