Eleanor Boardman

Actress. While still a teenager, she began her career as a model for Eastman Kodak and became known as the Kodak Girl. The ads she appeared in were shown all over the United States, and she gained quite a bit of popularity. Even though her parents were very religious and believed that the movies were sinful and wicked, she eventually set out for Hollywood hoping to become a star. In 1922 she earned a contract with MGM and was selected as one of the WAMPAS Baby Stars of that year. She appeared in such films as ‘Vanity Fair’ (1923), ‘Three Wise Fools’ (1923), ‘Souls for Sale’ (1923), ‘Wine of Youth’ (1924), ‘Sinners in Silk’ (1924), ‘Exchange of Wives’ (1925), ‘The Wife of the Centaur’ (1925), ‘Bardelys the Magnificent’ (1926), ‘Tell It to the Marines’ (1926), ‘The Crowd’ (1928), and ‘Redemption’ (1930). She also occasionally appeared in films made for other studios, such as ‘The Turmoil’ (made for Universal Studios in 1924), ‘Diamond Handcuffs’ (made for Cosmopolitan Productions in 1928), and ‘Memory Lane’ (made for John M. Stahl Productions in 1926). She frequently worked with the legendary director King Vidor, whom she married in 1926. They had two daughters, Antonia and Belinda. However, the marriage, which was her first and Vidor’s second, did not last. She divorced Vidor in 1931. In 1932, after having made some sound films, she parted ways with MGM. Her final film was ‘The Three Cornered Hat,’ which was made in Spain in 1935. Shortly after the picture was completed, she married the director, Henri d’Abbadie d’Arrast, who had also once been a very important and popular Hollywood star but who had been reduced to going abroad to find work. After retiring from the screen, she divided her time between the United States and their chateau in the Pyrenees Mountains. When her second husband died in 1968, she permanently relocated back to the United States, where she settled into Montecito, California, living in a house she designed herself. In 1980 she came out of retirement to appear in the thirteen-part miniseries ‘Hollywood,’ which chronicled the silent film era in America. She died of old age when she was ninety-three years old.