Spanish postcard in the Estrellas del cine series by Editorial Grafica, Barcelona, no. 50. Photo: Paramount Film.

Florence Vidor (née Cobb, later Arto, July 23, 1895 – November 3, 1977) was an American silent film actress, starting at Vitagraph and her first husband King Vidor's own company, but afterward working for Paramount in especially sophisticated comedies by Lubitsch and others.

Florence was born in Texas on July 23, 1895, the child of John and Ida Cobb. Her parents had married in Houston on March 3, 1894 but divorced only three years later. Ida remained in Houston and soon married John P. Arto, a real estate man who later served as deputy chief of the city's fire department. Florence Vidor started working in silent movies through the influence of her husband, film director King Vidor, whom she had married in 1915. She signed her first contract with Vitagraph Studios in 1916 and became known for her part in the Dickens adaptation A Tale of Two Cities (Frank Lloyd, 1917). At Jesse Lasky/ Paramount Vidor was paired with Sessue Hayakawa in several films such as The Secret Game (William C. deMille, 1917), and with crossdresser Julian Eltinge, such as The Countess Charming (Donald Crisp, 1917). From 1919, King Vidor also directed her at his own studio, Vidor Village, in films such as The Other Half (1919), Conquering the Woman (1922), and most memorable, Alice Adams (1923). A touching melodrama was the Thomas Ince production Hail the Woman (John Griffith Wray, 1921), which when found and restored in recent years still emoted audiences.

Throughout the 1920s, Florence Vidor was a major box office attraction for Paramount Pictures. Her forte were sophisticated comedies. Memorable was the witty comedy The Marriage Circle (1924) by Ernst Lubitsch, also with Monte Blue, Creighton Hale, Adolphe Menjou, and Marie Prevost, while Lubitsch directed her again in the Emil Jannings vehicle The Patriot (1928). Also memorable were The Grandduchess and the Waiter (Malcolm St. Clair, 1926) with again Adolphe Menjou, and The Magnificent Flirt (Harry d'Abbadie d'Arrast, 1928) with Loretta Young. Yet, Vidor's performance with Gary Cooper in Doomsday (Rowland V. Lee, 1928) was less successful.

Vidor's career ended with the advent of sound films. In 1929 she became so frustrated by the difficulties of making the partial sound film Chinatown Nights that she retired from acting before the production was completed. Director William A. Wellman had to use a voice double to complete some of her scenes. Florence and King Vidor divorced in 1924; their marriage produced a daughter, Suzanne (1918–2003). Despite the end of their marriage, Florence continued to use Vidor as her surname. In 1926, she married classical violinist Jascha Heifetz. They had two children together and Heifetz also adopted Suzanne before divorcing in 1945. Florence Vidor, at age 82, died in California in 1977.

Sources: English, French and German Wikipedia, IMDb Mini Biography by Gary Brumburgh.

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Spanish postcard in the Estrellas del cine series by Editorial Grafica, Barcelona, no. 55. Photo: First National. This photo dates from the time Corda acted in The Private Life of Helen of Troy (Alexander Korda, First National 1927).

Hungarian Maria Corda (1898-1975) was an immensely popular star of the silent cinema of Austria and Germany. The pretty, blonde actress was a queen of the popular epic spectacles of the 1920s, which were often directed by her husband, Alexander Korda.

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Spanish postcard in the Estrellas del cine series by Editorial
Grafica, Barcelona, no. 81. Photo: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.

Dorothy Jordan (1906-1988) was an American film actress, who emerged as an actress at the start of the talkies. She made her film debut in 1929 as Mary Pickford's sister in Sam Taylor's The Taming of the Shrew. Jordan worked for various studios and until 1933 played the female lead in various films. Important parts she had e.g. in Min and Bill (1930) with Wallace Beery and Marie Dressler and in The Cabin in the Cotton (1932) with Bette Davis. In the early 1930s, she worked with various well-known actors, including Ramon Novarro, Clark Gable, Lionel Barrymore, Walter Huston, and Jimmy Durante. In 1933 Jordan left the film industry to marry film producer and director Merian C. Cooper. The couple had three children. In the 1950s she returned to the film industry and acted in three films including John Ford's The Searchers (1956). Jordan moved to Coronado, San Diego County, after her marriage to Cooper. She continued to live there until his death in 1973. Jordan died of heart failure 15 years later at the age of 82.

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Spanish postcard in the Estrellas del cine series by Editorial Grafica, Barcelona, no. 91. Photo: Columbia Pictures.

Lois Wilson (1894-1988) was an American screen and stage actress.

Wilson, born 28 June 1894 in Pittsburgh, Penn., but grown in Alabama, won a beauty contest in 1915, set up by Universal Studios. Because of this she also came into contact with acting and got small roles in films. Under the guidance of female director Lois Weber, in whose The Dumb Girl of Portici (1916) she had a small part, she grew as an actress and moved to Los Angeles. Wilson then acted in films from different studios, before getting a contract with Paramount Pictures in 1919. Her contract did not expire until 1927. In 1922 she was named one of the WAMPAS Baby Stars and all in all she played in about 150 films, but many of her films got lost, especially the ones from before the mid-1920s.

