Silent film leading lady Billie Dove was billed as "The American Beauty." The incredibly gorgeous Dove inspired palpitations in the hearts of millions of male moviegoers during her ten-year stardom; no one really cared that she wasn't much of an actress. A onetime model and Ziegfeld girl, Dove entered films in 1921. She became a major star when she replaced Bebe Daniels in the pioneering Technicolor film Wanderer of the Wasteland, directed by her first husband Irvin Willat. The early Technicolor process was very kind to Dove, prompting Douglas Fairbanks to cast her in his first full-length color feature, The Black Pirate (1926). She survived the talkie revolution reasonably well, though her somewhat commonplace voice tended to detract from the ethereal quality of her beauty. Her last major film role was in 1932's Blondie of the Follies, which starred Marion Davies. Retiring from films upon marrying a prosperous rancher, Billie Dove unexpectedly emerged in 1962 to play a small role in the Hawaiian-filmed Diamond Head.
by Hal Erickson
biography
