Actors - Mary Astor

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	Actors - Mary Astor

Mary Astor (May 3, 1906 – September 25, 1987) was an Academy Award-winning American actress.

Probably most-famous for her role as Brigid O'Shaunessy in The Maltese Falcon (1941) opposite Humphrey Bogart, Astor began her long motion picture career as a teenager in the silent movies of the early 1920s.

She eventually made a successful transition to talkies, but almost saw her career destroyed due to public scandal in the mid-1930s. She was sued for support by her parents and was later branded an adulterous wife by her ex-husband during a custody fight for her daughter.

Overcoming these stumbling blocks in her private life, Astor went on to even greater success on the screen, eventually winning the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her portrayal of Sandra Kovack in The Great Lie
(1941).

Despite other personal problems, she continued to act in movies, on television and the stage into the 1960s. She retired from the screen in 1964.

Astor was also the author of five novels. Her autobiography became a bestseller, as did her later book, A Life on Film, which was specifically about her career.

Early life

She was born Lucile Vasconcellos Langhanke in Quincy, Illinois, the only child of Otto Ludwig Langhanke (October 2, 1871-February 3, 1943) and Helen Marie Vasconcellos (April 19, 1881-January 18, 1947).

Her father, who was born in Berlin, immigrated to the United States from Germany in 1891 and became a naturalized citizen; her mother was born in Jacksonville, Illinois, of Portuguese and Irish extraction. They married August 3, 1904 in Lyons, Kansas. Otto was a teacher of German at Quincy High School until the U.S. entered World War I. He then began doing light farming. Helen, who had always wanted to be an actress, began teaching drama and elocution.

Lucile was homeschooled in academics and taught to play the piano by her father, who insisted she practice daily. In 1919, she sent a photograph of herself to a beauty contest in Motion Picture Magazine and became a finalist. Her father then moved the family to Chicago, where he took a position teaching German in public schools there. Lucile took drama lessons and appeared in various amateur stage plays.

The following year, she sent another photograph to the magazine and again became a finalist, this time being named runner-up in the national contest. Her father then moved the family to New York, in order for his pretty daughter to become an actress in motion pictures. He managed all her affairs from September 1920 to June 1930.

A Manhattan photographer, Charles Albin, saw a photograph and asked the young girl with haunting eyes and long auburn hair, whose nickname was "Rusty," to pose for him. The Albin photographs were seen by Harry Durant of Famous Players-Lasky and Lucile was signed to a six-month contract with Paramount. Her name was changed to Mary Astor during a conference between studio chief Jesse Lasky, gossip columnist Louella Parsons and producer Walter Wanger.

Silent movie career

At age fourteen, she debuted with her new stage name in the silent movie Sentimental Tommy (1921), but her small part in a dream sequence wound up on the cutting room floor. Paramount let her contract lapse. She then appeared in some movie shorts with sequences based on famous paintings. She received critical recognition for the two-reeler The Beggar Maid (1921).

Her first feature-length movie was John Smith (1922), which was followed that same year by The Man Who Played God starring George Arliss for United Artists. In 1923, she and her parents moved to Hollywood, Los Angeles, California.

After appearing in several larger roles at various studios, she was signed by Paramount again, this time to a one-year contract at $500 a week.

She appeared in several more movies, then John Barrymore saw a photograph of her in a magazine and wanted her cast in his upcoming movie. On loan-out to Warner Bros., she starred opposite "The Great Profile" in Beau Brummel (1924).

The older actor wooed the young actress, but their engagement ended when he became involved with Dolores Costello.

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Actors - Mary Astor

Early life

Silent movie career

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