Actress. One of Hollywood’s earliest sex symbols. Born Elizabeth Blythe Slaughter in Los Angeles, she studied at USC and appeared on Broadway and the London stage before making her film debut in 1918. Two years later she signed with Fox Films as a replacement for screen vamp Theda Bara and became a very popular matinee idol in costume epics and dramas with high society settings. A voluptuous brunette, Blythe was among the first American movie stars to do nude scenes and her acting ability often took a back seat to her wardrobe, or lack of it. Her biggest hit was “The Queen of Sheba” (1921). She later said of it, “I had 28 costumes in that picture, and if I’d worn them all at once I couldn’t have kept warm”. With the exception of “She” (1925), all her major silent films are considered lost, with only stills as evidence of their censorship-challenging raciness. Blythe’s fame as a sex goddess was brief and by the arrival of talkies she was playing supporting parts. Her credits include “The Green God” (1918), “nomads of the north” (1920), “How Women Love” (1922), “Chu Chin Chow” (1923), “Sinner or Saint” (1923), “The Breath of Scandal” (1924), “Snowbound” (1927), “Stolen Love” (1928), “The Scarlet Letter” (1934), “Anna Karenina” (1935), “The Gorgeous Hussy” (1936), “Conquest” (1937), “Topper” (1937), “Honky Tonk” (1941), “Adventure” (1945), “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty” (1947), and “The Helen Morgan Story” (1957). After a seven-year absence Blythe returned for a final film appearance in the ballroom scene of “My Fair Lady” (1964). She died at the Motion Picture Country Home.