Biography for
Blanche Sweet More at IMDb Pro »

Date of Birth

18 June 1896, Chicago, Illinois, USA

Date of Death

6 September 1986, New York, New York, USA (stroke)

Birth Name

Sarah Blanche Sweet

Nickname

Sweet

Height

5' 4" (1.63 m)

Mini Biography

Born into a family of show people, Blanche first appeared on the stage when she was 18 months old. Blanche was a dancer by the time she was four and a talented actress by 1909 when she started work at Biograph with D.W. Griffith. At 14, she was two years younger than Mary Pickford, but her maturity and appearance soon lead to leading roles. She starred in such films as The Lonedale Operator (1911) and Judith of Bethulia (1914). Unlike most of the frail roles for women of her day, her presence was smart and resourceful. She left Biograph in 1914 and worked with Cecil B. DeMille in The Warrens of Virginia (1915). A popular and independent actress, she worked for many studio's and directors in the age of silent movies. In 1922, she married director Marshall Neilan, who would direct her in Tess of the D'Urbervilles (1924). The marriage ended in divorce in 1929. In 1923, she starred in Anna Christie (1923), directed by John Griffith Wray, the first Eugene O'Neill (I) play to reach the screen. Even before the talkies appeared, her career was in decline. She made three talking pictures including Show Girl in Hollywood (1930). This was to be the last film that Blanche Sweet appeared in before retiring. Her line, in the movie, about being washed up at 32 in Hollywood was close to the truth for her. She was 34. After that she retired from the screen and returned to the Stage. She appeared in plays on Broadway and with touring companies and also worked in radio during the thirties. Blanche married one of her stage co-stars, Raymond Hackett, in 1936 and remained married until his death in 1958.

IMDb Mini Biography By: Tony Fontana

Spouse

Raymond Hackett	(October 1935 - 7 July 1958) (his death)
Marshall Neilan	(8 June 1922 - 21 October 1929) (divorced)

Trivia

Off screen pseudonym: Daphne Wayne

Cousin of players Florence Short, Gertrude Short and Antrim Short.

She was a technical advisor on "Clingan's Junction" a Civil war feature producer by Thomas R. Bond II. She advised how to obtain a camera shot from a balloon, the same was unsuccessfully tried on the movie Intolerance: Love's Struggle Throughout the Ages (1916) which Sweet starred in. However, the balloon shot did work for the movie "Clingan's Junction".

She was named "Blanche" after her maternal grandmother, Blanche Alexander, who raised her.

In 1985 she helped producer Thomas R. Bond II to acquire the 'American Mutoscope & Biograph [us]' which is now the oldest movie company in America, established in 1895.

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