Virginia Valli

Virginia Valli

1898-06-10 – 1968-09-24 (age 70) Chicago, Illinois, USA
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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.

Photos

Known For

East Side, West Side
East Side, West Side

1927

as Becka Lipvitch

The Pleasure Garden
The Pleasure Garden

1925

as Patsy Brand

Uneasy Money
Uneasy Money

1918

as Elizabeth Nutcombe

The Street of Illusion
The Street of Illusion

1928

as Sylvia Thurston

The Right That Failed
The Right That Failed

1922

as Constance Talbot

The Lady Who Lied
The Lady Who Lied

1925

as Fay Kennion

The Very Idea
The Very Idea

1920

as Edith Goodhue

Sentimental Tommy
Sentimental Tommy

1921

as Lady Alice Pippinworth

The Village Blacksmith
The Village Blacksmith

1922

as Alice Hammond

His Father's Wife
His Father's Wife

as Sally Tyler

Paid to Love
Paid to Love

1927

as Gaby

Satan's Private Door
Satan's Private Door

1917

as June Rose

Mister Antonio
Mister Antonio

1929

as June Ramsey

Up the Ladder
Up the Ladder

1925

as Jane Cornwall

In Every Woman's Life
In Every Woman's Life

1924

as Sara Langford

Night Life in Reno
Night Life in Reno

1931

as June Wyatt

The Signal Tower
The Signal Tower

1924

as Sally Tolliver

Marriage
Marriage

1927

as Marjorie Pope

Ruggles of Red Gap
Ruggles of Red Gap

1918

as Widow Judson

The Isle of Lost Ships
The Isle of Lost Ships

1929

as Dorothy Whitlock / Renwick