Sarah Blanche Sweet (June 18, 1896[1][2][3] – September 6, 1986) was an American silent film actress who began her career in the early days of the motion picture film industry.
Early life
Born Sarah Blanche Sweet (though her first name Sarah was rarely used)[4] in Chicago, Illinois in 1896, she was the daughter of Pearl Alexander, a dancer, and Gilbert Joel Sweet, a wine merchant.[a] The actors Antrim and Gertrude Short were cousins of Blanche.[6][b] Her mother died when she was an infant, and she was raised by her maternal grandmother, Cora Blanche Alexander.[9][10] Cora Alexander found her many parts as a young child. At age 4, she toured in the play The Battle of the Strong with Marie Burroughs and Maurice Barrymore.[10]
A decade later, Sweet acted with Barrymore's son Lionel in a D. W. Griffith-directed film.[11][12] 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 started for Griffith the previous year.
Rise to stardom
“Blanche Sweet is one of the most underrated of screen actresses; it is highly probable that had she not left D. W. Griffith she would have been given the role of Elsie Stoneman in The Birth of a Nation (1915).”—Film historian Paul O’Dell in Griffith and the Rise of Hollywood (1970)[13]
Photoplay cover image of Sweet, April 1915Sweet, seen in an official January 1918 Photoplay publicity photoSweet, seen in 1919 "Unpardonable Sin"
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 landmark film was the 1911 Griffith thriller The Lonedale Operator. In 1913, she starred in Judith of Bethulia, Griffith's first feature film. In 1914, Sweet was considered by Griffith for the part of Elsie Stoneman in his epic The Birth of a Nation (1915), but the role went to Lillian Gish. The 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.
Because the Biograph company refused to reveal the names of its actors, the British distributor M. P. Sales billed Sweet as Daphne Wayne.[14]
Throughout the 1910s, Sweet continued her career appearing in a number of highly prominent roles in films and remained a publicly popular leading lady. She often starred in vehicles by Cecil B. DeMille and Marshall Neilan, and she was recognised by leading film critics of the time to be one of the foremost actresses of the entire silent era. It was during her time working with Neilan that the two began a publicized affair, which brought on his divorce from former actress Gertrude Bambrick. Sweet and Neilan married in 1922. The union ended in 1929 with Sweet's charging that Neilan was a persistent adulterer.[15][16]
During the early 1920s, Sweet's career continued to prosper, and she starred in the first film version of Anna Christie in 1923. The film is notable as being the first Eugene O'Neill play to be made into a motion picture.[17] Of Sweet’s performance, The New York Times wrote: “It would be difficult to imagine any actress doing better in this exacting role.”[18]
In successive years, she starred in Tess of the d'Urbervilles and The Sporting Venus, both directed by Neilan. Sweet soon began a career phase as one of the newly-formed MGM's biggest stars.
Sound film and later career
Sweet's career faltered with the advent of sound films. Sweet made just three talking pictures, including her critically lauded performance in Show Girl in Hollywood (1930), then retired in 1930 and married stage actor Raymond Hackett in 1935.[19] The marriage lasted until Hackett's death in 1958.
Sweet spent the remainder of her performing career in radio and in secondary stage roles on Broadway. Eventually, her career in both of these fields faded, and she began working in a department store in Los Angeles. In the late 1960s, her acting legacy was resurrected when film scholars invited her to Europe to receive recognition for her work.
In 1975, she was honored with the George Eastman Award for distinguished contribution to the art of film.[20]
In 1980, Sweet was one of the many featured surviving silent film stars interviewed at length in Kevin Brownlow's documentary Hollywood.
Sweet is the subject of a 1982 documentary by Anthony Slide, titled Portrait of Blanche Sweet, in which she talks of her life and her career. On September 24, 1984, a tribute to Sweet was held at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. Sweet introduced her 1925 film The Sporting Venus.
^The Shorts were the grandchildren of the sister of Cora Alexander, making them second cousins.[7][8]
References
^Social Security Death Index (Death Master File), Blanche Hackett, 18 June 1896 – September 1986.
^U.S. Census, April 15, 1910, State of California, County of Alameda, City of Berkeley, enumeration district 47, page 8A, family 157, Sarah B. Sweet, age 13 years.
^U.S. Census, January 1, 1920, State of California, County of Los Angeles, City of Los Angeles, enumeration district 63, page 6A, family 159, Blanche Sweet, age 23 years.
^Montgomery, William Harry; Montgomery, Nellie Leddon (1939). The Dare Family History. Poughkeepsie, N.Y.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
^Davis, James Kotsilibas (1977). Great Times, Good Times: The Odyssey of Maurice Barrymore.
^Pratt, George C. (March 1975). "The Blonde Telegrapher: Blanche Sweet"(PDF). Image. Vol. 18, no. 1. Rochester, N.Y.: International Museum of Photography at George Eastman House Inc. pp. 21–23. Archived from the original(PDF) on October 22, 2012.
^O’Dell, 1970 p. 144: The role was performed by Lillian Gish.
^Slide, Anthony (1994). Early American Cinema. Scarecrow Press. p. 141. ISBN978-0-8108-2722-6.
^"Blanche Sweet Sues Neilan for Divorce". The New York Times. September 24, 1929. p. 28.
^"Decree to Blanche Sweet". The New York Times. October 22, 1929. p. 60.
^O’Dell, 1970 p. 113: “It was the first time Eugene O’Neill had been brought to the screen.”
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