Olive Borden(1906-1947)
- Actress
Considered one of the most beautiful actresses of the silent era,
Olive Borden was a Mack Sennett bathing beauty at 15 and reached the peak of her
career in 1926 when she made 11 films for Fox Studios and was earning
$1,500 a week. Refusing to take a salary cut, Borden abruptly left Fox
in 1928 and made only a few pictures for other studios before retiring
from films in 1938. In 1943, she joined the WACS, and after her discharge,
returned to Hollywood in a failed attempt to revive her career. At the
time she was quoted as saying, "Since I got out of the Army I've gone
from job to job. Something always goes wrong." By 1946 she was found
scrubbing floors for a living and in 1947, at the age of 40, died of a
"stomach ailment" at the Sunshine Mission - a home for destitute women
on Los Angeles' Skid Row.
