Nita Naldi

 Nita Naldi, was born Mary Nonna Dooley on November 13, 1894, in New York City to working class Irish parents. Upon her mother's death in 1915, she went to work as an artist's model and entered vaudeville with her brother Frank. She was a dancer at the Winter Garden, and she appeared in the Ziegfeld Follies in 1918 and in 1919. She was known as Nonna Dooley, but she changed her name at this time adapting her friend's surname, Florence Rinaldi. John Barrymore spotted her at the Winter Garden and recommended her for the role of the exotic Gina in "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde". Several films followed then Vincente Blasco Ibanez chose her to play opposite Rudolph Valentino in "Blood and Sand" 1922. She starred in Cecil B. DeMille's "The Ten Commandments" 1923 and with Valentino again in the now lost, "The Sainted Devil" and also in "Cobra" 1925 which is extant.

She eloped with J. Searle Barclay to Paris in 1926 and they remained together until 1931 when she filed for bankruptcy in New York. She became active on the stage, and she coached Carol Channing for the musical "The Vamp" in 1955 on how to vamp, and did television, but she never made a sound film.

Nita Naldi died of a heart attack while in her room at the Wentworth Hotel on West 46th Street on February 17, 1961. Only 7 out of her 32 films survive with "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde". "The Ten Commandments", "Blood and Sand", and Cobra" being the most frequently shown. She denied ever being romantically involved with either John Barrymore or Rudolph Valentino. She was a friend of both Valentino and Natacha Rambova but sided with Valentino after they divorced.