Renée Adorée

Renée Adorée
Born Jeanne de la Fonte
(1898-09-30)30 September 1898
Lille, Nord, France
Died 5 October 1933(1933-10-05) (aged 35)
Tujunga, California, U.S.
Cause of death Tuberculosis
Occupation Actress
Years active 1918–1930
Spouse(s)
Tom Moore
(m. 1921; div. 1924)

William Sherman Gill
(m. 1927; div. 1929)
Suzette (Renée Adorée) makes the tedious hours of the wounded Sir Nicholas Thormonde (Lew Cody) seem less monotonous. A scene from Elinor Glyn's production Man and Maid for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, 1925

Renée Adorée or Jeanne de la Fonte[1] (30 September 1898 – 5 October 1933)[2] was a French actress who appeared in Hollywood silent movies during the 1920s. She is most famous for her role as Melisande in the melodramatic romance and war epic The Big Parade.[2]

Early life

Born in Lille, Adorée was the daughter of circus artists and performed regularly with her parents as a child.[2] In her teens, she began acting in minor stage productions and toured Europe with her troupe. She was performing in Russia when World War I broke out and fled to London.

Career

Having made a reputation in France, England and Australia for her dancing skills, she went to New York City very early in 1919,[3] where she was cast in a vaudeville-style musical called Oh, Uncle,[2] which opened at the Garrick Theatre in Washington, D.C. in March 1919; by mid March, it was being staged in Trenton, New Jersey, and subsequently toured through the summer. In July, it was renamed Oh, What a Girl![2] and opened at the Shubert Theatre in New York City. Over the next several months, she toured in The Dancer,[2] another Shubert production.

By January 1920, the opportunity arose for her to work in the motion picture business when she was cast in The Strongest, directed by Raoul Walsh, as the lead character.[3] The Strongest was a dramatic photoplay written by Georges Clemenceau, France's celebrated prime minister. She went on to star in several other silent films in the early 1920s,[3] including Reginald Barker's The Eternal Struggle, the film which established her as a Hollywood star.[2]

Before coming to America, she already had adopted the romantic stage name "Renée Adorée" (French for "reborn" and "adored," both in the feminine form), and was billed as such in an Australian film produced in 1918. While in New York City on New Year's Eve 1921, she met Tom Moore (1883–1955), who was 15 years her senior. Moore and his brothers were Irish immigrants who had become popular Hollywood actors. Six weeks after their meeting, on 12 February 1921, Adorée married Moore at his home in Beverly Hills, California. The marriage ended in divorce in 1926, and in June 1927, Adorée married again, this time to William Sherman Gill.[4]

She is most famous for her role as Melisande in the melodramatic romance and war epic The Big Parade (1925) opposite John Gilbert. It became one of MGM's all-time biggest hits,[5] and a film that historians rank as one of the best of the silent film era.[6] In The Mating Call, a 1928 film produced by Howard Hughes, Adorée had a very brief swimming scene in the nude that caused a significant commotion at the time.

With the advent of sound in film, Adorée was one of the fortunate stars whose voices met the film industry's new needs, appearing in two all-talking films before her death.[3] She starred with Lon Chaney and her former brother-in-law Owen Moore, made three more films with John Gilbert, and appeared in four films with leading Hollywood actor Ramón Novarro.

Illness and death

By the end of 1930, Adorée had appeared in 45 films, the last four of which were sound pictures. That year, she was diagnosed with tuberculosis and lived only a few years longer. Adorée went against her physician's advice by finishing her final film Call of the Flesh with Ramon Novarro. At its completion, she was rushed to a sanitarium in Prescott, Arizona, where she lay flat on her back for two years in an effort to regain her physical health. In April 1933, she left the sanitarium. At this point, it was thought she had recovered sufficiently to resume her screen career, but she swiftly weakened and her health declined day by day. She was moved from her modest home in the Tujunga Hills to the Sunland health resort in September 1933.[7]

Adorée died there on 5 October 1933 in Tujunga, California. She is interred in the Hollywood Forever Cemetery. Adorée left an estate valued at $2,429. The only heir was her mother, who lived in England. No will was found.[8]

For her contributions to the film industry, Adorée has a motion pictures star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 1601 Vine Street.[9]

Filmography

Year Title Notes
1918 £500 Reward
1920 The Strongest
1921 Made in Heaven co-starring her husband, Tom Moore
1922 Day Dreams
1922 Honor First
1922 Mixed Faces
1922 Monte Cristo First film Adorée and John Gilbert made together
1922 A Self-Made Man
1922 West of Chicago
1923 The Six-Fifty Lost film
1923 The Eternal Struggle
1924 The Bandolero Lost film
1924 Defying the Law
1924 A Man's Mate
1924 Women Who Give
1925 Exchange of Wives
1925 Excuse Me Lost Film
1925 Man and Maid Lost Film
1925 Parisian Nights
1925 The Big Parade Second film with Gilbert
1926 Blarney
1926 'The Flaming Forest
1926 La Bohème Third film with Gilbert
1926 The Blackbird
1926 The Exquisite Sinner Lost Film
1926 Tin Gods Lost Film
1927 Back to God's Country
1927 Heaven on Earth
1927 Mr. Wu
1927 On Ze Boulevard
1927 The Show Fourth film with Gilbert
1928 A Certain Young Man First film starring Adorée and Ramon Novarro
1928 The Cossacks Fifth film with Gilbert
1928 Forbidden Hours Second film with Novarro
1928 The Mating Call
1928 Show People cameo; Sixth film with Gilbert
1928 The Michigan Kid
1929 The Pagan Third film with Novarro
1928 The Spieler
1929 Tide of Empire
1930 Redemption Final film Adorée and Gilbert made together
1930 Call of the Flesh Final film with Novarro; Adorée's final film

References

Notes
  1. ↑ Le Vrai Nom des stars de Michel Bracquart - M.A. Editions - 1989 - ( ISBN 2866764633)
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 "Renee Adoree". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 23 September 2018.
  3. 1 2 3 4 McCaffrey, Donald W.; Jacobs, Christopher P. (1999). Guide to the Silent Years of American Cinema. Greenwood Publishing Group. p. 18.
  4. ↑ "2 Jul 1927, Page 1 - The Alexandria Times-Tribune at Newspapers.com".
  5. ↑ H. Mark Glancy, 'MGM Film Grosses, 1924–28: The Eddie Mannix Ledger', Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, Vol 12 No. 2 1992 pp. 127–44
  6. ↑ War and American Popular Culture: A Historical Encyclopedia. Greenwood Publishing Group. 1999. p. 198.
  7. ↑ New York Times, Renee Adoree, 31, Film Player, Dead, October 6, 1933, p. 17.
  8. ↑ New York Times, Renee Adoree Left No Will, October 11, 1933, p. 26.
  9. ↑ "Hollywood Walk of Fame - Renée Adorée". walkoffame.com. Hollywood Chamber of Commerce. Retrieved November 1, 2017.
Bibliography
  • Bermingham, Cedric Osmond (1931). Stars of the Screen 1931, A volume of biographies of contemporary actors and actresses engaged in photoplay throughout the world. London: Herbert Joseph.
  • Stuart, Ray (1965). Immortals of the Screen. New York: Bonanza Books.
  • "RENEE ADOREE". Stars of the Photoplay. Chicago: Photoplay Magazine. 1924.
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