Betty Compson

A mining engineer's daughter, blond, blue-eyed Betty Compson began in show business playing violin in a Salt Lake City vaudeville establishment for $15 a week. Following that, she went on tour, accompanied by her mother, with an act called 'the Vagabond Violinist'. Aged eighteen, she appeared on the Alexander Pantages Theatre Circuit, again doing her violin solo vaudeville routine, and was spotted there by comedy producer Al Christie. Christie quickly changed her stage name from Eleanor to Betty. For the next few years, she turned out a steady stream of one-reel and two-reel slapstick comedies, frequently paired with Roscoe 'Fatty' Arbuckle. In 1919, Betty was signed by writer-director George Loane Tucker to co-star opposite Lon Chaney as Rose in The Miracle Man (1919). The film was a huge critical and financial success and established Betty Compson as a major star at Paramount (under contract from 1921 to 1925). One of the more highly paid performers of the silent screen, her weekly