Who was the Greatest Female Star in Silent Era?

1. Renée Adorée

Renee Adoree was born Jeanne de la Fontein in Lille in Nord-Pas-de-Calais, France, on September 30, 1898. She had what one could call a normal childhood. Her background is, perhaps, one of the most difficult to find information on any actress in existence. What we do know that her interest in ...

2. Fern Andra

Actress | Zwei Menschen

Fern Andre's show-business career started as an aerialist with a troupe that toured the U.S. and Europe. In Vienna she became a student of famed director/teacher Max Reinhardt and appeared in several of his plays and films. She soon settled in Berlin, where she starred in several productions for ...

3. Mary Astor

Actress | The Maltese Falcon

Mary Astor was born Lucile Vasconcellos Langhanke on May 3, 1906 in Quincy, Illinois to Helen Marie Vasconcellos, an American of Portuguese and Irish ancestry from Illinois, and Otto Ludwig Langhanke, a German immigrant. Mary's parents were very ambitious for her and wanted something better for her...

4. Agnes Ayres

Actress | The Sheik

Extremely popular silent star of the 1920s. Her popularity was enhanced when she co-starred with Rudolph Valentino in The Sheik (1921) and The Son of the Sheik (1926). She made her screen debut at Essanay Studios in 1915. While she was popular in the 1920s (thanks to the patronage of her lover, ...

5. Vilma Bánky

Actress | The Son of the Sheik

Vilma Bánky appeared in Hungarian, Austrian and French movies between 1920 and 1925, the year in which Samuel Goldwyn signed her, in Budapest, to a Hollywood contract. In Hollywood she was billed as the "The Hungarian Rhapsody". In the mid and late 1920s she was Goldwyn's biggest money maker, ...

6. Theda Bara

Actress | A Fool There Was

Theda Bara was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, as Theodosia Goodman, on July 29, 1885. She was the daughter of a local tailor and his wife. As a teenager Theda was interested in the theatrical arts and once she finished high school, she dyed her blond hair black and went in pursuit of her dream. By 1908 ...

7. Barbara Bedford

Actress | The Last of the Mohicans

Barbara Bedford was born on July 19, 1903 in Eastman, Wisconsin, USA. She was an actress, known for The Last of the Mohicans (1920), Sunshine of Paradise Alley (1926) and The Spoilers (1923). She was married to Terry Spencer, Alan Roscoe and Irvin Willat. She died on October 25, 1981 in ...

8. Belle Bennett

Actress | Stella Dallas

Belle Bennett's parents were William and Mary Bendon (stage name Bennett). They appeared in "Billy Bennett's Big Shows" which were traveling shows appearing in tents and local 'opera' houses. The shows presented vaudeville acts and melodramas. Belle was headlining in her teens before moving on to ...

9. Enid Bennett

Actress | The Red Lily

Australian-born Enid Bennett (her sisters, Catherine Bennett and Marjorie Bennett, were also actresses) started her career on stage in Sydney. She became a well-regarded stage actress there, and eventually made her way to New York to conquer Broadway. Broadway, however, wasn't particularly ...

10. Elisabeth Bergner

Actress | The Rise of Catherine the Great

Elisabeth Bergner was the daughter of the merchant Emil Ettel and his wife Anna Rosa Wagner. She grew up in Vienna, and she made her theatre debut in Innsbruck in 1915. In 1916 she obtained a contract in Zürich, where she played Ophelia next to the famous Alexander Moissi, who fell in love with her...

11. Francesca Bertini

Actress | Assunta Spina

Francesca Bertini was undoubtedly one of the first divas of cinema, a lady not only on screen but also in real life. She made her film debut in La dea del mare (1907) and after that producers fought for her services. In 1921 she married European nobleman and banker Alfred Cartier. She tried her ...

12. Suzanne Bianchetti

Actress | Violettes impériales

Suzanne Bianchetti was born in Paris in 1889. During the First World War she made her cinema debut in the propaganda film La femme française pendant la guerre/The French Woman during the War (Alexandre Devarennes, 1917). She quickly became popular with short silent comedies such as Riquette se ...

