Leatrice Joy

published 15/05/1985 at 10:35 by Burt A. Folkart

Actress - Born Leatrice J. Zeidler on Nov. 7, 1896 in New Orleans, LA - Died May 13, 1985 in Riverdale, NY

Leatrice Joy was one of Hollywood's leading silent screen stars and the last surviving featured player from Cecil B. DeMille's 1923 epic "The Ten Commandments."

In most of the nearly 50 silent films she made, she generally was cast as a career girl in mannish clothes or a sophisticated society type whose dark eyes and milk-white skin enchanted a series of leading men, including Conrad Nagel, Adolphe Menjou and Walter Pidgeon.

With dancer Irene Castle, she was among the first to appear publicly with bobbed hair, sending millions of American women to their beauticians for similar styling.

Miss Joy made about 60 films between 1918 and 1951 and DeMille directed many of them. Her early feature credits included "Pride of the Clan" with Mary Pickford in 1917. The next year, she began making a string of comedies with Billy West and Oliver Hardy and came to DeMille's attention. In 1922, she made "Saturday Night" and "Manslaughter" for him, followed by "The Ten Commandments" and then "Triumph" in 1924.

Her sound pictures included "Of Human Hearts" in 1938, "First Love" in 1939 and her last, "Love Nest," in 1951. In her final picture she teamed with another screen veteran, Frank Fay.

— Burt A. Folkart in the Los Angeles Times May 15, 1985