Nita Naldi

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Nita Naldi

Nita Naldi , born Mary Nonna Dooley (born November 13, 1894 in New York City , USA ; † February 17, 1961 there ), was an American actress of the silent film era .

Life

Nita Naldi was born in New York to an Irish-Italian working class family. She began her career as a dancer with the Ziegfeld Follies, among others . She went to film in 1919 with a Paramount Pictures contract and starred in 1920 alongside John Barrymore in Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde . Her exotic charisma quickly pegged her to the role of the vamp and the unscrupulous seductress. She had her breakthrough to star in 1922 in the film adaptation of the popular novel Blood and Sand by Vicente Blasco Ibáñez as the woman who sexually ruined Rudolph Valentino . Both then played together in the films The Sainted Devil and Cobra . Naldi was nicknamed the female Valentino by the press . Cecil B. DeMille also put Naldi as a rejected woman in The Ten Commandments . Nita Naldi's popularity declined from the middle of the decade, also because the role model of the man-murdering vamp became old-fashioned. She went to England, among other places, where she made an appearance in the now- lost film Der Bergadler in 1926 , one of Alfred Hitchcock's first directorial work . The jump to sound film managed Naldi, who had a strong Brooklyn accent, no more and she had her last appearance on the big screen in 1929 in an Italian movie. In August 1929, Naldi married James Searle Barclay, who came from a wealthy family. The marriage lasted until Barclay's death in 1945 and remained childless.

In the 1930s, Naldi tried to revive her career in the theater, but with moderate success. In 1933 she had to file for bankruptcy. During the 1940s and 1950s, Naldi took on minor roles and appearances in the less prestigious off-Broadway area, but this was not enough for the actress to stay afloat. She relied on help from friends and the Actor's Fund, an organization that helped poor actors financially.

It wasn't until 1952, 25 years after her last film role, that she played her last theater role, In Any Language, alongside Uta Hagen . Three years later, in 1955, she helped actress Carol Channing prepare for the musical The Vamp . On this occasion, Naldi was interviewed by Gay Talese , later co- founder of New Journalism ; the resulting article became Talse's first text published in the New York Times Sunday Magazine .

Naldi's health and eyesight deteriorated noticeably from the mid-1950s, which led to her increasingly withdrawn and no longer shown in public. The actress died largely forgotten on February 17, 1961 of a heart attack at the age of 66. For her contribution to the film industry, Nita Naldi received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame . The majority of her films are now lost or only in fragments.

Filmography (selection)

Web links

Commons : Nita Naldi  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Nitanaldi.com - Act 3: Marriage, Later Years (accessed January 2, 2013)
  2. ↑ PlayBillVault.com - In Any Language (accessed January 2, 2013)
  3. ^ Gay Talese: Origins of a Nonfiction Writer. (1997). In: Gay Talese: Frank Sinatra has a Cold and Other Essays. Penguin Books Ltd., London 2011, ISBN 978-0-14-119415-8 .
personal data
SURNAME Naldi, Nita
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Dooley, Mary Nonna (maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American actress of the silent film era
DATE OF BIRTH November 13, 1894
PLACE OF BIRTH New York City , USA
DATE OF DEATH 17th February 1961
Place of death New York City , USA