13. Eleanor Boardman

Actress | Souls for Sale

Philadelphia-born Eleanor Boardman had always wanted to be an actress, and as soon as she graduated high school she headed for New York to conquer Broadway. When Broadway proved not quite ready to be conquered yet, she took whatever jobs she could find, including one as an artist's model. In that ...

14. Lyda Borelli

Actress | Malombra

Lyda Borelli was born on March 22, 1884 in Rivarolo Ligure, Genoa, Liguria, Italy. She was an actress, known for Malombra (1917), Satan's Rhapsody (1917) and Love Everlasting (1914). She was married to Vittorio Cini di Monselice. She died on June 1, 1959 in Rome, Lazio, Italy.

15. Clara Bow

Actress | Wings

Clara Gordon Bow, destined to become "The It Girl", was born on July 29, 1905 in Brooklyn, New York, and was raised in poverty and violence. Her often absentee and brutish father could not or did not provide and her schizophrenic mother tried to slit Clara's throat when the girl spoke of becoming ...

16. Evelyn Brent

Actress | The Silver Horde

Petite, sultry leading lady of the 1920's and 30's who was born and schooled in Tampa, Florida, until the age of ten when she lost her mother. She moved to New York with her dad and started modelling while still in her teens. Her original intention was to go into the teaching profession. Instead, ...

17. Louise Brooks

Actress | Die Büchse der Pandora

Mary Louise Brooks, also known by her childhood name of Brooksie, was born in the Midwestern town of Cherryvale, Kansas, on November 14, 1906. She began dancing at an early age with the Denishawn Dancers (which was how she left Kansas and went to New York) and then with George White's Scandals ...

18. Betty Compson

Actress | Street Girl

A mining engineer's daughter, blond, blue-eyed Betty Compson began in show business playing the violin in a Salt Lake City vaudeville establishment for $15 a week. Following that, she went on tour, accompanied by her mother, with an act called 'The Vagabond Violinist'. Aged eighteen, she appeared ...

19. Joan Crawford

Actress | What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?

Joan Crawford was born Lucille Fay LeSueur on March 23, 1906, in San Antonio, Texas, to Anna Belle (Johnson) and Thomas E. LeSueur, a laundry laborer. By the time she was born, her parents had separated, and by the time she was a teenager, she'd had three stepfathers. It wasn't an easy life; ...

20. Lil Dagover

Actress | Das Cabinet des Dr. Caligari

A prominent German film actress born on 30 September 1887 at Madiven, Java, the daughter of a forest ranger in the service of the Dutch authorities. Sent at the age of ten to Baden-Baden to study, she later entered the cinema thanks to her marriage in 1917 to the actor Fritz Dagover who was 25 ...

21. Viola Dana

Actress | Two Sisters

Viola Dana (real name Virginia Flugrath) was born in Brooklyn, NY, on June 26, 1897. She was the middle sister of three sisters (the other two were Edna Flugrath and Shirley Mason). She made her film debut in 1914 in Molly the Drummer Boy (1914). The following year she received top billing playing ...

22. Marion Davies

Actress | Little Old New York

Marion Davies was one of the great comedic actresses of the silent era and into the 1930s.

Marion Cecelia Douras was born in the borough of Brooklyn, New York on January 3, 1897, the daughter of Rose (Reilly) and Bernard J. Douras, a lawyer and judge. Her parents were both of Irish descent. Marion ...

23. Marceline Day

Actress | The Cameraman

The younger sister of actress Alice Day, Marceline achieved stardom in the mid-1920s, appearing opposite such stars as John Barrymore and Lon Chaney. Adept at comedy, she also starred with such top comics as Buster Keaton and Harry Langdon. Her career faltered in the early 1930s, however, and she ...

24. Priscilla Dean

Actress | The Dice Woman

Her parents were both stage actors, so Priscilla Dean began her career as an infant in their productions. She made her film debut at age 14 in a series of one-reelers for Biograph and several other studios. In 1911 she was hired by Universal Pictures and soon gained popularity as the female lead in...

25. Lya De Putti

Actress | Othello

The daughter of a Hungarian baroness and a military officer, Lya De Putti went on to perform classical ballet in Berlin, Germany, after a brief stint in Hungarian vaudeville. She later made several films at the German UFA studios, most notably Variety (1925), before going to Hollywood in 1926. ...

