Ziegfeld Girls

1. Martha Mansfield

Actress | Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

Stunning silent screen actress Martha Mansfield was a musical comedy star in New York City by the time she entered films in 1916 for Max Linder. Before long she advanced to second leads in features, including the role of Millicent Carew in the John Barrymore starrer Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1920), ...

2. Diana Allen

Actress | Salome

Diana Allen was born in 1898 in Gotland, Sweden. Her family moved to the United States when she was five. Diana was educated in New Haven, Connecticut. She started her career dancing in vaudeville with Eddie Wittstein and Ned Wayburn. The blonde haired, blue eyed beauty was invited to join the ...

3. Lillian Lorraine

Actress | Should a Wife Forgive?

Lillian Lorraine was born Lillian Muriel Jaques on January 1, 1892 in San Francisco, California. Her father walked out when she was just six. Lillian and her mother lived in Leadville, Colorado before moving to New York City. She began her career on stage when she was a teenager. At the age of ...

4. Yvonne Shelton

Actress | The Greatest Love

Yvonne Shelton was born on June 18, 1900 in New York City. Yvonne's parents was English and French. They sent her to Canada for her education but she wanted to be an actress. At the age of fifteen she ran away from home to join the chorus of When Dreams Come True. Then she was cast in The Century ...

5. Dorothy Klewer

Dorothy Klewer was born Dorothy Henrietta Klewer on June 30, 1895 in Chicago, Illinois. Her father was a wealthy architect and the family lived in a large house on Lakeside Place. Dorothy was the youngest of five children, She dreamed of becoming a dancer and once caused a sensation when she did ...

6. Constance Carper

Constance Carper born Constance Edith Carper on January 1, 1900 in St. Louis, Missouri. Her father, Alfred Carper, worked for a railroad company. She moved to New York City in 1917 and was quickly signed by Goldwyn Pictures. Constance had a bit parts in the movies Thais and Dodging A Million with ...

7. Olive Thomas

Actress | Beatrice Fairfax

Oliva R. Duffy was born on October 20, 1894, in Charleroi, Pennsylvania, the eldest of three children, with two younger brothers. Olive or Ollie, as she was known to family and friends, did not have much of a childhood. Life in industrial Pittsburgh (at the time, spelled "Pittsburg") was depressing...

8. Dorothy Dell

Actress | Little Miss Marker

Dorothy Dell was born to Elbert and Lillan Goff in Hattiesburg, Mississippi on January 30, 1915. She won the most beautiful baby in Hattiesburg beauty contest when she was thirteen months old. She lived in New Orleans from the age of ten. She attended the Sophie Wright High School for girls. ...

9. Betty Francisco

Actress | Seven Keys to Baldpate

Betty Francisco was born Elizabeth Barton on September 26, 1900 in Little Rock, Arkansas. When she was a child she started acting in stock companies. She and her younger sister Evelyn Francisco performed in vaudeville as "The Dancing Franciscos". Betty worked as an artists model and starred in the ...

10. Cecile Arnold

Actress | That Springtime Feeling

Cecile Arnold was born Cecile Laval Arnoux on July 9, 1891 in Louisville, Kentucky (some sources say New York). Her parents divorced when she was a child. After her mother remarried the family lived in Missouri and Texas. She started her career as a chorus girl and joined the Ziegfeld Follies. ...

11. Helen Lee Worthing

Actress | The Count of Luxembourg

Helen Lee Worthing was born Helen Wortham on January 31, 1905 in Louisville, Kentucky. Her mother died when she was a child and her father moved the family to Massachusetts. During World War 1 she worked with the Red Cross. She married Charles McDonald, a businessman, in 1917. At the age of ...

12. Geneva Mitchell

Actress | Behind the Evidence

Geneva Doris Mitchell was born on February 3, 1908 in Medarysville, Indiana. Her father died in 1909 and her mother Verna Mitchell became a Ziegfeld Follies showgirl. When she was fourteen Geneva was hired to be in the Follies too. Florenz Ziegfeld said she was "the find" of the season. Her ...

13. Mary Nolan

Actress | Desert Nights

Blonde and utterly beautiful, Mary Nolan had the requisite figure and prettiness to rise up fast in the Hollywood ranks. Her downfall, however, would be just as fast and not at all pretty.

She was born Mary Imogene Robertson in 1905 and began her show-business career as a teenage model. Showman ...