Wilson played the title role in two remarkable still-existing films by William deMille, Midsummer Madness (1920), with Jack Holt and Conrad Nagel, and the silent comedy-drama Miss Lulu Bett (1921), about a once-timid young woman who gains newfound confidence after a failed marriage, much to the chagrin of her miserable family. The latter film co-starred Milton Sills, Theodore Roberts and Mabel van Buren. After that, Wilson appeared for instance as Molly Wingate opposite J. Warren Kerrigan in the epic western The Covered Wagon (James Cruze, 1923) and as Daisy Buchanan in The Great Gatsby (Herbert Brenon, 1926), the latter a lost film as well, alas. Wilson played against big names, including three silent films with Richard Dix: To the Last Man (Victor Fleming, 1923), The Call of the Canyon (Victor, Fleming 1923), and The Vanishing American (George B. Seitz, 1925). Of the latter, leading film historian Kevin Brownlow wrote: "The problem of the Indian and his betrayal by the government was more clearly etched in this picture than in any other silent film." Wilson also co-acted with silent stars Rudolph Valentino (Monsieur Beaucaire, Sidney Olcott, 1924), and John Gilbert (One Dollar Bid, Ernest C. Warde, 1918). She was often cast as the romantic woman and 'the marrying kind', though she didn't marry in real life.

Although the transition to the sound film seemed promising for Wilson, she starred in films such as Lovin' the Ladies (Melville Brown, 1930) with Richard Dix, Seed (John Stahl, 1931) with John Boles and Genevieve Tobin and was a co-star in the apocalyptic science-fiction film Deluge (Felix Feist 1933). Wilson's parts became smaller after the early 1930s, working for Universal and B-movie companies like Republic. She became disappointed and eventually retired in 1941. After this, she did mainly theatre work, including Broadway, and television. From 1954 to 1955 she was seen in the soap opera Guiding Light.

In 1988 Lois Wilson died of pneumonia at the Riverside Hospital for Skilled Care in Reno, Nevada at the age of 93.

Sources: English, German and Dutch Wikipedia, IMDb.

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Spanish postcard in the Estrellas del cine series by Editorial Grafica, Barcelona, no. 94. Photo: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.

Lew Cody aka Lewis Cody (1884-1934) was an American actor of the silent screen. With his moustache and an air of seducer, he became very popular in roles that used his vivacious charm, either as protagonist or antagonist. He thus played the playboy Schuyler van Sutphen in Cecil B. DeMille's society comedy Don't Change Your Husband, starring Gloria Swanson. From the mid-1920s until 1930 Cody was a steady actor at MGM, where he often was paired with the French Renée Adorée.

Born Louis Joseph Côté in Waterville, Maine - others claim it was Berlin, New Hampshire, where he grew up. Cody was born to French parents. To be an actor, he abandoned his studies and medicine. He began acting in the theatre and, in 1914, he switched to film acting, where he debuted in Harp of Tara, a film directed by Raymond B. West and distributed by Mutual.

With his moustache and an air of seducer, he became very popular in roles that used his vivacious charm, either as protagonist or antagonist. He thus played the playboy Schuyler van Sutphen in Cecil B. DeMille's society comedy Don't Change Your Husband, starring Gloria Swanson. In the late 1910s and early 1920s, Cody wandered from one production company to another: Kay-Bee, Selig, Fox, Universal and many others. From the mid-1920s until 1930 Cody was a steady actor at MGM, where he often was paired with the French Renée Adorée. With her, he formed an ideal couple in mischievous comedies such as Man and Maid (Victor Schertzinger, 1925). In the early sound era, Cody again shifted from one company to another. During his career, which would last until 1934, Cody acted in about a hundred films. Important directors of his were Maurice Tourneur, Frank Borzage, Allan Dwan, Henry King, George Fitzmaurice, and Josef von Sternberg, while he acted opposite female stars such as Norma Talmadge, Barbara LaMarr, Mabel Normand, Norma Shearer, and Marlene Dietrich.

Cody married three times, always with an actress. His first wife was Dorothy Dalton whom he married and divorced twice: 1910-1911, and 1913-1914. His second wife was Mabel Normand: in 1926, during a party, Cody joked to the famous actress to marry him and she accepted. They convinced the county judge of Ventura to celebrate the ceremony, but the two never lived together even though they never divorced. Cody was married to Mabel Normand until she died in 1930. On the grave, the actress's name appears as Mabel Normand-Cody.

Cody's last years were marred by big heart problems that led to his death at the age of only fifty in 1934, immediately after shooting his latest film. He was buried at the Saint Peter Catholic cemetery in Lewiston, Maine, in the county of Androscoggin.

Sources: English and Italian Wikipedia, IMDB.

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