Renée Adorée

Renée Adorée (born Jeanne de la Fonte;[1] 30 September 1898 – 5 October 1933[2]) was a French actress who appeared in Hollywood silent movies during the 1920s. She is most famous for her role as Melisande in the melodramatic romance and war epic The Big Parade.[2]

Renée Adorée
Born	Jeanne de la Fonte (1898-09-30)30 September 1898 Lille, French Third Republic
Died	5 October 1933(1933-10-05) (aged 35) Tujunga, California, U.S.
Occupation	Actress
Years active	1918–1930
Spouse(s)	Tom Moore ​ ( m. 1921; div. 1924) William Sherman Gill ​ ( m. 1927; div. 1929)

Early life

Born in Lille, Adorée was the daughter of circus artists and performed regularly with her parents as a child.[2] She performed as an acrobat, dancer, and bareback rider and was performing in Brussels when World War I broke out, leading to her to leave for New York.[2]

Career

Having made a reputation in France, England and Australia for her dancing skills, she went to New York City very early in 1919,[3] where she was cast in a vaudeville-style musical called Oh, Uncle,[2] which opened at the Garrick Theatre in Washington, D.C. in March 1919; by mid March, it was being staged in Trenton, New Jersey, and subsequently toured through the summer. In July, it was renamed Oh, What a Girl![2] and opened at the Shubert Theatre in New York City. Over the next several months, she toured in The Dancer,[2] another Shubert production.

By January 1920, the opportunity arose for her to work in the motion picture business when she was cast for the lead role in The Strongest, directed by Raoul Walsh.[3] The Strongest was a dramatic photoplay written by French prime minister Georges Clemenceau. She went on to star in several other silent films in the early 1920s,[3] including Reginald Barker's The Eternal Struggle, the film which established her as a Hollywood star and also starred Barbara La Marr and Earle Williams.[2]

Before coming to America, she already had adopted the stage name "Renée Adorée" (French for "reborn" and "adored," both in the feminine form), and was billed as such in an Australian film produced in 1918.

Suzette (Renée Adorée) makes the tedious hours of the wounded Sir Nicholas Thormonde (Lew Cody) seem less monotonous. A scene from Elinor Glyn's production Man and Maid for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, 1925

She is most famous for her role as Melisande in the melodramatic romance and war epic The Big Parade (1925) opposite John Gilbert.[2] It became one of MGM's highest-grossing silent films, earning between $18 million and $22 million.[4] In The Mating Call, a 1928 film produced by Howard Hughes, Adorée had a very brief swimming scene in the nude that caused a significant commotion at the time.

She also starred with Lon Chaney in 1927's Mr. Wu,[5] made three more films with John Gilbert, and appeared in four films with leading Hollywood actor Ramón Novarro.

Personal life

While in New York City on New Year's Eve 1921, she met Tom Moore (1883–1955), who was 15 years her senior. Moore and his brothers were Irish immigrants who had become popular Hollywood actors. Six weeks after their meeting, on 12 February 1921, Adorée married Moore at his home in Beverly Hills, California. The marriage ended in divorce in 1926, and in June 1927, Adorée married again, this time to William Sherman Gill.[6]

Illness and death

With the advent of sound in film, Adorée was one of the fortunate stars whose voices met the film industry's new needs, appearing in two all-talking films before her death.[3] By the end of 1930, Adorée had appeared in 45 films, the last four of which were sound pictures. That year, she was diagnosed with tuberculosis and lived only a few years longer. Adorée went against her physician's advice by finishing her final film Call of the Flesh with Ramón Novarro. At its completion, she was rushed to a sanitarium in Prescott, Arizona, where she lay flat on her back for two years in an effort to regain her physical health. In April 1933, she left the sanitarium. At this point, it was thought she had recovered sufficiently to resume her screen career, but she swiftly weakened and her health declined day by day. She was moved from her modest home in the Tujunga Hills to the Sunland health resort in September 1933.[7]

Adorée died there on 5 October 1933 in Tujunga, California. She is interred in the Hollywood Forever Cemetery.[8] Adorée left an estate valued at $2,429. The only heir was her mother, who lived in England. No will was found.[9]

For her contributions to the film industry, Adorée has a motion pictures star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 1601 Vine Street.[10]