14. Catherine Moylan

Actress | Love in the Rough

She was born Catherine May Moylan in Rochester, New York on July 4, 1904. Her family moved to Dallas, Texas where she started competing in beauty contests. Catherine won the title of "Miss Dallas" in 1926 and then was named "Beauty Queen of the Universe". Florenz Ziegfeld hired her to appeared in ...

15. Mildred Reardon

Actress | Male and Female

Mildred Reardon was born Mildred Louise Riordan on June 23, 1897 in Ottawa, Illinois. She was the middle child of Anna and Thomas Riordan. Her family called her "Lou". Mildred enrolled in art school but dropped out in 1916 when her father died. She needed to work to support her family so she ...

16. Allyn King

Actress | The Fighting Blade

Allyn King was born on February 1, 1899 in Wilmington, North Carolina. Tragically her father, Dr. Allyn King, was murdered in 1909. A few years later her mother moved them to New Haven, Connecticut. Allyn started performing in vaudeville when she was a teenager. In September of 1916 she became the ...

17. Christine Maple

Actress | Good Sport

Christine Maple was born Christine Raphael on November 16, 1912 in Belle-Plaine, Kansas. When she was a child her parents divorced. Her mother remarried and they moved to Los Angeles. Christine started competing in beauty pageants and was a finalist in the Elks National Convention bathing beauty ...

18. Marion Davies

Actress | Little Old New York

Marion Davies was one of the great comedic actresses of the silent era and into the 1930s.

Marion Cecelia Douras was born in the borough of Brooklyn, New York on January 3, 1897, the daughter of Rose (Reilly) and Bernard J. Douras, a lawyer and judge. Her parents were both of Irish descent. Marion ...

19. Peggy Shannon

Actress | Deluge

Peggy Shannon was born Winona Sammon on January 10, 1907, in Pine Bluff, Arkansas. She attended Catholic school where she became friends with child actress Madge Evans. While visiting her aunt in New York sixteen year old Peggy was discovered by producer Florenz Ziegfeld Jr.. He hired her as a ...

20. Paulette Goddard

Actress | The Ghost Breakers

Paulette Goddard was a child model who debuted in "The Ziegfeld Follies" at the age of 13. She gained fame with the show as the girl on the crescent moon, and was married to a wealthy man, Edgar James, by the time she was 17. After her divorce she went to Hollywood in 1931, where she appeared in ...

21. Barbara Stanwyck

Actress | Double Indemnity

Today Barbara Stanwyck is remembered primarily as the matriarch of the family known as the Barkleys on the TV western The Big Valley (1965), wherein she played Victoria, and from the hit drama The Colbys (1985). But she was known to millions of other fans for her movie career, which spanned the ...

22. Lilyan Tashman

Actress | The Matrimonial Bed

Lilyan Tashman was born on October 23, 1896 in Brooklyn, New York to Rose (Cook) from Germany and Morris Tashman from Bialystock, Poland. After toying with stage work, Lilyan made her film debut with Experience (1921), followed the next year by Head Over Heels (1922) (this was at a time when some ...

23. Toni Mannix

Toni Lanier was a Ziegfeld Follies showgirl whose lasting notoriety came not as a performer but as the wife of a high-level studio executive and the mistress of a famous television star. Lanier appeared in the film version of Florenz Ziegfeld Jr.'s life, The Great Ziegfeld (1936), met MGM studio ...

24. Karla Gutöhrlein

Actress | God's Gift to Women

Karla Knospe Gutohrlein was part of the Sisters G dancing duo. She was born on December 9, 1910 in Kaliningrad, Germany. Her older sister Eleanor had been born on August 18, 1909. The sisters would later claim they were twins. They also said their father was a Colonel in the Prussian army. After ...

25. Eleanor Gutöhrlein

Actress | God's Gift to Women

Eleanor Knospe Gutohrlein was part of the Sisters G dancing duo. She was born on August 18, 1909 in Kaliningrad, Germany, Her sister Karla was born on December 9, 1910. The sisters would later claim they were twins. They also said their father was a Colonel in the Prussian army. After their parents...

26. Kay Laurel

Actress | The Brand

Kay Laurel was born Ruth M. Leslie on June 28, 1890 in Erie, Pennsylvania. Sadly her father George died when she was eight. She briefly worked as a telephone operator. Then she moved to New York City and became an artist's model. Kay started dating George Messinger, a merchant from San Francisco. ...