| Lya Lys | |
|---|---|
| Born | Nathalie Margoulis May 8, 1908 Berlin, German Empire |
| Died | June 2, 1986 (aged 78) Newport Beach, California, USA |
| Other names | Natalie Margulis Natalie Löscht |
| Occupation | Film Actor |
| Years active | 1929-1940 |
Lya Lys (18 May 1908 – 2 June 1986), was a German-born Jewish-American actress of French-Russian decent who had a brief career in Hollywood.
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Nathalie Margoulis was born in Berlin [1] to a Russian banker and French pediatrician who moved to Paris when she was around seven.[2] Her father's name is not known here, her mother, Ina (née Blumenfeld) Löscht, later served at a French field hospital during the early months of World War II. Her fate during or after the German invasion is unclear.[3] Nathalie was educated in France and Switzerland and later studied language at the Sorbonne.[4]
In the late 1920s Lya Lys was among a group of French actors that included Charles Boyer, André Berley and Mona Goya who were brought to Hollywood by MGM to work on films intended for the French market. Reportedly, after her contract expired, Lys received a Hollywood movie offer just as she was about to board an ocean liner to return to Europe. The captain was kind enough to delay departure until her luggage could be retrieved.[5]
Before coming to America Lys starred in Salvador Dalí and Luis Buñuel's surrealistic film, L'Age d'Or (1930); considered by many as her most memorable performance.[6]
In 1931 she married Charles Morton, a young silent film actor.[7] The couple divorced some months later not long after the birth of their daughter. Later a dispute over alimony payments would see Morton spending a few days behind bars.[8] Her second marriage to Percy Montague, a business manager, in April, 1932 [9] ended in divorce sometime before the end of the decade.
Just prior to the outbreak of World War II Lya Lys was in Paris to perform in the play The King’s Dough. As the possibility of war became more imminent she decided it prudent to return to America. Because of the number of refugees fleeing Europe, Lys was unable to book passage on a passenger ship from France and was advised to travel north to a less crowded Scandinavian port. This meant crossing through Germany where Lys, by then an American citizen, was detained by Nazi border guards for two or three days. Sometime earlier she’d bluntly turned down an offer by a Nazi official to appear in German propaganda films. Lys was finally allowed to leave after having her luggage searched and travel money confiscated and being told never to return to Germany. Some months later she appeared in the American anti-Nazi film Confessions of a Nazi Spy[10][11]
Once while filming a scene in the 1939 film The Return of Doctor X, actor Dennis Morgan took Lys by the arm and broke into song when she became upset over blowing her lines. A moment later Humphrey Bogart, who was also in the scene, joined Morgan in the serenade.[12] Lys' early Hollywood career was hampered by her thick accent that, by the time she appeared in Paramount's The Great Gambini (1937) and toured in the play Night of January 16, had become barely noticeable.[13]
In 1940 she married John Gunnerson, a Chicago vending machine manufacturer and former husband of actress Anna Q. Nilsson.[14] Their marriage, which Lys later described as the worst mistake of her life, ended in a Mexican divorce in the spring, of 1943, some nine months after she'd suffered a nervous breakdown.[15] On the same day she filed for divorce, with no request for alimony, Lys also declared bankruptcy and subsequently, for reasons unknown here, never returned to acting. Her last film was Murder in the Sky (1940) opposite Ronald Reagan. Lys' name continued to appear in the papers for a few years in columns giving fashion advice.[16][17]
In July 1944, Lys’ 15 month-old Afghan Hound, El Mio Bambi of Chamee, won ‘best of breed’ at the Fairfield Dog Show held at Westport, Connecticut.[18]
Lya Lys Feit died at Hoag Memorial Hospital in Newport Beach, from heart failure at the age of 78. She was survived by her husband of 32 years, George Feit, daughter Joyce and two grandchildren.[19]
Jacueline Sunsann’s play, The Temporary Mrs. Smith, is a story about a likable, but less than talented singer whose search for a rich husband to is complicated by her former husbands, was in part based the life Lya Lys. At one time the two were neighbors at the Hotel Navarro near New York’s Central Park.[20]
Critic Ado Kyrou wrote of Ava Gardner’s Pandora in the 1951 film Pandora and the Flying Dutchman. “Ava now belonged in the exclusive pantheon with Lya Lys of Dalí and Buñuel’s L’Age d’Ore ‘as the greatest surrealistic woman in the history of film’.” [21]
“To be a success in this business you‘ve got to be popular. And to be popular you’d better be just as nice to the least important people as to the great ones. Why, the man who brings you a drink of water today may be your director next week.” - Lya Lys [22]