Billie Dove

Dove's extra work in features paid off, when she was finally cast in a major role in "Get-Rich-Quick Wallingford" in 1921. Abandoning the stage for films, she and her mother moved west to Hollywood in 1922. She married director Irving Willat the following year, and appeared in a handful of films before hitting the big-time as Douglas Fairbanks' leading lady in the Technicolor "The Black Pirate" (1926). This firmly established her as a major player, and Dove went on to star in such films as "The Marriage Clause" (1926), with her favorite director Lois Weber, "Kid Boots" (1926), with Eddie Cantor and Clara Bow, "An American Beauty" (1927), her signature film, and "Heart of a Follies Girl" (1928). In 1930, Dove was involved in a scandal when millionaire film producer Howard Hughes (then in the process of his own divorce) reportedly paid Irving Willat $300,000 to divorce her. She signed with Hughes' Caddo Company and made two unremarkable films: "The Age for Love" (1931) and "Cock of the Air" (1932). None of her other talkies, all with First National, amounted to much, either. She retired in 1933 after her role in MGM's "Blondie of the Follies" was re-written to show off co-star Marion Davies. Billie Dove never looked back. She re-married twice, and became an amateur painter and published poet. In 1962, she was back in the headlines after winning a jingle contest for the film "Gidget Goes Hawaiian." As part of the prize, she was convinced to play a cameo role in "Diamond Head" (1962), after which she returned to a life of anonymity, turning down most interview requests and pointedly refusing to discuss Howard Hughes.