Rhea Mitchell on AllMovie

Rhea Mitchell appeared no less than six times opposite early silent Western star William S. Hart; in five of the films -- beginning with On the Night Stage (1914) -- she was his leading lady, usually a saloon girl redeemed by love. In their last film together, The Money Corral (1919), Mitchell lost her taciturn leading man to the younger, blonder Jane Novak, a metaphor for a career that had been on the wane since the failure of the self-explanatory Sequel to the Diamond from the Sky (1916) -- an unmitigated fiasco for Mitchell and everyone concerned and, with only four chapters produced, the shortest serial in history. Rhea Mitchell continued in films through Danger Patrol (1928), but her roles grew gradually smaller. One of several former silent stars offered extra work by MGM's charitable Louis B. Mayer, she returned to the screen in the mid-'30s and appeared in scores of miniscule bit parts through the early '50s. In retirement, Mitchell managed an apartment building in Hollywood, which is where she was found brutally strangled on September 16, 1957. The killer proved to be a young drifter whom the devoutly religious woman had offered to help.