Wanda Hawley

Wanda Hawley (born Selma Wanda Pittack; July 30, 1895 – March 18, 1963) was an American leading lady during the silent film era. She specialized in sweet romantic comedies and romantic dramas. Hawley made her screen debut with the Fox Film Corporation, and after playing with them for eight months joined Famous Players–Lasky, where she appeared as leading lady in “Mr. Fix-It” (1918). She rose to stardom in Cecil B. DeMille films and later starred in films for director Sam Wood. Hawley had a contract dispute with Paramount and, starting in 1923, began bouncing from studio to studio, her fame and box office appeal steadily declining. Film credits at this time include – “A Kiss In Time” (1921), “Burning Sands” (1922), “The Young Rajah” (1922), “Reckless Romance” (1924) and “Graustark” (1925). With the advent of sound, Hawley's movie career largely ended; her last film was released in 1932. As her film career dwindled, in the late 1920s she performed sporadically in vaudeville comedy and legitimate theatre. By late 1931, she was working for a cosmetic company. She also demonstrated and sold dresses in a department store in Tacoma, Washington. Contemporaneous Hollywood gossip columns report her living in Hollywood in 1941, Seattle in 1942 and Twin Falls, Idaho in 1943. By 1945 and the early 1950s, Twins Falls newspaper accounts describe and depict her looking happy in middle-class life, occasionally promoting local events, such as a local performance of a stage version of Peg O' My Heart, she having been made famous in the movie version of 1922. She is known to have enjoyed composing music. She died in 1963, aged 67, in Los Angeles and is interred in the Abbey of the Psalms in Hollywood Forever Cemetery.

(www.hollywoodpinups.com)