Madge Bellamy (born Margaret Derden Philpott; June 30, 1899 – January 24, 1990) was an American stage and film actress. She was a popular leading lady in the 1920s and early 1930s. Bellamy's career declined in the sound era and ended following a romantic scandal in the 1940s.
Early life
Margaret Derden Philpott was born in Hillsboro, Texas on June 30, 1899 to William Bledsoe and Annie Margaret Derden Philpott. Bellamy was raised in San Antonio, Texas until she was six years old, and the family later moved to Brownwood, Texas, where her father worked as an English professor at Texas A&M.
As a child, Bellamy took dancing lessons and soon aspired to become a stage performer. She made her stage debut dancing in a local production of Aida, at the age of nine.
The Philpotts later moved to Denver, Colorado. Madge met and married Carlos Bellamy in Colorado, but they divorced when she decided to leave Colorado to pursue her acting career. In her autobiography, she later claimed that her agent suggested the name, possibly to avoid the scandal of divorce.
Career
Shortly before she was to graduate from high school, Bellamy left home for New York City. She soon began working as a dancer on Broadway. After appearing in the chorus of The Love Mill (1917), Bellamy decided to try acting. In 1918, she appeared in a touring production of Pollyanna, for which she received good reviews. Bellamy's big break came when she replaced Helen Hayes in the Broadway production of Dear Brutus opposite William Gillette, in 1918.[4] Bellamy also appeared in the touring production of Dear Brutus. While appearing in Dear Brutus, Bellamy was cast in a supporting role in her first film The Riddle: Woman (1920), starring Geraldine Farrar.
Bellamy photographed by Alfred Cheney Johnston, Shadowland, June 1921
After the tour of Dear Brutus ended, Bellamy joined a stock company in Washington D.C., where she appeared in Peg o' My Heart. While a member of the company, Bellamy shot a screen test for director Thomas H. Ince. In November 1920, she signed a three-year contract with Ince's newly formed Triangle Film Corporation. Bellamy's first film for Triangle was 1921's The Cup of Life, starring Hobart Bosworth.
Films
- Madge Bellamy featured in The Tatler, May 1922.
- Bellamy's breakout role was as the title character in the 1922 film adaptation of the 1869 novel Lorna Doone. She thereafter became known as "the exquisite Madge" (Artist Penrhyn Stanlaws later called her "The Most Beautiful Girl in America") and was cast in several melodramas by Ince.
- In 1924, Bellamy's contract with Ince ended and she signed with Fox Film Corporation where she would stay for the next five years.
- While at Fox, she appeared in two films for John Ford, The Iron Horse (1924) and Lightnin'.
- In 1927, Bellamy appeared in the romantic comedy Very Confidential, in which she appeared as a model who impersonates a famous female sports figure.
- In 1928, Bellamy was cast in Fox's first part-talking film, Mother Knows Best. The film was an adaptation of Edna Ferber's novel of the same name and features Bellamy as Sally Quail, a stage performer whose life is dominated by her overbearing stage mother "Ma Quail" (Louise Dresser). In the musical sequences, Bellamy impersonated several popular performers of the day including Anna Held, Sir Harry Lauder, and Al Jolson singing "My Mammy" in blackface. Reviews for the film were generally positive.
- Bellamy's final silent film, Fugitives, was released in 1929. Her first full length, all-talking feature, Tonight at Twelve, was released later that year. She was named an "American Beauty" by the Hollywood Association of Foreign Correspondents.
- One of her better-known roles from this period was in the 1932 film White Zombie, opposite Bela Lugosi and directed by brothers Edward and Victor Hugo Halperin.
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