26. Ève Francis

Actress | Eldorado

Ève Francis was born on August 24, 1886 in Saint Josse ten Node, Brussels, Belgium. She was an actress and assistant director, known for Eldorado (1921), Yamilé sous les cèdres (1939) and La fête espagnole (1920). She was married to Louis Delluc. She died on December 6, 1980 in ...

27. Greta Garbo

Actress | Ninotchka

Greta Garbo was born Greta Lovisa Gustafsson on September 18, 1905, in Stockholm, Sweden, to Anna Lovisa (Johansdotter), who worked at a jam factory, and Karl Alfred Gustafsson, a laborer. She was fourteen when her father died, which left the family destitute. Greta was forced to leave school and ...

28. Janet Gaynor

Actress | A Star Is Born

Janet Gaynor was born Laura Gainor on October 6, 1906, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. As a child, she & her parents moved to San Francisco, California, where she graduated from high school in 1923. She then moved to Los Angeles where she enrolled in a secretarial school. She got a job at a shoe ...

29. Lillian Gish

Actress | The Night of the Hunter

Lillian Diana Gish was born on October 14, 1893, in Springfield, Ohio. Her father, James Lee Gish, was an alcoholic who caroused, was rarely at home, and left the family to, more or less, fend for themselves. To help make ends meet, Lillian, her sister Dorothy Gish, and their mother, Mary Gish, ...

30. Jetta Goudal

Actress | Open All Night

Although Dutch-born silent screen femme fatale Jetta Goudal (pronounced Zhett-eh Goo-doll) may be pretty much forgotten today, she was, in her glorious Hollywood heyday, a star rivaling that of Gloria Swanson and fellow vamps Barbara La Marr and Nita Naldi. The daughter of a Jewish orthodox diamond...

31. Corinne Griffith

Actress | The Divine Lady

Corinne Griffith was a popular star of the silent movies. She started her film career at Vitagraph in 1916 and later moved to First National, where she became one of that studio's biggest stars. At the height of her popularity she was known as the "Orchid Lady of the Screen." Black Oxen (1923) was ...

32. Liane Haid

Actress | Marquis d'Eon, der Spion der Pompadour

Liane Haid was a prima ballerina, dancer, singer, stage and film actress. As a child, she studied voice and dancing and played at the Viennese Open Ballet. She worked in Budapest and Vienna as a dancer. On stage, she was in Berlin and Vienna. She also made close to a hundred movies - silents and ...

33. Mildred Harris

Actress | The Doctor and the Woman

Mildred Harris was born on November 29, 1901 in Cheyenne, Wyoming, USA. She was an actress, known for The Doctor and the Woman (1918), For Husbands Only (1918) and The Price of a Good Time (1917). She was married to William Peter Fleckenstein, Everett Terrence McGovern and Charles Chaplin. She died...

34. Phyllis Haver

Actress | The Christian

Phyllis Haver was born Phyllis O'Haver on January 6, 1899, in Douglas, KS. When she was a child her family moved to California. Young Phyllis got a job playing piano at a local movie theater. Producer Mack Sennett saw her and hired her to be one of his "Sennett Bathing Beauties". Between 1916-20 ...

35. Brigitte Helm

Actress | Metropolis

Born in Berlin, Germany. After her role in Metropolis (1927) she made a string of movies in which she almost always had the starring role, easily making the transition to sound films. Her last film was An Ideal Spouse (1935) which was released in 1935. She died on June 11th 1996 of heart failure in...

36. Catherine Hessling

Actress | Nana

Catherine Hessling was born on June 22, 1900 in Moronvilliers, Marne, France. She was an actress, known for Nana (1926), Little Red Riding Hood (1930) and Whirlpool of Fate (1925). She was married to Jean Renoir. She died on September 28, 1979 in La-Celle-Saint-Cloud, Yvelines, France.

37. Maria Jacobini

Actress | Bohème - Künstlerliebe

Maria Jacobini was born on February 17, 1892 in Rome, Lazio, Italy. She was an actress and writer, known for Bohème - Künstlerliebe (1923), Joan of Arc (1913) and Maman Colibri (1929). She was married to Gennaro Righelli. She died on November 20, 1944 in Rome, Lazio, Italy.

