BETTY COMPSON

Betty Compson was an actress from the 1910s to the 1940s. She was a major star in the silent era, and was one of Paramount's top stars in the early 1920s. She was married to director James Cruze, and some of her movies include: The Docks of New York (directed by Josef von Sternberg), The Great Gabbo (with Erich von Stroheim), and Barker (nominated for the Best Actress Academy Award for this film). She divorced Cruze, who was a major alcoholic, but the IRS went after her for Cruze's debts, and she was forced to pay them off, which resulted in her losing much of what she had accumulated. She appeared in smaller and smaller roles in the 1930s and 1940s, and retired in 1948, passing away in 1974 at the age of 77.