Lina Basquette

A leading actress of silent days, mostly in lavish costume melodrama, Lina Basquette saw her popularity fade in the early sound period. She also enjoyed a successful career as a stage dancer and actress, appearing with the "Ziegfeld Follies" and co-starring with Al Jolson. Probably her most famous film was Cecil B. DeMille's typically lavish and lurid "The Godless Girl" (1929), a late silent with the star as a student revealing the joys of atheism to her classmates. After appearing in a number of Westerns, she retired from features in 1937 only to re-emerge after a nearly 50-year absence in "Paradise Park" (1991).