Virginia Valli

Virginia Valli

Born: June 10, 1898
Died: September 24, 1968
in Chicago, Illinois, USA
From Wikipedia

Virginia Valli (June 10, 1898 – September 24, 1968) was an American stage and film actress whose motion picture career started in the silent film era and lasted until the beginning of the sound film era of the 1930s.

Born Virginia McSweeney in Chicago, Illinois, she got her acting start in Milwaukee with a stock company. She also did some film work with Essanay Studios in her hometown of Chicago, starting in 1916.

Valli continued to appear in films throughout the 1920s. She was an established star at the Universal studio by the mid-1920s. In 1924 she was the female lead in King Vidor's Southern Gothic Wild Oranges, a film now being seen after several decades of film vault obscurity. She also appeared in the romantic comedy, Every Woman's Life, about "the man she could have married, the man she should have married and the man she DID marry." She made the bulk of her films between 1924 and 1927 including Alfred Hitchcock's debut feature, The Pleasure Garden, Paid To Love (1927), with William Powell, and Evening Clothes (1927), which featured Adolphe Menjou. In 1925 Valli performed in The Man Who Found Himself with Thomas Meighan. The production was made at a Long Island, New York studio.

Her first sound picture was The Isle of Lost Ships in 1929, but her film career would not last much longer due to declining fame. Unable to find a suitable studio, she quit films after making the quickie Night Life in Reno, in 1931.

Valli was first married to George Lamson and the two shared a small bungalow in Hollywood, in close proximity to the Hollywood Hotel.

In 1931, she married her second husband, actor Charles Farrell, to whom she remained married until her death. They moved to Palm Springs, where she was a social fixture for many years.

She suffered a stroke in 1966, and died two years later, aged 70, in Palm Springs, California. She was buried in the Welwood Murray Cemetery of that city.

Movies for Virginia Valli...

