page_title: Madge Bellamy
section_title: Films
hierarchical_section_title: Madge Bellamy / Career / Films
caption_attribution_description: English: Portrait of American actress Madge Bellamy (1899–1990) by American photographer Albert Witzel.
context_page_description: Madge Bellamy was an American stage and film actress. She was a popular leading lady in the 1920s and early 1930s. Her career declined in the sound era and ended following a romantic scandal in the 1940s.
context_section_description: Bellamy's breakout role was as the title character in the 1922 film adaptation of the 1869 novel Lorna Doone. She thereafter became known as "the exquisite Madge" (Artist Penrhyn Stanlaws later called her "The Most Beautiful Girl in America"), and was cast in several melodramas by Ince. In 1924, Bellamy's contract with Ince ended and she signed with Fox Film Corporation where she would stay for the next five years. While at Fox, she appeared in two films for John Ford, The Iron Horse (1924) and Lightnin'. By 1925, Bellamy began encountering difficulties due to several "artistic differences" she had with studio executives. That year, she refused to accept a role in the highly successful silent epic Ben-Hur. She later attributed her career decline due to her own choice of wanting to appear in light comedy and flapper roles that showcased her looks instead of more demanding roles.
  In 1927, Fox executive Winfield Sheehan, with whom Bellamy was having an affair, attempted to cast her in the lead role of "Diane" in the romantic drama 7th Heaven. Bellamy later told author Anthony Slide that she was in fact cast as "Diane", but was replaced by Janet Gaynor (who won the first Academy Award for Best Actress for her work in the film) when she was in France shooting exterior shots. Bellamy instead appeared in romantic comedy Very Confidential, in which she appeared as a model who impersonates a famous female sports figure. In 1928, Bellamy was cast in Fox's first part-talking film, Mother Knows Best The film was an adaptation of Edna Ferber's novel of the same name and features Bellamy as Sally Quail, a stage performer whose life is dominated by her overbearing stage mother "Ma Quail" (Louise Dresser). In the musical sequences, Bellamy impersonated several popular performers of the day including Anna Held, Sir Harry Lauder, and Al Jolson singing "My Mammy" in blackface. Reviews for the film were generally positive with critics noting that Bellamy's voice was weak.
  Bellamy's final silent film, Fugitives, was released in 1929. Her first full length, all talking feature Tonight at Twelve, was released later that year. By the time of its release, Bellamy's career had taken a severe downturn due to several ill-advised choices she made in fits of anger (fan magazines of the day called Bellamy "Miss Firecracker" due to her temperament). Despite her poor behavior off-set, she was still a fairly popular performer and was named an "American Beauty" by the Hollywood Association of Foreign Correspondents. In 1929, she walked out on her contract at Fox after refusing to star in the planned film adaptation of The Trial of Mary Dugan, a 1927 hit Broadway play by Bayard Veiller that the studio bought especially for Bellamy (the film was made later that year at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer starring Norma Shearer). Bellamy later said of her career, "I got too big for my britches. I wanted too much money and when it was not forthcoming, I quit."
  Bellamy attempted to find work as a freelance actress but did not work again until 1932 when she began appearing in Poverty Row films. One of her better known roles from this period was in the 1932 film White Zombie, opposite Bela Lugosi and directed by brothers Edward and Victor Hugo Halperin. The film was a moderate success but received mixed reviews while Bellamy's performance was generally panned by critics (In a 1970 letter to Classic Film Collector, Bellamy claimed her performance appeared bad because she had lost her voice due to a cold and was dubbed by another actress. This has since been proven false). She was slated to appear in the Halperin brothers' next film, Supernatural, but Carole Lombard was cast instead.
caption: Madge Bellamy, ca. 1920
exif: {"Thumbnail ImageWidth": "195", "Thumbnail ImageLength": "256", "Thumbnail BitsPerSample": "[8, 8, 8]", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail PhotometricInterpretation": "6", "Thumbnail SamplesPerPixel": "3", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "122", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "7813"}