May McAvoy
3 credits on HibingeTV
American actress of the silent and early sound era who played the female lead in The Jazz Singer (1927). She retired from acting for several years after the arrival of sound, reportedly because of a fear of microphones, before returning to character roles in the 1940s.
Acted In
Adventure, Drama
One of the great silent epics, adapted from Lew Wallace's novel. A Jewish prince in Roman-occupied Jerusalem is falsely accused of treason by his childhood friend, now a Roman tribune, and condemned to the galleys. He survives, is adopted by a Roman consul, and returns to confront his betrayer in a chariot race that remains one of the most famous sequences ever filmed. Fred Niblo directed on a scale that was staggering even by 1920s standards: thousands of extras, a full-size Roman arena, and a naval battle staged with real ships. Ramon Novarro is the prince and Francis X. Bushman the villainous Messala. The film saved MGM from financial trouble and remained the studio's top earner for decades. Published in 1925, it is in the public domain in the United States.
Adventure · Drama · Action · Silent
Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ
1925 - as Esther
Drama, Romance
Ernst Lubitsch's silent adaptation of Oscar Wilde's play about a respectable woman who suspects her husband of infidelity, receives a fan as a birthday gift, and finds herself at a party where the fan becomes the center of a misunderstanding that threatens her reputation. Lubitsch, working without dialogue, strips the play to its emotional mechanics and lets gesture, glance, and editing carry the wit. The result is a showcase for the "Lubitsch touch," the blend of sophistication and feeling that defined his career. Ronald Colman plays the husband and May McAvoy the wife. Published in 1925, it is in the public domain in the United States.
Drama · Romance · Silent
Lady Windermere's Fan
1925 - as Lady Windermere
Drama, Musical
The Jazz Singer is the film that ended the silent era. It was the first feature-length motion picture with synchronized music and lip-synchronous speech, and its release in 1927 announced that sound had arrived. Al Jolson plays a young man torn between his father's wish that he become a cantor and his own dream of singing on the Broadway stage. Most of the film is silent, with intertitles, but Jolson's songs and a few spoken lines stop the show. The moment he ad-libs, "Wait a minute, wait a minute, you ain't heard nothin' yet," is one of the most famous in cinema history. The film entered the public domain in the United States on January 1, 2023.
Drama · Musical · Music
The Jazz Singer
1927 - as Mary Dale