38. Rita Jolivet

Actress | Teodora

Rita Jolivet was a silent film actress whose career spanned from 1914 when she made FATA MORGANA to 1926 when she filmed PHI-PHI. Afterwards, Rita dropped out of films. She made only 20 films in her brief career.

39. Leatrice Joy

Actress | The Ace of Hearts

Making her film debut as an extra in 1917, Leatrice Joy soon graduated to playing opposite comics Billy West and Oliver Hardy. Director Cecil B. DeMille took her under his wing and starred her in several of his films. Often playing career girls dressed in mannish suits, or sophisticated society ...

40. Alice Joyce

Actress | Beau Geste

Having worked as a telephone operator at age 13 and a fashion model afterwards, Alice Joyce joined the Kalem film company at 20, making her debut in The Deacon's Daughter (1910), and achieved popularity as a charming, proper leading lady in many shorts. After Vitagraph bought out Kalem, Joyce began ...

41. Florence La Badie

Actress | The Million Dollar Mystery

Early information on Florence La Badie is sketchy. She is thought to have been born in New York City in 1888, and was either taken away from or given up for adoption by her birth mother. Florence was adopted by a married couple named LaBadie, who legally gave the child their last name. Her adoptive...

42. Alice Lake

Actress | The Hole in the Wall

Alice Lake was born on September 12, 1895 in Brooklyn, New York City, New York, USA. She was an actress, known for The Hole in the Wall (1921), I Am the Law (1922) and Come Through (1917). She was married to Robert Williams. She died on November 15, 1967 in Hollywood, California, USA.

43. Laura La Plante

Actress | God's Gift to Women

Laura La Plante was 15 years old when she entered films as a Christie Comedy Bathing Beauty. By 1921, she had played a number of roles including a Tom Mix Western called The Big Town Round-Up (1921) for Fox and The Old Swimmin' Hole (1921) for First National. Laura, now 17, next signed with ...

44. Nathalie Lissenko

Actress | Kean

Nathalie Lissenko was born in 1886 in St. Petersburg, Russian Empire [now Russia]. She was an actress and costume designer, known for Kean (1924), Le brasier ardent (1923) and A Narrow Escape (1920). She was married to Ivan Mozzhukhin. She died on January 7, 1969 in Paris, France.

45. Bessie Love

Actress | The Broadway Melody

Bessie Love was born in Texas. Her cowboy father moved the family to Hollywood, where he became a chiropractor. As the family needed money, Bessie's mother sent her to Biograph Studios, hoping she would become an actress. D.W. Griffith saw she was pretty and had some acting talent, and put her in ...

46. Shirley Mason

Actress | Sally in Our Alley

Shirley Mason was born Leonie Flugrath on June 6, 1900, in Brooklyn, NY. The youngest of three acting sisters (the others were Edna Flugrath and Viola Dana), Shirley made her debut in At the Threshold of Life (1911) at age 11. As a child actress she wasn't in much demand until she grew older, then ...

47. May McAvoy

Actress | The Jazz Singer

Silent-screen star May McAvoy was born in an upscale area of New York City. Her well-to-do family owned and operated a large livery stable situated where the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel now stands. She initially wanted to be a teacher but became intrigued with show business after watching a friend ...

48. Pina Menichelli

Actress | La dama de Chez Maxim's

Pina Menichelli was born on January 10, 1890 in Castroreale, Sicily, Italy. She was an actress, known for La dama de Chez Maxim's (1923), Il fuoco (la favilla - la vampa - la cenere) (1916) and The Rival Actresses (1913). She died on August 29, 1984 in Milan, Lombardy, Italy.

49. Mary Miles Minter

Actress | Jenny Be Good

Little Mary Miles Minter was a child star who was dominated by her mother. At the age of 5 she first appeared on the stage in the play "Cameo Kirby". From that time on she worked steadily without a single vacation. Her greatest stage success was in "The Littlest Rebel", with William Farnum and ...

50. Colleen Moore

Actress | So Big

Colleen Moore was born Kathleen Morrison in Port Huron, Michigan. Her father was an irrigation engineer and his job was good enough to provide the family a middle-class environment. She was educated in parochial schools and studied at the famed Detroit Conservatory. Colleen's family moved to ...