Filmography

Film
Year	Film	Role	Notes
1918	£500 Reward	Irene
1920	The Strongest	Claudia
1921	Made in Heaven	Miss Lowry	co-starring her husband Tom Moore
1922	Day Dreams	The Girl
	Honor First		First film Adorée and John Gilbert made together
	Mixed Faces	Mary Allen Sayre
	Monte Cristo	Eugenie Danglars, her daughter	Second film with Gilbert
	A Self-Made Man
	West of Chicago	Della Moore
1923	The Six-Fifty	Hester Taylor	Lost film
	The Eternal Struggle	Andrée Grange
1924	The Bandolero	Petra	Lost film
	Defying the Law
	A Man's Mate	Wildcat	Third film with Gilbert
	Women Who Give	Becky Keeler
1925	Exchange of Wives	Elise Moran
	Excuse Me	Francine	Lost Film
	Man and Maid	Suzette	Lost Film
	Parisian Nights	Marie
	The Big Parade	Melisande	Fourth film with Gilbert
1926	Blarney	Peggy Nolan
	The Flaming Forest	Jeanne Marie
	La Bohème	Musette	Fifth film with Gilbert
	The Blackbird	Mademoiselle Fifi Lorraine
	The Exquisite Sinner	Silda, a gypsy maid	Lost Film
	Tin Gods	Carita	Lost Film
1927	Back to God's Country	Renee DeBois
	Heaven on Earth	Marcelle
	Mr. Wu	Wu Nang Ping
	On Ze Boulevard	Musette
	The Show	Salome	Sixth film with Gilbert
1928	A Certain Young Man	Henriette	First film starring Adorée and Ramon Novarro
	The Cossacks	Maryana	Seventh film with Gilbert
	Forbidden Hours	Marie de Floriet	Second film with Novarro
	The Mating Call	Catherine
	Show People	Herself	Cameo. Eighth film with Gilbert
	The Michigan Kid	Rose Morris
	The Spieler	Cleo d'Alzelle
1929	The Pagan	Madge	Third film with Novarro
	Tide of Empire	Josephita Guerrero
1930	Redemption	Masha	Ninth and final film Adorée and Gilbert made together
	Call of the Flesh	Lola	Final film with Novarro; Adorée's final film

References

Notes

1. Le Vrai Nom des stars de Michel Bracquart - M.A. Editions - 1989 - (ISBN 2866764633)
2. "Renee Adoree". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 23 September 2018.
3. McCaffrey, Donald W.; Jacobs, Christopher P. (1999). Guide to the Silent Years of American Cinema. Greenwood Publishing Group. p. 18.
4. Landazuri, Margarita. "The Big Parade". San Francisco Silent Film Festival. Retrieved 23 July 2020.
5. Fortune, Danny. "'Mr. Wu' Movie: Morbid Lon Chaney & Renée Adorée in Silent Era Classic". Alt Film Gide. Retrieved 23 July 2020.
6. "2 Jul 1927, Page 1 - The Alexandria Times-Tribune at Newspapers.com".
7. New York Times, Renee Adoree, 31, Film Player, Dead, October 6, 1933, p. 17.
8. Stephens, E.J. Legends of Hollywood Forever Cemetery. Arcadia Publishing. ISBN 978-1-4671-2586-4. Retrieved 23 July 2020.
9. New York Times, Renee Adoree Left No Will, October 11, 1933, p. 26.
10. "Hollywood Walk of Fame - Renée Adorée". walkoffame.com. Hollywood Chamber of Commerce. Retrieved November 1, 2017.

Bibliography

• Bermingham, Cedric Osmond (1931). Stars of the Screen 1931, A volume of biographies of contemporary actors and actresses engaged in photoplay throughout the world. London: Herbert Joseph.
• Stuart, Ray (1965). Immortals of the Screen. New York: Bonanza Books.
• "RENEE ADOREE". Stars of the Photoplay. Chicago: Photoplay Magazine. 1924.

External links

• Renée Adorée on IMDb
• Renée Adorée at AllMovie
• Renée Adorée at Golden Silents
• Renée Adorée at Find a Grave
• Renée Adorée at the TCM Movie Database
• Photographs and literature