1896-06-16 Chicago, Illinois, USA
From Wikipedia 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. Sweet is renowned 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 movie, 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. 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. 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. On September 24, 1984, a tribute to Blanche Sweet was held at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. Miss Sweet introduced her 1925 film, The Sporting Venus. Sweet died in New York City of a stroke, on September 6, 1986, just weeks after her 90th birthday.
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Before the Nickelodeon: The Cinema of Edwin S. Porter | Narrator (voice) | 1982-10-09 |
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Make Mine Memories | 1945-10-19 | |
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Twenty Years After | (archive footage) | 1944-01-01 |
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The Woman Racket | Julia Barnes Hayes | 1930-01-24 |
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Show Girl in Hollywood | Donny Harris | 1930-04-20 |
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The Silver Horde | Queenie | 1930-10-24 |
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Always Faithful | Mrs. George W. Mason | 1929-12-29 |
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The Woman in White | Laura Fairlie / Anne Catherick | 1929-05-24 |
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Singed | Dolly Wall | 1927-08-23 |
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Diplomacy | Dora Weymouth | 1926-09-20 |
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Bluebeard's Seven Wives | Juliet | 1926-01-13 |
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The Far Cry | Claire Marsh | 1926-02-14 |
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The Sporting Venus | Lady Gwendolyn | 1925-04-12 |
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Why Women Love | Molla Hansen | 1925-10-18 |
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The New Commandment | Renee Darcourt | 1925-11-01 |
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His Supreme Moment | Carla King | 1925-04-12 |
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Tess of the D'Urbervilles | Teresa "Tess" Durbeyfield | 1924-08-11 |
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Those Who Dance | Rose Carney | 1924-04-27 |
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In the Palace of the King | Dolores Mendoza | 1923-10-28 |
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Anna Christie | Anna Christie | 1923-11-24 |
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The Meanest Man in the World | Jane Hudson | 1923-10-22 |
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Souls for Sale | Self - Celebrity Actress (uncredited) | 1923-04-22 |
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Quincy Adams Sawyer | Alice Pettengill | 1922-12-04 |
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That Girl Montana | Montana Rivers | 1921-01-31 |
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The Girl in the Web | Esther Maitland | 1920-08-05 |
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Simple Souls | Molly Shine | 1920-05-23 |
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Help Wanted - Male | Leona Stafford | 1920-09-26 |
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Her Unwilling Husband | Mavis | 1920-11-21 |
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The Deadlier Sex | Mary Willard | 1920-03-28 |
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The Unpardonable Sin | Alice Parcot / Dinny Parcot | 1919-04-01 |
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A Woman of Pleasure | Alice Dane | 1919-11-09 |
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The Hushed Hour | Virginia Appleton Blodgett | 1919-05-18 |
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Fighting Cressy | Cressy | 1919-11-22 |
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The Evil Eye | Dr. Katherine Torrance | 1917-01-04 |
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Those Without Sin | Melanie Landry | 1917-03-01 |
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The Thousand-Dollar Husband | Olga Nelson | 1916-05-29 |
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The Sowers | Karin Dolokhof | 1916-03-30 |
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Public Opinion | Hazel Gray | 1916-08-20 |
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The Storm | Natalie Raydon | 1916-10-05 |
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The Ragamuffin | Jenny | 1916-01-23 |
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The Clue | Christine Lesley | 1915-07-08 |
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Stolen Goods | Margery Huntley | 1915-05-14 |
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The Warrens of Virginia | Agatha Warren | 1915-02-14 |
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The Case of Becky | Dorothy/Becky | 1915-09-13 |
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The Secret Sin | Edith Martin / Grace Martin | 1915-10-21 |
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The Secret Orchard | Diane | 1915-08-09 |
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The Captive | Sonya Matinovich | 1915-04-22 |
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Home, Sweet Home | The Wife | 1914-05-16 |
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The Avenging Conscience | The Sweetheart | 1914-08-02 |
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The Second Mrs. Roebuck | Mabel Mack | 1914-08-23 |
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The Tear That Burned | Meg - the Wild Girl | 1914-11-08 |
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Judith of Bethulia | Judith | 1914-03-08 |
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For Her Father's Sins | Mary Ashton | 1914-10-18 |
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The Odalisque | May, a Stock Girl | 1914-11-15 |
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Her Awakening | Mary | 1914-09-20 |
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Classmates | Sylvia Randolph | 1914-02-14 |
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Men and Women | Agnes Rodman - Stephen's Daughter | 1914-08-01 |
