Corinne Mae Griffith

 Corinne Mae Griffith (November 21, 1894 – July 13, 1979)

Dubbed The Orchid Lady of the Screen, she was one of the most popular film actresses of the 1920s and widely considered the most beautiful actress of the silent screen. She was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance in The Divine Lady. Shortly after the advent of sound film, Griffith retired from acting and became a successful author and businesswoman. She returned to the screen in 1962 in the low-budget melodrama Paradise Alley, which received scant release. Griffith was one of the few film stars to move successfully into new careers once her stardom had ended. She was an accomplished writer who published eleven books including two best sellers, My Life with the Redskins and the memoir Papa's Delicate Condition, which was made into a 1963 film starring Jackie Gleason about the Ghio and Griffin family. Her actual family names were used in the film. Her ventures into real estate were particularly successful (at one point she owned four different major office buildings in Los Angeles, each of them named after her).

Griffith was married four times and produced no children but adopted two girls, Pamela and Cynthia. She married actor and frequent co-star Webster Campbell from 1920 to 1923, producer Walter Morosco from 1924 to 1934, and George Preston Marshall from 1936 to 1958. During her marriage to Marshall, who owned the Washington Redskins, she composed the lyrics to the Redskins fight song "Hail to the Redskins" which became one of the most famous football anthems. On July 13, 1979, Griffith died of heart failure in Santa Monica, California, aged 84.