Bessie Love (born Juanita Horton; September 10, 1898April 26, 1986) was an American-British actress who achieved prominence playing innocent, young girls and wholesome leading ladies in silent and early sound films. Her acting career spanned nearly seven decades—from silent film to sound film, including theatre, radio, and television—and her performance in The Broadway Melody (1929) earned her a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actress.
Early life
Love was born Juanita Horton in Midland, Texas, to John Cross Horton and Emma Jane Horton ( Savage). Her father was a cowboy and bartender, while her mother worked in and managed restaurants. She attended school in Midland until she was in the eighth grade, when her family moved to Arizona, New Mexico, and then to California, where they settled in Hollywood. When in Hollywood, her father became a chiropractor, and her mother worked at the Jantzen's Knitwear and Bathing Suits factory.
Career
The silent era
1915–20: Young ingenue
In June 1915, while a student at Los Angeles High School, Horton went to the set of a film to meet with actor Tom Mix, who had recommended that she visit him if she wanted to "get into pictures". However, when Mix was unavailable, she was advised to meet with pioneering film director D.W. Griffith, who placed her under personal contract. When it was decided that her given name was too long for theater marquees and too difficult to pronounce, Griffith's associate Frank Woods gave Horton the stage name Bessie Love: "Bessie, because any child can pronounce it. And Love, because we want everyone to love her!" Love dropped out of high school to pursue her film career, but she completed her diploma in 1919.
Griffith gave her a small role in his Intolerance (1916). Although Intolerance was her first performance to be filmed, it was her ninth film to be released. The first films Love made were with Griffith's Fine Arts company, yet Intolerance was the only film that he formally directed.
Her "first role of importance"—in the second of her films to be released—was in The Flying Torpedo (1916). She later appeared opposite William S. Hart in The Aryan and with Douglas Fairbanks in The Good Bad-Man, Reggie Mixes In, and The Mystery of the Leaping Fish (all 1916). This string of appearances and supporting roles led to her first starring role, in A Sister of Six (1916). In her early career, she was likened to Mary Pickford, and was called "Our Mary" by Griffith.
In early 1918, Love left Fine Arts for a better contract with Pathé. After the Pathé films were unsuccessful, she signed a nine-film contract with Vitagraph later that year, all of which were directed by David Smith. Her performances often received positive reviews, but her films often were shown at smaller movie theaters, which impacted the growth of her career.
1921–28: Dramatic actress
Upon the completion of her Vitagraph contract, Love became a free agent. She took an active role in the management of her career, and was represented by Gerald C. Duffy, the former editor of Picture-Play Magazine.
Love sought roles that were different from the little girls she had portrayed earlier in her career when under contract to studios. She played Asian women in The Vermilion Pencil (1922) and The Purple Dawn (1923); a drug-addicted mother in Human Wreckage (1923); a woman accused of murder in The Woman on the Jury (1924); an underworld flapper in Those Who Dance (1924); and versions of her real-life self in Night Life in Hollywood (1922), Souls for Sale (1923), and Mary of the Movies (1923).
As a film star, she was expected to entertain studio executives at parties, so she learned to sing, dance, and play the ukulele. She gradually honed these skills and later performed them onscreen and on the stage. Because of her performance in The King on Main Street (1925), Love is credited with being the first person to dance the Charleston on film, popularizing it in the United States. Her technique was documented in instructional guides, including a series of photographs by Edward Steichen. She subsequently performed the dance the following year in The Song and Dance Man.
In 1925, she starred in The Lost World, a science fiction adventure based on the novel of the same name by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. In 1927, she appeared in the successful Dress Parade, and was so impressed by her experiences on location that she wrote the unpublished novel Military Mary. A year later, she starred in The Matinee Idol, a romantic comedy directed by a young Frank Capra. Despite these successes, Love's career was on the decline. She lived frugally so she could afford lessons in singing and dancing.