Lili Damita

Lili Damita
Born	Liliane Marie Madeleine Carré (1904-07-10)10 July 1904 Blaye, Gironde, Aquitaine, France
Died	21 March 1994(1994-03-21) (aged 89) Palm Beach, Florida, U.S.
Resting place	Oakland Cemetery, Fort Dodge, Iowa, U.S.
Other names	Lily Damita, Lily Deslys
Years active	1922–1937
Spouse(s)	Michael Curtiz (1925–1926; divorced) Errol Flynn (1935–1942; divorced) Allen Loomis (1962–1983; his death)
Children	Sean Flynn (May 31, 1941; disappeared/MIA April 6, 1970)

Lili Damita (10 July 1904 – 21 March 1994) was a French-American actress and singer who appeared in 33 films between 1922 and 1937.

Early life and education

Born Liliane Marie-Madeleine Carré in Blaye, France, she was educated in convents and ballet schools in several European countries, including France, Spain and Portugal. At 14, she was enrolled as a dancer at the Opera de Paris.

As a teenager, she was performing in popular music halls, eventually appearing in the Revue at the Casino de Paris.^[1] She worked as a photographic model. Offered a role in film as a prize for winning a magazine beauty competition in 1921, she appeared in several silent films before being offered her first leading role in Das Spielzeug von Paris (1925) by Hungarian-born director Michael Curtiz. She was an instant success, and Curtiz directed her in two more films: Fiaker Nr 13 (1926) and Der Goldene Schmetterling (1926). Damita continued appearing in German productions directed by Robert Wiene (Die Grosse Abenteuerin; 1927), G.W. Pabst (Man Spielt nicht mit der Liebe; 1926) and British director Graham Cutts (The Queen Was in the Parlour; 1927).

Career

In 1928, at the invitation of Samuel Goldwyn she went to Hollywood, making her American debut in a film titled The Rescue. Leased out to various studios, she appeared with stars such as Gary Cooper, Maurice Chevalier, Laurence Olivier, Cary Grant and James Cagney. Her films included the box office successes The Cock-Eyed World (1929),^[2] the semi-silent The Bridge of San Luis Rey (1929) and This Is the Night (1932).

Personal life

Lili Damita and husband Errol Flynn at Los Angeles airport, 1941

In 1935, she married a virtual unknown who would become Hollywood's biggest box office attraction, Errol Flynn, with whom she had a son, Sean Flynn (born 1941). Following the marriage, she retired from the screen. The couple divorced in 1942. (Barbara Hershey portrayed Damita in the TV film My Wicked, Wicked Ways [1985] based on Errol Flynn's autobiography.) While living in Palm Beach, Florida, Damita married Allen Loomis, a retired Fort Dodge, Iowa dairy owner, and spent part of each year living there.

During the Cambodian Civil War (Khmer Rouge Reign), her son Sean Flynn was working as a freelance photo journalist under contract to Time magazine when he and fellow journalist Dana Stone went missing on the road south of Phnom Penh, Cambodia, on 6 April 1970. Although Damita spent an enormous amount of money searching for her son, he was never found, and in 1984 he was declared legally dead. DNA testing was conducted on remains found in Cambodia and turned over to the U.S. authorities there in March 2010.^[3] However, the results, released 30 June 2010 by JPAC, showed the remains were not those of Sean Flynn.^[4]

Age and nationality

On the manifest of the SS Bremen, sailing from Cherbourg on 5 September 1929, Damita's age is given as 25, and on the SS Paris sailing from Le Havre, France, on 14 November 1934, her age is given as 30, both indicate that she was born in 1904. She later shaved four years off her age, including on her Petition for Naturalization (United States, # 127601), dated December 17, 1945, which was granted on 10 May 1946, giving her year of birth as 1908.

Death

Lili Damita died of Alzheimer's disease on 21 March 1994, in Palm Beach, Florida, aged 89. She was interred in the Oakland Cemetery in Fort Dodge, Iowa, her husband's hometown.^[5]

Selected filmography

Promotional photo of Lili Damita and Victor McLaglen for The Cock-Eyed World

Lili Damita & Gary Cooper in Fighting Caravans.

Selected stage musicals

• On Dit Ça, Paris (1923)
• Sons o'Guns, New York (1929/30)
• Here's How, London (1934)

References

Bibliography

• Bermingham, Cedric Osmond (1931). Stars of the screen 1931: A volume of biographies of contemporary actors and actresses engaged in photoplay throughout the world. London, UK: Herbert Joseph. 
• "Lily Damita". Stars of the Photoplay. Chicago: Photoplay Magazine. 1930. 

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Lili Damita.

• Lili Damita at the Internet Movie Database
• Lili Damita at the Internet Broadway Database
• Photographs of Lili Damita dead link
• Photographs and literature