Betty Compson

Betty Compson
Publicity photo, 1930
Born	Eleanor Luicime Compson (1897-03-19)March 19, 1897 Beaver, Utah, U.S.
Died	April 18, 1974(1974-04-18) (aged 77) Glendale, California, U.S.
Occupation	Actress
Years active	1915–1948
Spouse(s)	James Cruze (1925–1930) Irving Weinberg ( 1933 - 1937 ) Silvius Jack Gall (1944-1962) (his death)

Betty Compson (March 19, 1897 – April 18, 1974) was an American actress and film producer. Most famous in silent films and early talkies, she is best known in her performances in The Docks of New York and The Barker, the latter earning a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actress.

Eleanor Luicime Compson was born on March 19, 1897 in Beaver, Utah. Her father died when she was young and she had to obtain employment as a violinist when 16 years old at a theater in Salt Lake City, Utah. Playing in vaudeville sketches with touring circuits, she got noticed by Hollywood producers. While touring, she was discovered by comedic producer Al Christie. Her first silent film was in November 1915. She made 41 films in 1916 alone, although all of them were shorts for Christie with the exception of one feature Almost a Widow. She continued this pace of making numerous short films well into the middle of 1918 when after a long apprenticeship with Christie she started making features exclusively. Compson's star began to rise with the release of the 1919 feature The Miracle Man (1919) for George Loane Tucker. Paramount signed Compson to a five-year contract with help of director Tucker.

Her popularity allowed her to have creative control over her films as she was also able to produce. Her first movie as producer was Prisoners of Love (1921). She played the role of Blanche Davis, a girl born to wealth and cursed by her inheritance of physical beauty. Compson selected Art Rosson to direct the feature. The story was chosen from a work by Catherine Henry. After completing The Woman With Four Faces (1923), Paramount refused to offer her a raise (her salary was $2,500 a week) and she refused to sign without one. Instead, she signed with a motion picture company in London, England. There she starred in a series of four films directed by Graham Cutts, a well-known English filmmaker. The first of these was a movie version of an English play called Woman to Woman (1923), the screenplay for which was co-written by Cutts and Alfred Hitchcock.