Betty Compson

Betty Compson married film director James Cruze in 1924. The marriage was a troubled one and ended in 1930. Her second marriage to agent-producer Irving Weinberg also ended in divorce.

She tied the knot for the third time with professional boxer Silvius John Gall in 1944. The couple remained happily married until Gall’s death in 1962. None of her marriages produced children.

She died of a heart attack on April 18, 1974, at the age of 77.

Betty Compson was born as Eleanor Luicime Compson on March 19, 1897, in Beaver, Utah, U.S. Her father was a mining engineer.

Her father died when she was a teenager. His untimely death plunged the family into a financial crisis, forcing the young girl to drop out of school. She had to start working to support the family and found employment as a violinist at a Salt Lake City vaudeville establishment for $15 a week. She also toured with her mother.

While playing violin in vaudeville sketches, she got noticed by comedy producer Al Christie. He suggested that she change her stage name from Eleanor to Betty. She appeared in her first silent film in 1915 and followed it up with a steady series of slapstick comedies, almost all of them for Christie.

In the late 1910s she started appearing in feature films. Her portrayal of Rose in the George Loane Tucker directed film ‘The Miracle Man’ (1919) marked the beginning of her rise as a superstar. By the early 1920s she became one of the most highly paid performers of the silent era.

In 1921, she founded her own production company—becoming one of the first women to run her own production company. Her first movie as producer was ‘Prisoners of Love’ (1921) in which she played the role of Blanche Davis, a beautiful and wealthy girl who feels burdened by her wealth.

While she initially specialized in comedy, she eventually broadened her range of roles and gained acclaim for her dramatic and romantic performances as well. During the late 1920s she appeared in several films, exploring a range of roles. Some of her notable movies from this time are ‘The Docks of New York’ (1928), ‘The Barker’ (1928), and ‘The Great Gabbo’ (1929).

With the advent of the talkies in the late 1920s, Betty Compson found even greater success. Unlike many of her silent era contemporaries who struggled to transition to talkies, she effortlessly made the transition. The musical, ‘Street Girl’ (1929), was among her initial talkies.

The best known of Betty Compson’s films is ‘The Docks of New York’, a silent drama film in which she played a prostitute named Mae. The film was deemed "culturally historically, or aesthetically significant" by the United States Library of Congress and was selected for preservation in the National Film Registry in 1999.