Vilma Bánky

Despite a successful performance in Victor Sjostrom's interesting early talkie, "A Lady to Love" (1930), the film was not popular and sound on the whole proved an insurmountable barrier for Banky. While Colman's crisp, clear accent and beautiful voice focused his career around playing gentlemanly British types, some Depression-era audiences found Banky's accent "difficult" and filmmakers bypassed her exotic 1920s gentility in favor of more robust, stage-trained American or English actors. And so Banky retired from acting only several years after marrying silent matinee idol Rod LaRocque (whose career continued in character roles into the 1940s) in 1927. She did, though, perform admirably in Luis Trenker and Curtis Bernhardt's remarkable German film, "Der Rebell/The Rebel" (1932). The public remained unaware of Banky's death in March of 1991 until the end of the following year; the aging star had become ill in the early 80s and, embittered by the lack of attention she received, decreed that no notice of her death be issued.