Billie Dove
2 credits on HibingeTV
American actress, born Lillian Bohny in 1903. She began as a Ziegfeld girl and became a leading lady of the silent and early sound screen, often called "The American Beauty." She appeared opposite Douglas Fairbanks in The Black Pirate (1926), one of the first Technicolor features. She retired from films in the early 1930s after marrying industrialist Irvin Willat and later lived a long private life. She died in 1997.
Acted In
Drama, Romance
A pre-Code drama from First National, directed by Lloyd Bacon and adapted from the London play *Fame* by Audrey and Waverly Carter. Billie Dove plays Lady Patricia Hanley, a wealthy heiress who defies her family to marry Paul Gherardi, a struggling Italian violinist played by Basil Rathbone. As Paul's career falters and his pride festers, he falls into the orbit of Countess Olga Balakireff, a glamorous noblewoman played by Kay Francis, who seduces him as much for sport as for love. The film is a showcase for its three leads: Dove, the former Ziegfeld beauty; Rathbone, borrowed from MGM and years away from his Sherlock Holmes fame; and Francis, who steals the picture as the cool, predatory countess and would become one of the 1930s' biggest stars. Published in 1930, the film entered the public domain in the United States on January 1, 2026.
Drama · Romance
A Notorious Affair
1930 - as Lady Patricia Hanley
Adventure, Action
A nobleman's son vows revenge after pirates murder his father, so he infiltrates the pirate band to destroy it from within. Douglas Fairbanks produced, starred in, and drove this swashbuckler, performing his own stunts including the famous slide down a sail on the point of a knife. The film is one of the earliest feature-length pictures shot entirely in two-strip Technicolor, and the limited red-and-green palette gives it a storybook look unlike anything else from the silent era. Fairbanks pushed the budget to roughly $1.3 million, an enormous sum at the time, which limited the profit even though the picture was a hit. The Black Pirate is a landmark of color filmmaking and one of the great action spectacles of the 1920s. It entered the public domain in the United States in 2022.
Adventure · Action · Silent
The Black Pirate
1926 - as Princess Isabelle