| Lina Basquette | |
|---|---|
| Born | Lena Copeland Baskette April 19, 1907 San Mateo, California, U.S. |
| Died | September 30, 1994 (aged 87) Wheeling, West Virginia, U.S. |
| Other names | Lena Basquette |
| Occupation | Actress |
| Years active | 1916–1943, 1991 |
| Spouse | Sam Warner (m. 1925–1927) J. Peverell Marley (m. 1929–1930) Ray Hallam (m. 1931–1931) † Theodore Hayes (m. 1933–1935) Henry Mollison (m. 1937–?) Warner Gilmore (m. 1948–1950) Frank Mancuso (m. 1959–?) |
Lina Basquette (April 19, 1907 – September 30, 1994) was an American actress noted as much for her more than 75 years in entertainment beginning in the silent film era, as her tumultuous personal life and nine marriages.[1]
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She was born Lena Copeland Baskette to shop owner Frank Baskette and Gladys Rosenberg in San Mateo, California. After the death of her father and subsequent marriage of her mother to dance director Ernest Belcher, she and half-sister Marge Champion got an early start in dance and entertaining. She danced in the Ziegfeld Follies in New York City,[2] and secured her first film contract at the age of nine in 1916 with Universal Studios for the silent film series, Lena Baskette Featurettes.[1]
In 1923, Ziegfeld Follies producers officially dubbed her "America's Prima Ballerina."[2] Basquette was named one of thirteen WAMPAS Baby Stars in 1928 and the following year made The Younger Generation with Frank Capra.
In 1929, she also made The Godless Girl with Cecil B. DeMille, arguably the role for which she was best remembered, for she named her 1990 autobiography Lina: DeMille's Godless Girl. In this film, made at the transition from the silent era to the talkies, she played the title character. Judith is based on Queen Silver, a child prodigy and socialist orator.[3] The character, leader of a high school atheist society, forces members to renounce The Bible while placing a hand on the head of a live monkey. In the climactic scene, DeMille insisted on realism in filming a last shot of the reformatory going up in flames.
After appearing in The Godless Girl, Basquette soon became a star in future DeMille films. While working for DeMille, Basquette began an affair with DeMille's chief cameraman, J. Peverell Marley.[2] After this, she agreed to marry Marley, and the two were married in 1928.[2] By 1930, Basquette was broke and spent a good amount of her time partying with fellow actresses Jean Harlow, Clara Bow and Carole Lombard.[2]
In 1991, Basquette was cast as Nada in filmmaker Danny Boyd's Paradise Park.[4] She played a grandmother who dreamed God was coming to grant a wish to residents of an Appalachian trailer park. The film features Porter Wagoner, as the governor of West Virginia, and Johnny Paycheck. Boyd was a communications professor at West Virginia State University.
According to her obituary in The New York Times, "from 1947 to 1974, she ran Honey Hollow Kennels in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. She became one of the best-known breeders and handlers of champion Great Danes in American dog-show history, and also wrote several books on dog breeding."[5][6]
In 1925, Basquette began an affair with Sam Warner of Warner Brothers and the couple married on July 4, 1925. She was a mother at 19, and a widow at 20 when Sam Warner died from a brain abscess complicated by pneumonia. Warner left her $100,000.00 of his money and $40,000 from a life insurance policy, a car, the household goods, and $85 a week from one of Warner's trust funds.[2]
When Basquette began to neglect her family, Warner's older brother, Harry, filed for legal guardianship of Lita Warner and it was awarded on 30 March 1930. Basquette was never financially stable enough to regain custody of her daughter. In 1931, Basquette, now divorced from Marley and depressed without her daughter, tried to commit suicide by taking poison. Basquette would only see Lita on two occasions over the next twenty years: in 1935, when Harry Warner and his family moved to Los Angeles, and when Lita was married to Dr. Nathan Hiatt in 1947.[2]
In her autobiography, Lina: Demille's Godless Girl (1990), Basquette recounts her tempestuous affair with former world heavyweight boxing champion Jack Dempsey. The relationship came after Basquette discovered that her current husband, Theodore Hayes, whom she married on October 31, 1931, was a bigamist. Hayes was Dempsey's former trainer and Basquette's manager in theatrical affairs. On September 10, 1932, the actress was granted a Mexican divorce from Hayes. The divorce was granted on a plea of desertion for more than six months in Nogales, Sonora, Mexico.[7]
In 1943, Basquette was raped by an AWOL serviceman who trespassed onto her Pennsylvania farm. The highly-publicized crime led to the soldier getting 20 years in prison.
Basquette died of cancer at her home in Wheeling, West Virginia. She was 87.[8] For her contribution to the motion picture industry, Lena Basquette has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame located at 1529 Vine Street.
| Year | Film | Role | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1916 | The Dumb Girl of Portici | Child | Uncredited |
| Juvenile Dancer | |||
| Brother Jim | Margie Marsh | Credited as Lena Basquette | |
| The Grip of Crime | Credited as Lena Basquette | ||
| Shoes | Undetermined role | Uncredited | |
| The Human Cactus | Credited as Lena Basquette | ||
| The Caravan | Credited as Lena Basquette | ||
| 1917 | Polly Put the Kettle On | Nellie Vance | |
| His Wife's Relatives | |||
| The Gates of Doom | Agatha as a child | ||
| The Star Witness | Credited as Lena Basquette | ||
| A Dream of Egypt | Credited as Lena Basquette | ||
| A Romany Rose | Credited as Lena Basquette | ||
| A Prince for a Day | Credited as Lena Basquette | ||
| Little Mariana's Triumph | Credited as Lena Basquette | ||
| 1919 | The Weaker Vessel | Jessie | |
| 1922 | Penrod | ||
| 1927 | Ranger of the North | Felice MacLean | |
| Serenade | The Dancer | ||
| 1928 | The Noose | Dot | |
| Wheel of Chance | Ada Berkowitz | ||
| Celebrity | Jane | ||
| Show Folks | Rita Carey | ||
| 1929 | The Godless Girl | Judy Craig - The Girl | |
| Come Across | Mary Houston | ||
| The Younger Generation | Birdie Goldfish | ||
| 1930 | The Dude Wrangler | Helen Dane | Alternative title: Feminine Touch |
| 1931 | Goldie | Constantina | |
| Pleasure | |||
| Arizona Terror | Katherine "Kay" Moore | ||
| Hard Hombre | Senora Martini | ||
| Morals for Women | Claudia | Alternative titles: Big City Interlude Farewell Party |
|
| Trapped | Girl Reporter | Alternative title: The Shadow #2: Trapped | |
| Mounted Fury | Nanette LeStrange | ||
| 1932 | Arm of the Law | Zelma Shaw, a Dancer | |
| The Midnight Lady | Mona | Alternative title: Dream Mother | |
| Hello Trouble | Janet Kenyon | ||
| The Phantom Express | Betty | ||
| 1934 | The Chump | ||
| 1936 | The Final Hour | Belle | |
| 1937 | Souls at Sea | Brunette in Saloon | Uncredited |
| Ebb Tide | Attwater's Servant | ||
| 1938 | The Buccaneer | Roxanne | Uncredited |
| Rose of the Rio Grande | Anita | ||
| Four Men and a Prayer | Ah-Nee | ||
| 1942 | Who Calls | ||
| 1943 | A Night for Crime | Mona | |
| 1991 | Paradise Park | Nada | Alternative title: Heroes of the Heart |