Virginia Valli
Born: 1898-06-10 in Chicago, Illinois, USA
Died: 1968-09-24
Known For: Acting
Biography
From Wikipedia Virginia Valli (June 10, 1898 – September 24, 1968) was an American stage and film actress whose motion picture career started in the silent film era and lasted until the beginning of the sound film era of the 1930s. Born Virginia McSweeney in Chicago, Illinois, she got her acting start in Milwaukee with a stock company. She also did some film work with Essanay Studios in her hometown of Chicago, starting in 1916. Valli continued to appear in films throughout the 1920s. She was an established star at the Universal studio by the mid-1920s. In 1924 she was the female lead in King Vidor's Southern Gothic Wild Oranges, a film now being seen after several decades of film vault obscurity. She also appeared in the romantic comedy, Every Woman's Life, about "the man she could have married, the man she should have married and the man she DID marry." She made the bulk of her films between 1924 and 1927 including Alfred Hitchcock's debut feature, The Pleasure Garden, Paid To Love (1927), with William Powell, and Evening Clothes (1927), which featured Adolphe Menjou. In 1925 Valli performed in The Man Who Found Himself with Thomas Meighan. The production was made at a Long Island, New York studio. Her first sound picture was The Isle of Lost Ships in 1929, but her film career would not last much longer due to declining fame. Unable to find a suitable studio, she quit films after making the quickie Night Life in Reno, in 1931. Valli was first married to George Lamson and the two shared a small bungalow in Hollywood, in close proximity to the Hollywood Hotel. In 1931, she married her second husband, actor Charles Farrell, to whom she remained married until her death. They moved to Palm Springs, where she was a social fixture for many years. She suffered a stroke in 1966, and died two years later, aged 70, in Palm Springs, California. She was buried in the Welwood Murray Cemetery of that city.
Filmography
1931
- Night Life in Reno as June Wyatt
1930
- Guilty? as Carolyn
1929
- Behind Closed Doors as Nina Laska
- The Lost Zeppelin as Miriam Hall
- Mister Antonio as June Ramsey
- The Isle of Lost Ships as Dorothy Whitlock / Renwick
1928
- The Street of Illusion as Sylvia Thurston
1927
- Marriage as Marjorie Pope
- Ladies Must Dress as Eve
- Judgement Of The Hills as Margaret Dix
- Paid to Love as Gaby
- East Side, West Side as Becka Lipvitch
- Evening Clothes as Germaine
- Stage Madness as Madame Lamphier
1926
- Watch Your Wife as Claudia Langham
- The Family Upstairs as Louise Heller
- Flames as Anne Travers
1925
- The Pleasure Garden as Patsy Brand
- The Lady Who Lied as Fay Kennion
- Up the Ladder as Jane Cornwall
- The Man Who Found Himself as Nora Brooks
- The Price of Pleasure as Linnie Randall
- Siege as Frederika
1924
- In Every Woman's Life as Sara Langford
- A Lady of Quality as Clorinda Wildairs
- Wild Oranges as Millie Stope
- The Signal Tower as Sally Tolliver
- The Confidence Man as Margaret Leland
- K - The Unknown as Sidney Page - a beautiful nurse
1923
- The Shock as Gertrude Hadley
1922
- The Village Blacksmith as Alice Hammond
- The Right That Failed as Constance Talbot
- His Back Against the Wall as Mary Welling
- The Storm as Manette Fachard
- The Black Bag as Dorothy Calender
- Tracked to Earth as Anna Jones
1921
- Sentimental Tommy as Lady Alice Pippinworth
- The Silver Lining as Evelyn Schofield
- The Man Who as Mary Turner
- The Devil Within as Laura
- A Trip to Paradise as Nora O'Brien
1920
- The Very Idea as Edith Goodhue
- The Common Sin
- The Dead Line as Julia Weston
- The Midnight Bride as Helen Dorr
1919
- The Black Circle as Lucy Baird
1918
- Uneasy Money as Elizabeth Nutcombe
- Ruggles of Red Gap as Widow Judson
1917
- Skinner's Dress Suit
- Filling His Own Shoes as Roxana
- Satan's Private Door as June Rose
- Efficiency Edgar's Courtship as Mary Pierce