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The Little Country Mouse | Dorothy | 1914-11-16 |
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Strongheart | Dorothy Nelson, Frank's Sister | 1914-03-08 |
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The Painted Lady | Jane - the Elder Sister | 1914-07-19 |
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The House of Discord | The Wife | 1913-12-13 |
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Two Men of the Desert | The Authoress | 1913-08-23 |
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The Stolen Bride | The Grower's Daughter | 1913-04-07 |
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The Coming of Angelo | Theresa | 1913-01-01 |
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Broken Ways | The Road Agent's Wife | 1913-03-08 |
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A Chance Deception | The Wife | 1913-02-24 |
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Love in an Apartment Hotel | The Young Woman | 1913-02-27 |
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Pirate Gold | The Daughter | 1913-01-13 |
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Oil and Water | Mlle. Genova | 1913-02-10 |
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The Hero of Little Italy | Maria | 1913-04-03 |
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A Cure for Suffragettes | 1913-11-17 | |
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Death's Marathon | The Wife | 1913-06-14 |
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Three Friends | The Wife | 1913-01-02 |
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Near To Earth | 1913-03-20 | |
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If We Only Knew | The Mother | 1913-05-01 |
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A String of Pearls | The Brother's Sweetheart | 1912-03-07 |
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A Temporary Truce | Alice Hardy - the Prospector's Wife | 1912-06-10 |
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The God Within | The Woman of the Camp | 1912-12-26 |
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With the Enemy's Help | The Prospector's Wife | 1912-08-19 |
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The Goddess of Sagebrush Gulch | The Goddess | 1912-03-25 |
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A Sailor’s Heart | The Sailor's Second Sweetheart | 1912-11-25 |
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The Painted Lady | The Older Sister | 1912-10-24 |
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Under Burning Skies | Emily | 1912-02-21 |
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The Lesser Evil | The Young Woman | 1912-04-29 |
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One Is Business, the Other Crime | Rich Wife | 1912-04-24 |
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For His Son | The Son's Fiancée | 1912-01-21 |
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The Chief's Blanket | The Young Woman | 1912-10-10 |
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The Massacre | Stephen's Ward | 1912-12-19 |
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The Transformation of Mike | The Tenement Girl | 1912-02-01 |
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Blind Love | The Young Woman | 1912-09-11 |
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The Eternal Mother | Martha, the Wife | 1912-01-10 |
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The Battle | The Boy's Sweetheart | 1911-11-06 |
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The Miser's Heart | Neighbor | 1911-11-20 |
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Enoch Arden: Part I | 1911-06-12 | |
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How She Triumphed | Mary | 1911-04-27 |
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The New Dress | At Wedding/At Market | 1911-05-15 |
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The Blind Princess and the Poet | The Princess | 1911-08-17 |
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Fighting Blood | 1911-06-28 | |
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The Broken Cross | 1911-04-06 | |
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The Spanish Gypsy | 1911-03-30 | |
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The Lonedale Operator | Daughter of the Lonedale Operator | 1911-03-23 |
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The Indian Brothers | Indian | 1911-07-16 |
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The Two Paths | 1911-01-02 | |
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The Voice of the Child | The Wife | 1911-12-28 |
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Through Darkening Vales | Grace | 1911-11-16 |
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His Daughter | 1911-02-23 | |
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The Primal Call | 1911-06-21 | |
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The Making of a Man | Young Woman | 1911-10-04 |
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The Long Road | Edith | 1911-10-26 |
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Enoch Arden | Woman on the Beach | 1911-06-15 |
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The Villain Foiled | Miss Page | 1911-08-30 |
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A Woman Scorned | 1911-11-30 | |
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A Country Cupid | Edith | 1911-07-23 |
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Love in the Hills | The Mountain Girl | 1911-10-30 |
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The Last Drop of Water | Mary | 1911-07-26 |
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The Rocky Road | 1910-01-03 | |
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A Flash of Light | 1910-07-17 | |
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All on Account of the Milk | The Maid | 1910-01-13 |
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A Corner in Wheat | 1909-12-13 | |
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To Save Her Soul | Stage Dancer | 1909-12-27 |
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The Day After | The New Year | 1909-12-30 |