Perdoa-Me Por Me Traíres
Title: Perdoa-Me Por Me Traíres
Character: Mãe
Released: October 31, 1983
Type: Movie
Glorinha, a middle-class 15 year old girl, always thought her mother Judite had killed herself, and that her father Gilberto has gone crazy as result. Her friend Nair takes her to a high-class bordello, where she wants to work. When uncle Raul, who raised her, discovers her prostitution, he decides to finally tell her all the truth about her parents' story.
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Se Segura, Malandro!
Title: Se Segura, Malandro!
Released: August 26, 1978
Type: Movie
Paulo Otávio is the host of a pirate radio station on the slums of Rio de Janeiro. He struggles to mantain the station working, since the only help he's got comes from news reporter Calói. Their story goes beyond as the city starts to face a crime wave.
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Rua Descalça
Title: Rua Descalça
Released: March 11, 1971
Type: Movie
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Night Life in Reno
Title: Night Life in Reno
Character: June Wyatt
Released: November 1, 1931
Type: Movie
A story of love, humor and drama against the background of America's "Biggest Little City." An (interrupted) indiscretion by John Wyatt with a floozy prompts his wife, June, to make a trip to Reno, Nevada in order to get a quickie six-week-waiting-period divorce. John, penitent over his past actions (since he got caught), follows his wife to Reno and manages a reconciliation after a murder gives him a chance to prove his true devotion.
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Guilty?
Title: Guilty?
Character: Carolyn
Released: March 3, 1930
Type: Movie
A Senator, accused of bribery on circumstantial evidence and sent to prison, decides to commit suicide so that his daughter will feel free to marry the son of a judge. A story told through the eyes of ten people, all familiar with the victim and all with varying versions.
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The Lost Zeppelin
Title: The Lost Zeppelin
Character: Miriam Hall
Released: December 19, 1929
Type: Movie
Explorers to the South Pole in an airship Zeppelin crash in the frozen Antarctic and must struggle for survival in the land of eternal snow and ice.
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The Isle of Lost Ships
Title: The Isle of Lost Ships
Character: Dorothy Whitlock / Renwick
Released: October 16, 1929
Type: Movie
The Isle of Lost Ships is a 1929 talking film released in an alternative silent version with a Vitaphone track of effects and music. It was produced by Richard A. Rowland and distributed by Warner Bros..
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Mister Antonio
Title: Mister Antonio
Character: June Ramsey
Released: October 15, 1929
Type: Movie
Antonio Camaradino, florist and street musician, befriends a man robbed of his overcoat and money in a disreputable bar. Tony recognizes the man as Jorny, mayor of Avalonia, a straitlaced town where Tony was once arrested for playing his hurdy-gurdy. After this meeting, Tony's travels take him again to Avalonia. Camped on the outskirts of town, he meets June Ramsey, a cousin of the mayor's wife, ejected from town by the mayor because his reelection campaign is jeopardized by her having been seen in a roadhouse. Under considerable pressure because he wishes to conceal his previous encounter with Tony from the opposition, Jorny returns Tony's favor by asking June's forgiveness and inviting her to return to Avalonia. June accepts his apologies; she then follows Tony, with whom she has fallen in love.
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Behind Closed Doors
Title: Behind Closed Doors
Character: Nina Laska
Released: February 24, 1929
Type: Movie
Behind the doors of a foreign government's embassy in Washington D. C., a group of royal loyalists is attempting to raise funds to aid a counter-revolution and restore the deposed emperor in a new republic. They are led by an unknown leader called 'The Eagle."
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Ladies Must Dress
Title: Ladies Must Dress
Character: Eve
Released: November 20, 1927
Type: Movie
Joe and Eve are engaged, but Joe cannot help contrasting the drabness of her attire with the dressy clothes of their friends. Eve overhears him talking of this and breaks with him. Then, with the help of her friend, Mazie, she metamorphoses into a ravishing beauty. Joe is remorseful, but the situation is made more complex when he suspects Eve of questionable relations with her boss.
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East Side, West Side
Title: East Side, West Side
Character: Becka Lipvitch
Released: October 9, 1927
Type: Movie
Director Allan Dwan’s excellent use of New York locations enlivens a rags-to-riches tale that fully exploits star George O’Brien’s championship boxing prowess.
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Judgement Of The Hills
Title: Judgement Of The Hills
Character: Margaret Dix
Released: August 1, 1927
Type: Movie
Spanish Film released in the USA on August 1, 1927
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Paid to Love
Title: Paid to Love
Character: Gaby
Released: July 23, 1927
Type: Movie
An American banker goes to a small Balkan country looking to invest his bank's money and shore up the country's weak economy in order to maximize the return on their investment. Towards that end he befriends the country's king and they come up with a scheme to get the Crown Prince married, a prospect not particularly appealing to the Crown Prince--until he sees the beautiful cabaret dancer the pair has picked for him to marry.
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Evening Clothes
Title: Evening Clothes
Character: Germaine
Released: March 19, 1927
Type: Movie
Attracted by his wealth, avaricious Germaine marries D'Artois, then leaves him for a more sophisticated man. D'Artois retaliates by moving to the city and learning the proper social graces. His new life style proves to be too expensive for him, and at the end he is left with nothing but one suit of evening clothes and his now contrite wife.
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The Pleasure Garden
