##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.

 


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Tuesday, February 16, 2021. 12:35. PM.

Blanche Sweet- Actress.

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#Blanche Sweet by Hartsook, 1915 

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Born Sarah Blanche Sweet, June 18, 1896, Chicago, Illinois, U.S.

Died September 6, 1986 (aged 90), New York City, U.S.

Occupation Actress

Years active 1909–1930, 1958–1960

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Spouse(s)

1. Marshall Neilan - ​(m. 1922; div. 1929)​

2. Raymond Hackett - ​(m. 1935; died 1958)​

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2. Introduction :

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.

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Early life :


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

Cora Alexander found her many parts as a young child. At the age of 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.

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Rise to stardom :

#Photoplay cover image of Sweet, April 1915*

#Sweet, seen in an official January 1918 Photoplay publicity photo*

#Sweet, 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 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.

Because the Biograph company refused to reveal the names of its actors, the British distributor M. P. Sales billed Sweet as Daphne Wayne.

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 charging that Neilan was a persistent adulterer.

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 also notable as being the first Eugene O'Neill play to be made into a motion picture. In successive years, she starred in Tess of the d'Urbervilles and The Sporting Venus, both directed by Neilan. Sweet soon began a new career phase as one of the newly formed MGM studio's biggest stars.

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Sound film and later career :


Sweet's career faltered with the advent of talkies. Sweet made just three talking pictures, including her critically lauded performance in 1930's Show Girl in Hollywood, before retiring from the screen that same year and marrying stage actor Raymond Hackett in 1935. The marriage lasted until Hackett's death in 1958.

Sweet spent the remainder of her performing career in radio and in secondary Broadway stage roles. Eventually, her career in both of these fields petered out, and she began working in a Los Angeles department store. 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.

In 1980, Sweet was one of the many featured surviving silent film stars interviewed at length in Kevin Brownlow's documentary about the silent film era 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.

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Death :



Sweet died of a stroke in New York City on September 6, 1986. Her ashes were later scattered within the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens.

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Filmography :


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1909 :

A Man with Three Wives (lost)

A Corner in Wheat

In Little Italy

To Save Her Soul

The Day After

Choosing a Husband

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1910 :

The Rocky Road

All on Account of the Milk

A Romance of the Western Hills

The Kid

A Flash of Light

Love in Quarantine

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1911 :

The Two Paths

Heart Beats of Long Ago

His Daughter

The Lily of the Tenements

A Decree of Destiny

Was He a Coward?

The Lonedale Operator

Priscilla's April Fool Joke

The Spanish Gypsy

Priscilla and the Umbrella

The Broken Cross

How She Triumphed (lost)

The Country Lovers

The New Dress

The White Rose of the Wilds

The Smile of a Child

Enoch Arden: Part I

The Primal Call

Fighting Blood

The Indian Brothers

A Country Cupid

The Last Drop of Water

Out from the Shadow

The Blind Princess and the Poet

The Stuff Heroes Are Made Of

The Making of a Man

The Long Road

Love in the Hills

The Battle

Through Darkened Vales

The Miser's Heart

A Woman Scorned

The Voice of the Child

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1912 :

The Eternal Mother

The Old Bookkeeper

For His Son

The Transformation of Mike

A Sister's Love

Under Burning Skies

A String of Pearls

The Goddess of Sagebrush Gulch

The Punishment

One Is Business, the Other Crime

The Lesser Evil

An Outcast Among Outcasts

A Temporary Truce

The Spirit Awakened

Man's Lust for Gold

The Inner Circle

With the Enemy's Help

A Change of Spirit

A Pueblo Romance

Blind Love

The Chief's Blanket

The Painted Lady

A Sailor's Heart

The God Within

1913

Three Friends

Pirate Gold

Oil and Water

A Chance Deception

Love in an Apartment Hotel

Broken Ways

Near to Earth

The Hero of Little Italy

The Stolen Bride

If We Only Knew

Death's Marathon

The Mistake

The Coming of Angelo (lost)

The Vengeance of Galora

Two Men of the Desert (lost)

A Cure for Suffragettes

The Battle at Elderbush Gulch

The House of Discord

Beyond All Law (lost)

Her Wedding Bell (lost)

The Wedding Gown

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1914 :

The Sentimental Sister (lost)

Classmates

The Massacre

Judith of Bethulia

Strongheart

Brute Force

Ashes of the Past (lost)

Home, Sweet Home

The Soul of Honor (lost)

The Escape

The Avenging Conscience scene.

The Avenging Conscience: or 'Thou Shalt Not Kill'

The Second Mrs. Roebuck (lost)

Men and Women

For Those Unborn (lost)

Her Awakening (lost)

For Her Father's Sins (lost)

The Tear That Burned (lost)

The Odalisque (lost)

The Little Country Mouse

The Old Maid (lost)

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1915 :

The Warrens of Virginia

His Desperate Deed (lost)

The Captive

Stolen Goods (lost)

The Clue (lost)

The Secret Orchard (lost)

The Case of Becky

The Secret Sin

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1916 :

The Ragamuffin

The Blacklist (lost)

The Sowers

The Thousand-Dollar Husband (lost)

The Dupe (lost)

Public Opinion

The Storm

Unprotected (lost)

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1917 :

The Evil Eye

Those Without Sin (lost)

The Tides of Barnegat (lost)

The Silent Partner

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1919 :

The Unpardonable Sin

The Hushed Hour

A Woman of Pleasure

Fighting Cressy (lost)

Later films :

The Deadlier Sex (1920)

Simple Souls (1920)

The Girl in the Web (Lost, 1920)

Help Wanted - Male (Lost, 1920)

Her Unwilling Husband (Lost, 1920)

That Girl Montana (1921)

Quincy Adams Sawyer (Lost, 1922)

The Meanest Man in the World (fragment, 1923)

In the Palace of the King (1923)

Anna Christie (1923)

Those Who Dance (1924)

Tess of the d'Urbervilles (Lost, 1924)

The Sporting Venus (1925)

His Supreme Moment (Lost, 1925)

Blanche Sweet in Anna Christie 1923

Help Wanted-Male lobby card

The Deadlier Sex - newspaper ad

Why Women Love (Lost, 1925)

The New Commandment (Lost, 1925)

Bluebeard's Seven Wives (Lost, 1925)

The Lady from Hell (Extant(New Zealand), 1926)

The Far Cry (Lost, 1926)

Diplomacy (1926)

Singed (1927)

The Woman in White (1929, Lost)

Always Faithful (1929)

The Woman Racket (1930)

Show Girl in Hollywood (1930)

The Silver Horde (1930)

The Five Pennies (1959)


End.

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