51. Mae Marsh

Actress | The Birth of a Nation

Mae Marsh's father was an auditor for the railroad who died when she was four. Her family moved to San Francisco, where her stepfather was killed in the 1906 earthquake. Her great-aunt then took Mae and her sister to Los Angeles. With her show business background, Mae's aunt took them to the ...

52. Raquel Meller

Actress | Violettes impériales

Raquel Meller was born in Tarazona, Zaragoza, Aragón (Spain) from a very poor family. Since her parents could not afford her education she was sent to live with an aunt who was a nun at a convent. At age 12 she returned with her parents who were then residing in Barcelona and shortly after began ...

53. Mae Murray

Actress | The Merry Widow

Dubbed "The Girl with the Bee Stung Lips" and "The Gardenia of the Screen," silent screen star Mae Murray was born in New York City as Marie Adrienne Koenig on May 10, 1885. The middle of three children born to French and German émigrés, she began studying dance at a young age.

Mae's professional ...

54. Nita Naldi

Actress | The Ten Commandments

Nonna Dooley, the future silent screen star, began her career as a showgirl in a Shubert revue in the Winter Garden, later went on to the famed Ziegfeld Follies.

After a successful career on the stage with the Follies, Nita decided to try her hand with films in Hollywood. Her rise to fame was very ...

55. Pola Negri

Actress | Bella Donna

Pola Negri was born in Lipno, Poland, and moved to Warsaw as a child. Living in poverty with her mother, a teenage Pola auditioned and was accepted to the Imperial Ballet. Due to an illness that ended her dancing career, she soon switched to the Warsaw Imperial Academy of Dramatic Arts and became ...

56. Asta Nielsen

Actress | Hamlet

Danish leading woman of German films who became one of the greatest stars of the silent era. A native of the Copenhagen suburb of Vesterbro, Nielsen was the daughter of a coppersmith and a washerwoman, both of whom died before Nielsen was fifteen. Her stage debut came as a child in the chorus of ...

57. Mary Nolan

Actress | Desert Nights

Blonde and utterly beautiful, Mary Nolan had the requisite figure and prettiness to rise up fast in the Hollywood ranks. Her downfall, however, would be just as fast and not at all pretty.

She was born Mary Imogene Robertson in 1905 and began her show-business career as a teenage model. Showman ...

58. Mabel Normand

Actress | Mickey

Mabel Normand was one of the comedy greats of early film. In an era when women are deemed 'not funny enough' it seems film history has forgotten her contributions. Her films debuted the Keystone Cops, Charlie Chaplin's tramp and the pie in the face gag. She co-starred with both Chaplin and Roscoe "...

59. Mary Philbin

Actress | The Man Who Laughs

Mary Philbin's life should be a lesson to domineering parents. Mary was born on July 16, 1903, in Chicago, Illinois, to John Philbin and his first wife and namesake, Mary. The child was regarded as a little beauty from an early age and her mother was exceedingly proud of her and loved to show her ...

60. Mary Pickford

Actress | Coquette

Mary Pickford was born Gladys Louise Smith in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, to Elsie Charlotte (Hennessy) and John Charles Smith. She was of English and Irish descent. Pickford began in the theater at age seven. Then known as "Baby Gladys Smith", she toured with her family in a number of theater ...

61. Henny Porten

Actress | Hintertreppe

Henny Porten was born January 7, 1890, in Magdeburg, Germany. She had one of the longest careers of any German actress and was highly sought after because of her wonderful thespian skills. Henny's career would stretch over six decades, from 1906 to 1955. Her first film was in Apachentanz (1906), ...

62. Marie Prevost

Actress | The Racket

Popular star in Hollywood for two decades through 1936, Marie Prevost began as a Mack Sennett "Bathing Beauty" in 1917, later starring in dozens of light comedies. But not long into the sound era, she encountered problems with her burgeoning weight, to the jeopardy of her career. Her self-remedy ...