Title: The Pleasure Garden
Character: Patsy Brand
Released: January 14, 1927
Type: Movie
Patsy Brand is a chorus girl at the Pleasure Garden music hall. She meets Jill Cheyne who is down on her luck and gets her a job as a dancer. Jill meets adventurer Hugh Fielding and they get engaged, but when Hugh travels out of the country, she begins to play around.
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Stage Madness
Title: Stage Madness
Character: Madame Lamphier
Released: January 9, 1927
Type: Movie
Silent film directed by Victor Schertzinger
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Flames
Title: Flames
Character: Anne Travers
Released: September 15, 1926
Type: Movie
Railroad builder James Travers (George Nichols) wants his pretty daughter, Anne (Virginia Valli), to marry Herbert Landis, a young engineer (Eugene O'Brien). Unfortunately, Anne loves Landis...like a brother, and his rival, Hilary Fenton (Bryant Washburn), stands ready to snatch her up.
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The Family Upstairs
Title: The Family Upstairs
Character: Louise Heller
Released: August 29, 1926
Type: Movie
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Siege
Title: Siege
Character: Frederika
Released: September 27, 1925
Type: Movie
A stern old woman, who owns the largest factory in a small town and has ruled both the factory and the town with an iron hand, finds herself battling with the wife of her nephew, the man she has picked to succeed her.
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The Man Who Found Himself
Title: The Man Who Found Himself
Character: Nora Brooks
Released: August 23, 1925
Type: Movie
Alfred E.Green silent family relationship romantic melodrama
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The Lady Who Lied
Title: The Lady Who Lied
Character: Fay Kennion
Released: July 12, 1925
Type: Movie
During a carnival in Venice, Horace Pierpont, a wealthy American (Lewis Stone), falls in love with Fay Kennion (Virginia Valli). Their romance is derailed when she goes over to his apartment and finds the vampy Fifi (Nita Naldi) there. Fay goes down to Algiers, where she marries a former sweetheart, Dr. Alan Mortimer (Edward Earle).
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Up the Ladder
Title: Up the Ladder
Character: Jane Cornwall
Released: May 2, 1925
Type: Movie
An inventor invents a television telephone while going through some love troubles.
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The Price of Pleasure
Title: The Price of Pleasure
Character: Linnie Randall
Released: March 15, 1925
Type: Movie
Their only sim was that they loved too much: lovers never stop to count the cost. He was a young millionaire and she was only a "Bargain "Basement" girl, but they had one week of paradise that started two years of drama. The truest, sweetest love story in years.
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K - The Unknown
Title: K - The Unknown
Character: Sidney Page - a beautiful nurse
Released: November 17, 1924
Type: Movie
Sidney Page is a beautiful young nurse, the object of the romantic attentions of several young men in her small town. One of them, a mysterious fellow known as K, suddenly finds that the life of his rival for Sidney's hand depends upon his revealing the secret of his own past.
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The Signal Tower
Title: The Signal Tower
Character: Sally Tolliver
Released: July 19, 1924
Type: Movie
A railroad worker accepts a colleague's offer to stay in his home, but when his friend is called out one night to stop a runaway train, he makes a play for the man's wife.
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The Confidence Man
Title: The Confidence Man
Character: Margaret Leland
Released: April 20, 1924
Type: Movie
Wade is a promoter of fake oil stock who sends two of his men, Dan Corvan and Larry Maddox, down to the small Florida town of Fairfield to make a sale to the miserly Godfrey Queritt (Charles Dow Clark). When Corvan discovers that Sunday school teacher Margaret Leland is friends with the old man, he romances her. He also helps out the local charities and endears himself to the local folk. Corvan is too good at his tricks -- all this hard-won trust is turning him into an honest man.
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Wild Oranges
Title: Wild Oranges
Character: Millie Stope
Released: January 20, 1924
Type: Movie
Millie Stope lives with her grandfather on a remote island. Man-child Nicholas, a fugitive from justice, also lives there and is terrorizing them - and he's interested in Millie. One day widower John Woolfolk, sailing on his yacht, happens upon the island. Soon he and Millie fall in love. Will jealous Nicholas stand for this?
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A Lady of Quality
Title: A Lady of Quality
Character: Clorinda Wildairs
Released: January 14, 1924
Type: Movie
Clorinda Wildairs breaks off an affair with the unscrupulous Sir John Ozen to become engaged to a rich nobleman, Mertoun, the Duke of Osmonde. Clorinda accidentally kills Sir John when he, infuriated by her forthcoming marriage, threatens to blackmail her. She buries the body in the cellar and admits her act to the forgiving Osmonde before marrying him.
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The Shock
Title: The Shock
Character: Gertrude Hadley
Released: June 10, 1923
Type: Movie
A gang of blackmailers sends a cripple to San Francisco to expose a banker they have been blackmailing. However, the cripple meets and falls in love with the banker's daughter.
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The Village Blacksmith
Title: The Village Blacksmith
Character: Alice Hammond
Released: November 1, 1922
Type: Movie
(survived only 10 minutes) As young men, the squire (Marshall) and the village blacksmith (Walling) are in love with the same woman (Boardman), whom the blacksmith marries. This angers the squire. Years later, the squire's son Anson (Yearsley) dares the blacksmith's son Johnnie (Hackathorne) to climb a tree, from which he falls and is crippled. As adults, Anson and the blacksmith's daughter Alice (Valli) fall in love, which angers the blacksmith, who chastises his daughter. The blacksmith's other son Bill (Butler) returns from college and is injured in a train accident. Anson steals $480 from a church fund which is currently in Alice's possession. Alice is struck by lightning. The blacksmith take Anson and the squire to church where they both repent.
