Virginia Valli

Virginia Valli

1898-06-10 – 1968-09-24 (age 70) Chicago, Illinois, USA
View on IMDb ↗

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

The Lady Who Lied
The Lady Who Lied

1925

as Fay Kennion

The Storm
The Storm

1922

as Manette Fachard

Evening Clothes
Evening Clothes

1927

as Germaine

The Pleasure Garden
The Pleasure Garden

1925

as Patsy Brand

Behind Closed Doors
Behind Closed Doors

1929

as Nina Laska

The Shock
The Shock

1923

as Gertrude Hadley

The Village Blacksmith
The Village Blacksmith

1922

as Alice Hammond

His Back Against the Wall
His Back Against the Wall

1922

as Mary Welling

East Side, West Side
East Side, West Side

1927

as Becka Lipvitch

Wild Oranges
Wild Oranges

1924

as Millie Stope

Watch Your Wife
Watch Your Wife

1926

as Claudia Langham

Mister Antonio
Mister Antonio

1929

as June Ramsey

Up the Ladder
Up the Ladder

1925

as Jane Cornwall

The Lost Zeppelin
The Lost Zeppelin

1929

as Miriam Hall

Marriage
Marriage

1927

as Marjorie Pope

Guilty?
Guilty?

1930

as Carolyn

Ruggles of Red Gap
Ruggles of Red Gap

1918

as Widow Judson

The Signal Tower
The Signal Tower

1924

as Sally Tolliver

Flames
Flames

1926

as Anne Travers

His Father's Wife
His Father's Wife

as Sally Tyler