VALESKA SURATT

Valeska Suratt was a stage and screen actress from the 1900s to the 1920s. Despite her exotic name, she was born in Indiana in 1882, as were her parents. In 1900, she began performing in vaudeville in Chicago. She married her partner, Billy Gould, and in 1908, after they separated, she had a solo act singing and dancing in exotic costumes, and she billed herself as "Vaudeville's Greatest Star". In 1910, she headlined a show that the New York City mayor closed down because it was "salacious". In 1915, she signed with William Fox, and she was a "vamp" in the movies she made, including 150 different gowns in a single movie. She appeared in 11 silent movies, but sadly, all are lost films. She sued Cecil B. DeMille for stealing the screenplay for "The King of Kings" from her and a writing partner, and it was settled out of court, but she was blacklisted. She turned up a few years later, broke, and she made several efforts to revive her career, but to no avail. Some of her movies include: The Soul of Broadway, Jealousy, and The Siren. She passed away in a nursing home in 1962 at 80 years of age.