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The Storm
Title: The Storm
Released: September 4, 1922
Type: Movie
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His Back Against the Wall
Title: His Back Against the Wall
Character: Mary Welling
Released: May 21, 1922
Type: Movie
Jeremy Dice, a finisher in a New York East Side tailor shop who prides himself on being a smart dresser and dancer, proves to be cowardly when he retreats from a bully who gets fresh with his girl, and his employer discharges him. Deciding to go out west, Jeremy is caught hitching the rails and comes upon two outlaws in the desert disputing over booty; they are both killed in a shoot-out, and Jeremy is proclaimed a hero by the sheriff.....
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Tracked to Earth
Title: Tracked to Earth
Character: Anna Jones
Released: March 6, 1922
Type: Movie
A railroad detective is falsely accused by a rancher's daughter Virginia Valli of being a notorious outlaw.
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The Right That Failed
Title: The Right That Failed
Character: Constance Talbot
Released: February 20, 1922
Type: Movie
The Right That Failed
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The Devil Within
Title: The Devil Within
Character: Laura
Released: November 20, 1921
Type: Movie
Director Bernard J. Durning's silent seafaring romantic melodrama
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Sentimental Tommy
Title: Sentimental Tommy
Character: Lady Alice Pippinworth
Released: March 26, 1921
Type: Movie
Grizel is the daughter of the Painted Lady, who believes that her lover will one day return. Grizel is ostracized by the other children of the town. Tommy and his sister come to the town. Tommy is friendly, but Elspeth keeps her distance. When the Painted Lady dies, Dr. Gemmell makes Grizel his housekeeper. Time passes and after the doctor dies, Grizel, who is now twenty-one years old, loves Tommy, who is an author in London. Tommy visits the town but cannot decide whether he loves Grizel. Grizel knows that Tommy does not love her, and after he returns to London her unhappiness leads to insanity. Tommy returns and marries Grizel, although he believes that she will hate him when she gets better. After two years under Tommy's care, she regains her sanity. After Tommy lets her know that he cared for her out of his love for her; not for pity, Grizel is happy.
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The Common Sin
Title: The Common Sin
Released: July 1, 1920
Type: Movie
Wall Street financier Frederick Searles goes bankrupt, prompting his mercenary wife to marry their eldest daughter Needa to the wealthy, disreputable John Davis Warren, despite Needa's love for Hugh Stanton.
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The Dead Line
Title: The Dead Line
Character: Julia Weston
Released: May 9, 1920
Type: Movie
Although a feud between the Harlan and Boone families has been raging for years, Mollie Powell, the Harlan's stepdaughter, is secretly in love with Clay Boone. When a young member of the Boone clan is killed during one of the battles, Clay vows that he will never touch a gun again. Branded a coward by the other mountaineers, Clay keeps his oath until Buck Gomery, one of the moonshiners, attacks Julia Weston, the daughter of another moonshiner.
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The Midnight Bride
Title: The Midnight Bride
Character: Helen Dorr
Released: January 1, 1920
Type: Movie
While waiting on a New York park bench for the return of her friends, country girl Jeanne Sterling meets Forrest Chenoweth, a rich young wastrel who, while drunk, registered for a marriage license with fortune-hunting Helen Dorr. Enchanted with Jeanne's innocence, Forrest proposes to Jeanne, and they are married by an alderman friend of Forrest's with the license that Forrest had taken out with Helen. That night Forrest drinks too much, falls in his room and kills himself. The scandal appears in the papers, forcing Jeanne to confess the marriage to her sweetheart Robert Pitcairn. However, Helen, in an attempt to acquire the Chenoweth fortune, claims to be Forrest's widow, thus disgracing Jeanne.
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Ruggles of Red Gap
Title: Ruggles of Red Gap
Character: Widow Judson
Released: February 25, 1918
Type: Movie
Harry Leon Wilson has written nothing more diverting than this story of the irreproachable English valet who is lost in a poker game to a rough-and-ready westerner and taken to Red Gap ultimately to become its social mentor and chief caterer, and there is sheer delight in the story of how the Earl, brought over to save his younger brother from the vampirish clutches of Klondike Kate, makes the lady his Countess and once more stands Red Gap upon its somewhat dizzy head.
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Efficiency Edgar's Courtship
Title: Efficiency Edgar's Courtship
Character: Mary Pierce
Released: September 3, 1917
Type: Movie
Efficiency wins success in business; why not in love? Edgar Bumpus, a rising young man, applies this reasoning to his courtship of Mary Pierce. He first eliminates Wimple, his closest competitor, who plays a guitar, by learning to play a saxophone, which makes louder noise, and by sending Mary flowers and candy each time Wimple calls on her. The plan works O.K., until the saxophone disturbs Mr. Pierce's slumbers. He and Edgar clash and the latter is forbidden to visit Mary any more. Edgar employs a clipping bureau to send news items to Mr. Pierce which tells of the troubles young girls get into when their fathers refuse to let them have beaux. One eloped with a milkman; another disappeared. This has no effect upon Mr. Pierce, however, except to make him hate Edgar more. However, the youth's persistence finally wins Mary's love. Then Edgar plays his trump card. He gets Mary to sign a legal agreement to forfeit $10,000 to him, unless she marries him.