1. Betty Compson is best known for her performances in The Docks of New York and The Barker, the latter of which earned her an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress.
15 Facts About Betty Compson
1. 2.
Betty Compson's father was a mining engineer, a gold prospector, and a grocery store proprietor, and her mother was a maid in homes and in a hotel.
3.
Betty Compson's father died when she was young, and she obtained employment as a violinist at 16 at a theater in Salt Lake City.
4.
Betty Compson made 25 films in 1916 alone, although all of them were shorts for Christie with the exception of one feature, Almost a Widow.
5.
Betty Compson continued this pace of making numerous short films well into the middle of 1918 when after a long apprenticeship with Christie, she started making features exclusively.
6.
Betty Compson's star began to rise with the release of the 1919 feature The Miracle Man for George Loane Tucker.
7.
Betty Compson's popularity allowed her to establish her own production company, which provided her creative control over screenplays and financing.
8.
Betty Compson played the role of Blanche Davis, a girl born to wealth and cursed by her inheritance of physical beauty.
9.
Betty Compson eventually worked for the studio with former The Miracle Man co-star Lon Chaney in The Big City.
10.
Now divorced from Cruze, Betty Compson's career continued to flourish, starring in nine films in 1930 alone.
11.
Betty Compson was content to play character parts in major-studio films, as well as leads in lower-budgeted, independent productions.
12.
That same year Betty Compson took the lead in her least prestigious credit, Escort Girl, a very-low-budget exploitation film about sordid partners operating a shady escort agency.
13.
Betty Compson became a familiar face at Monogram Pictures, where she worked with Bela Lugosi, Jean Parker, Grace Hayes, and The Bowery Boys.
14.
Betty Compson died April 18,1974, of a heart attack at her home in Glendale, California, aged 77.
15.
Betty Compson was interred in San Fernando Mission Cemetery in San Fernando, California.