Bessie Love

Actress

September 9, 1898 (87 years)

† April 26, 1986

Midland, Texas, USA

Biography

Bessie Love (born Juanita Horton, September 10, 1898 - April 26, 1986) became one of the most recognizable faces of early American cinema. After her family moved to Los Angeles, she was sent to Biograph Studios, where legendary director D.W. Griffith noticed her talent and cast her in several films, including Intolerance (1916). During the silent era, she gained popularity for her lively, wholesome screen presence and worked with major stars such as Douglas Fairbanks. Her career soared in the 1…

Filmography

4.0

ITV Play of the Week

Mrs Strong

A UK anthology series of single plays from major playwrights old and new. It ran from 1955 to 1974, producing about five hundred ninety-minute episodes from Granada Television. Season 1 also incorporates the Plays from the 'H.M. Tennant Globe Theatre' series, some of which were incorporated and labelled in listings as official Play of the Week episodes and some of which were played in place of Play of the Week episodes in alternative ITV regions. All 8 plays have been incorporated into this entry for convenience.

6.6

On Her Majesty's Secret Service

Baccarat Player (uncredited)

With the help of Marc-Ange Draco, head of the Unione Corse crime syndicate, and Draco's troubled daughter Tracy, James Bond tracks his archnemesis, Ernst Stravro Blofeld, to a mountaintop retreat in the Swiss Alps, where he is training an army of beautiful, lethal women.

7.2

Man of the World

Mrs Van Kempson

Michael Strait is a world-renowned photographer whose assignments lead him into investigating mysterious goings-on amongst the rich and glamorous and intrigue from far-flung places as Iraq, French Indochina, and Algiers.

6.6

The Hunger

Lillybelle

Five-thousand-year-old vampire Miriam promises her lovers the gift of eternal life. When John, her cellist companion for centuries, discovers that he has suddenly begun growing old, he attempts to seek out the help of Dr. Sarah Roberts, a researcher on the mechanisms of aging.

6.8

Edward and Mrs Simpson

Lady Cunard

While still the Prince of Wales, the future Edward VIII meets the married American socialite, Wallis Simpson. Their relationship causes furor in the palace and in parliament, especially when King George V dies, Mrs. Simpson gets divorced, and King Edward announces his intention to marry her.

5.5

Lady Chatterley's Lover

Flora

After a crippling injury leaves her husband impotent, Lady Chatterly is torn between her love for her husband and her physical desires. With her husband's consent, she seeks out other means of fulfilling her needs.

8.4

Hollywood

Self

A 1980 documentary series exploring the establishment and development of the Hollywood studios and its impact on 1920s culture.

6.0

Vampyres

American Lady

A duo of bisexual female vampires prey on passing motorists, whom they seduce and murder in the English countryside.

6.5

The Sentimental Agent

Mamie

The Sentimental Agent is a television drama series spin-off from Man of the World. Produced in the United Kingdom in 1963 by Associated Television and distributed by ITC Entertainment, the series ran for 13 one-hour monochrome episodes. Some episodes were edited into a 1962 feature film Our Man in the Caribbean. Argentinian Carlos Varela is a successful import-export agent based in London, whose company takes him into unusual and sometimes dangerous situations. Impeccably dressed, cigar smoking and using wit, ingenuity, and charm, which often involves a damsel in distress, he is typically assisted by Chin, a resourceful Chinese manservant, and Miss Carter, an ultra-efficient secretary.

6.9

Reds

Mrs. Partlow

An account of the revolutionary years of the legendary American journalist John Reed, who shared his adventurous professional life with his radical commitment to the socialist revolution in Russia, his dream of spreading its principles among the members of the American working class, and his troubled romantic relationship with the writer Louise Bryant.

7.0

Ragtime

Old Lady - T.O.C.

A young black pianist becomes embroiled in the lives of an upper-class white family set among the racial tensions, infidelity, violence, and other nostalgic events in early 1900s New York City.

6.7

The Barefoot Contessa

Mrs. Eubanks

A washed-up filmmaker gets a second chance at stardom when he discovers stunning peasant Maria Vargas dancing in a Madrid nightclub. Goaded by his producer, the director convinces Maria to screen test for, and then star in, his next big picture. But as the producer's possessive nature and the realities of stardom weigh on Maria, she seeks a genuine lover with whom she can escape.

7.1

Intolerance: Love's Struggle Throughout the Ages

The Bride of Cana (Judean Story)

The story of a poor young woman, separated by prejudice from her husband and baby, is interwoven with tales of intolerance from throughout history.

6.5

The Magic Box

Bride's Mother in Wedding Group

Now old, ill, poor, and largely forgotten, William Freise-Greene was once young and handsome William Green. He changed his name to include his first wife's for the photographic portrait work he excelled at. But he was also an inventor and his search for a way to project moving pictures became an obsession that ultimately changed the life of all those he loved.

6.7

The Lost World

Paula White

The first film adaptation of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's classic novel about a land where prehistoric creatures still roam.

7.0

No Highway in the Sky

Plane Passenger (uncredited)

James Stewart plays aeronautical engineer Theodore Honey, the quintessential absent-minded professor: eccentric, forgetful, but brilliant. His studies show that the aircraft being manufactured by his employer has a subtle but deadly design flaw that manifests itself only after the aircraft has flown a certain number of hours. En route to a crash site to prove his theory, Honey discovers that he is aboard a plane rapidly approaching his predicted deadline.

6.2

Isadora

Mrs. Duncan

A biography of the dancer Isadora Duncan, the 1920s dancer who forever changed people's ideas of ballet. Her nude, semi-nude, and pro-Soviet dance projects as well as her attitudes on free love, debt, dress, and lifestyle shocked the public of her time.

5.2

The Broadway Melody

Harriet 'Hank' Mahoney

The vaudeville act of Harriet and Queenie Mahoney comes to Broadway, where their friend Eddie Kerns needs them for his number in one of Francis Zanfield's shows. When Eddie meets Queenie, he soon falls in love with her—but she is already being courted by Jock Warriner, a member of New York high society. Queenie eventually recognizes that, to Jock, she is nothing more than a toy, and that Eddie is in love with her.

5.1

Catlow

Mrs. Frost

An outlaw tries to avoid interference as he journeys to Mexico to pull off a $2,000,000 gold robbery.

6.9

The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone

Bunny

Critics and the public say Karen Stone is too old -- as she approaches 50 -- for her role in a play she is about to take to Broadway. Her businessman husband, 20 years her senior, has been the angel for the play and gives her a way out: They are off to a holiday in Rome for his health. He suffers a fatal heart attack on the plane. Mrs. Stone stays in Rome. She leases a magnificent apartment with a view of the seven hills from the terrace. Then the contessa comes calling to introduce a young man named Paolo to her. The contessa knows many presentable young men and lonely American widows.