63. Aileen Pringle

Actress | The Last of Mrs. Cheyney

Aileen Pringle's favorite film was a mid-1920s silent based on a book by Elinor Glyn: Three Weeks (1924), sort of a "Lady Chatterly's Lover". She recalled in a 1980 telephone conversation: "The film was in good taste; some people thought the book was trashy". Anita Loos wrote in "A Girl Like I", the...

64. Vera Reynolds

Actress | Golf Widows

Vera Reynolds was born on November 25, 1899 in Nebraska, USA. She was an actress, known for Golf Widows (1928), The Monster Walks (1932) and Silence (1926). She was married to Robert Ellis and Earl Montgomery. She died on April 22, 1962 in Los Angeles, California, USA.

65. Dolores Del Río

Actress | Las abandonadas

Dolores del Rio was the one of the first Mexican movie stars with international appeal and who had meteoric career in the 1920s/1930s Hollywood. Del Rio came from an aristocratic family in Durango. In the Mexican revolution of 1916, however, the family lost everything and emigrated to Mexico City, ...

66. Alma Rubens

Actress | The Rejected Woman

Alma Rubens was born Alma Genevieve Reubens in San Francisco, California. She was interested in entertaining at an early age. Like most young girls, she enjoyed fantasy play acting and by the time she was 19 had become a full-fledged star. She didn't have to wait long like some of the starlets who ...

67. Norma Shearer

Actress | The Divorcee

She won a beauty contest at age fourteen. In 1920 her mother, Edith Shearer, took Norma and her sister Athole Shearer (Mrs. Howard Hawks) to New York. Ziegfeld rejected her for his "Follies," but she got work as an extra in several movies. She spent much money on eye doctor's services trying to ...

68. Pauline Starke

Actress | Captain Salvation

Pauline Starke was born on January 10, 1901 in Joplin, Missouri, USA. She was an actress, known for Captain Salvation (1927), A Royal Romance (1930) and Salvation Nell (1921). She was married to Jack White and George Sherwood. She died on February 3, 1977 in Santa Monica, California, USA.

69. Gloria Swanson

Actress | Sunset Blvd.

Gloria Swanson was born Gloria May Josephine Svensson in Chicago, Illinois. She was destined to be perhaps one of the biggest stars of the silent movie era. Her personality and antics in private definitely made her a favorite with America's movie-going public. Gloria certainly didn't intend on ...

70. Norma Talmadge

Actress | Camille

Norma Talmadge was born on May 26, 1895, in Jersey City, New Jersey. The daughter of an unemployed alcoholic and his wife, Norma did not have the idyllic childhood that most of us yearn for. Her father left the family on Christmas Day and his wife and three daughters had to fend for themselves. Her...

71. Alice Terry

Actress | The Conquering Power

Alice started as an extra in films at age 15. She worked in "Inceville" and would appear as several characters in 'Civilization (1916)'. In 1917, she would meet director Rex Ingram and they would marry in 1921. It was also in 1921 that Alice would gain acclaim as Marguerite in 'The Four Horsemen of...

72. Olga Tschechowa

Actress | Die Drei von der Tankstelle

Olga Chekhova (also Olga Tschechova in German), one of the most popular stars of the silent film era, remained a mysterious person throughout her life and was accused of being a Russian agent in Nazi Germany.

She was born Olga Konstantinovna von Knipper on April 26, 1897, in Aleksandropol, ...

73. Virginia Valli

Actress | A Lady of Quality

Virginia got her start with a Milwaukee stock company and also did some film work with Essanay Studios in 1917 Chicago. Back in the theater, it would be 3 more years before she was brought out to Hollywood to act as leading lady to Bert Lytell. Virginia would continue to appear in films throughout ...

74. Florence Vidor

Actress | Main Street

Houston-born-and-bred Florence Vidor was one of the great beauties of early Hollywood. But while her photogenic looks went a long way, audiences would not get to enjoy or really experience her voice as she abruptly left the silver screen after her first disastrous attempt at a talking picture.

Born ...

75. Pearl White

Actress | The Perils of Pauline

Born on her father's farm in Green Ridge, Missouri, the youngest of five children. Moved with her family to Springfield, Missouri, where she grew up. Joined the Diemer Theatre Company during her second year of high school, and went on the road with a touring stock company at age 18, in 1907. Signed...