Carmel Myers

Carmel Myers (April 9, 1899 – November 9, 1980) was an American actress who achieved her greatest successes in silent film.
Early life
Myers was born in San Francisco, the daughter of Isidore Myers, a Russian-Jewish rabbi who was born in Russia but raised in Australia, and Anna Jacobson Myers, an Austrian-Jew. She had an older brother, Zion, and she was a cousin of director Mark Sandrich and photographer Ruth Harriet Louise. Carmel's father was active in campaigns for women's suffrage, abolition of capital punishment, and zionism. He also was a noted scholar. The family moved to Los Angeles in 1905.
Myers attended Los Angeles High School but left after D. W. Griffith gave her bit part in the film Intolerance (1916), for which her father was an unpaid consultant. She continued her education at a school for young actors.
Myers helped her brother become a writer and director in Hollywood.
Career
Silent film and theater
Myers left for New York City, where she acted mainly in theater for the next two years. She was signed by Universal, where she emerged as a popular actress in vamp roles. Her most popular film from this period—which does not feature her in a vamp role—is probably the romantic comedy All Night, opposite Rudolph Valentino, who was then a little-known actor. She also worked with him in A Society Sensation. By 1924, she was working for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, making such films as Broadway After Dark, which also starred Adolphe Menjou, Norma Shearer, and Anna Q. Nilsson.
In 1925, she appeared in arguably her most famous role, that of the Egyptian vamp Iras in Ben-Hur, who tries to seduce both Messala (Francis X. Bushman) and Ben-Hur himself (Ramón Novarro). This film was a boost to her career, and she appeared in major roles throughout the 1920s, including Tell It to the Marines in 1926 with Lon Chaney, Sr., William Haines, and Eleanor Boardman. Myers appeared in Four Walls and Dream of Love, both with Joan Crawford in 1928; and in The Show of Shows (1929), a showcase of popular contemporary film actors.
Sound films, radio, and television
Myers had a fairly successful sound career, mostly in supporting roles, perhaps due to her image as a vamp rather than as a sympathetic heroine. Subsequently, she began giving more attention to her private life following the birth of her son in May 1932. Amongst her popular sound films are Svengali (1931) and The Mad Genius (1931), both with John Barrymore and Marian Marsh, and a small role in 1944's The Conspirators, which featured Paul Henreid, Peter Lorre, and Sydney Greenstreet.
In 1939, Myers performed for 13 weeks on the Resinol radio program that was broadcast twice weekly from station KHJ and carried on the Don Lee Network.
In 1951, Myers had a celebrity interview TV program, The Carmel Myers Show, on ABC. In 1952, she formed Carmel Myers Productions, a firm for producing radio and TV programs. The company's productions included Mark Hellinger Tales, a transcribed series of 30-minute radio dramas with Edward Arnold as narrator and Cradle of Stars, a 30-minute filmed TV series with Gregory Ratoff as director and star.
Later, she focused on a career in real estate and her perfume distribution company. In 1976, Myers was one of the very few silent stars who were cast in Won Ton Ton, the Dog Who Saved Hollywood, a comedy featuring cameos by dozens of Hollywood stars of the past.
Book
In 1952, Doubleday & Company published Don't Think About It, a 64-page book by Myers. Based on her experiences following the death of her husband, the book related her philosophy for emotional survival after a person has a tragedy in his or her life.
Personal life
Myers married attorney and song writer Isidore "I.B." Kornblum on July 16, 1919; they divorced in 1923.
Myers and attorney Ralph H. Blum married on June 9, 1929, and had three children: author Ralph H. Blum (born 1932), known for his works on divination through Norse runes, and two adopted daughters, actress and radio personality Susan Adams Kennedy (born 1940) and television producer Mary Cossette (born 1941). Myers and Blum purchased Gloria Swanson's Sunset Boulevard home.
On October 30, 1951, Myers married Paramount Pictures executive Alfred W. Schwalberg in Brooklyn. They were married until his death in 1974.
Death
Myers died of a heart attack on November 9, 1980, in Los Angeles Medical Center at the age of 81. She was buried near her parents at Home of Peace Cemetery in East Los Angeles. Her epitaph reads "L'Chaim", which in English translates to "To life".
