Blanche Sweet

Blanche Sweet
Blanche Sweet, c. 1915
Born	Sarah Blanche Sweet (1896-06-18)June 18, 1896 Chicago, Illinois
Died	September 6, 1986(1986-09-06) (aged 90) New York, New York
Cause of death	Stroke
Occupation	Actress
Years active	1909–1930, 1958–1960
Spouse(s)	Marshall Neilan (1922–1929) Raymond Hackett (1935–1958) (his death)

Sarah Blanche Sweet (June 18, 1896 – September 6, 1986) was an American silent film actress who began her career in the earliest days of the Hollywood motion picture film industry.

Born Sarah Blanche Sweet (though the first name Sarah was rarely used) in Chicago, Illinois in 1896, daughter of Pearl, a dancer, and Gilbert Sweet, a wine merchant. Her mother died when Blanche was an infant, and she was brought up by her maternal grandmother Cora Alexander - and known as Blanche Alexander.

Cora Alexander found her many parts as a young child. At age four she toured in a play called The Battle of the Strong with Marie Burroughs and Maurice Barrymore.

A decade later Sweet acted with Barrymore's son Lionel in a D. W. Griffith directed film. In 1909, she started work at Biograph Studios under contract to director D. W. Griffith. By 1910 she had become a rival to Mary Pickford, who had also started for Griffith the year before.

Sweet was known for her energetic, independent roles, at variance with the 'ideal' Griffith type of vulnerable, often fragile, femininity. After many starring roles, her first real landmark film was the 1911 Griffith thriller The Lonedale Operator. In 1913 she starred in Griffith's first feature-length film, Judith of Bethulia. In 1914 Sweet was initially cast by Griffith in the part of Elsie Stoneman in his epic The Birth of a Nation but the role was eventually given to rival actress Lillian Gish, who was Sweet's senior by three years. That same year Sweet parted ways with Griffith and joined Paramount (then Famous Players-Lasky) for the much higher pay that studio was able to afford.