Mary Astor

 Mary Astor, born Lucile Vasconcellos Langhanke (May 3, 1906 – September 25, 1987)

She is best remembered for her role as Brigid O'Shaughnessy in The Maltese Falcon (1941), Astor began her long motion picture career as a teenager in the silent movies of the early 1920s. She eventually transitioned to talkies, but nearly saw her career destroyed due to public scandal in the mid-1930s. She was sued for support by her parents and was later branded an adulterous wife by her ex-husband in a custody fight over her daughter. Dr. Franklyn Thorpe divorced Astor in 1935 and a custody battle resulted over their four-year-old daughter, Marylyn. Thorpe threatened to use Astor's diary in the proceedings, which told of her affairs with many celebrities, including George S. Kaufman, but it was never used in court. Overcoming these stumbling blocks in her private life, Astor went on to greater success on screen, eventually winning an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in The Great Lie (1941). She was a Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer contract player through most of the 1940s and continued to work in film, on television and on stage until her retirement in 1964. Astor was the author of five novels. Her autobiography was a bestseller, as was her later book, A Life on Film, which was specifically about her career. Astor died on September 25, 1987, at age 81, of respiratory failure due to pulmonary emphysema while a patient in the hospital in the Motion Picture House complex. She is buried at Holy Cross Cemetery in Culver City, CA.