Partial filmography
Georgia Pearce (1915)
Intolerance (1916) as Favorite of the Harem (uncredited)
The Heiress at Coffee Dan's (1916) as Waitress (uncredited)
The Bad Boy (1917) as Bit Role (uncredited)
Stage Struck (1917) as Bit Role (uncredited)
A Love Sublime (1917) as Toinette
A Daughter of the Poor (1917) as Hazel Fleming
Might and the Man (1917) as Winifred
The Haunted Pajamas (1917) as Frances Kirkland
Sirens of the Sea (1917) as Julie
The Lash of Power (1917) as Marion Sherwood
My Unmarried Wife (1918) as Mary Cunningham
The Wife He Bought (1918) as Janice Brieson
The Girl in the Dark (1918) as Lois Fox
The Wine Girl (1918) as Bona
The Marriage Lie (1918) as Eileen Orton
A Broadway Scandal (1918) as Nenette Bisson
The City of Tears (1918) as Rosa Carillo
The Dream Lady (1918) as Rosamond Gilbert
A Society Sensation (1918, short) as Sydney Parmelee
All Night (1918) as Elizabeth Lane
Who Will Marry Me? (1919) as Rosie Sanguinetti
The Little White Savage (1919) as Minnie Lee
In Folly's Trail (1920) as Lita O'Farrell
The Gilded Dream (1920) as Leona
Beautifully Trimmed (1920) as Norine Lawton
The Mad Marriage (1921) as Jane Judd
The Dangerous Moment (1921) as Sylvia Palprini
Cheated Love (1921) as Sonya Schonema
The Kiss (1921) as Erolinda Vargas
Breaking Through (1921) as Bettina Lowden
A Daughter of the Law (1921) as Nora Hayes
The Love Gambler (1922) as Jean McClelland
The Danger Point (1922) as Alice Torrance
The Last Hour (1923) as Saidee McCall
The Famous Mrs. Fair (1923) as Angy Brice
Good-By Girls! (1923) as Florence Brown
The Little Girl Next Door (1923) as Milly Amory
Mary of the Movies (1923) as Herself (uncredited)
Slave of Desire (1923) as Countess Fedora
The Dancer of the Nile (1923) as Arvia
The Love Pirate (1923) as Ruby Le Maar
Reno (1923) as Mrs. Dora Carson Tappan
Poisoned Paradise: The Forbidden Story of Monte Carlo (1924) as Mrs. Belmire
Beau Brummel (1924) as Lady Hester Stanhope
Broadway After Dark (1924) as Lenore Vance
Babbitt (1924) as Tanis Judique
Garragan (1924)
Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ (1925) as Iras
The Devil's Circus (1926) as Yonna
The Gay Deceiver (1926) as Countess de Sano
Tell It to the Marines (1926) as Zaya
Camille (1926, short) as Agatha
The Demi-Bride (1927) as Madame Girard
The Understanding Heart (1927) as Kelcey Dale
The Girl from Rio (1927) as Lola
Sorrell and Son (1927) as Flo Palfrey
A Certain Young Man (1928) as Mrs. Crutchley
Prowlers of the Sea (1928) as Mercedes
Four Walls (1928) as Bertha
Dream of Love (1928) as The Countess
The Ghost Talks (1929) as Marie Haley
Careers (1929) as The Woman
The Careless Age (1929) as Rayetta
Broadway Scandals (1929) as Valeska
The Red Sword (1929) as Katherine
The Show of Shows (1929) as Performer in 'Ladies of the Ensemble' Number
The Ship from Shanghai (1930) as Viola Thorpe
A Lady Surrenders (1930) as Sonia
The Lion and the Lamb (1931) as Inez
Svengali (1931) as Madame Honori
Pleasure (1931) as Mrs. Dorothy Whitley
Chinatown After Dark (1931) as Madame Ying Su
The Mad Genius (1931) as Sonya Preskoya
Nice Women (1931) as Dorothy Drew
No Living Witness (1942) as Emillia
The Countess of Monte Cristo (1934) as Flower Girl
Lady for a Night (1942) as Mrs. Dickson
The Conspirators (1944) as Baroness von Kluge (uncredited)
George White's Scandals (1945) as Leslie (uncredited)
Whistle Stop (1946) as Estelle
Won Ton Ton, the Dog Who Saved Hollywood (1976) as Woman Journalist (final film role)
References
External links
Carmel Myers Photo Gallery at Silent-Movies.org
Carmel Myers at Virtual History
1899 births
1980 deaths
20th-century American actresses
Actresses from San Francisco
American film actresses
American people of Austrian-Jewish descent
American people of Russian-Jewish descent
American silent film actresses
Burials at Home of Peace Cemetery
Jewish American actresses
Los Angeles High School alumni
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer contract players
20th-century American Jews