Blanche Sweet

In 1914, Sweet was considered by Griffith for the part of Elsie Stoneman in his epic The Birth of a Nation (1915), but the role went to Lillian Gish.

Because the Biograph company refused to reveal the names of its actors, the British distributor M. P. Sales billed Sweet as Daphne Wayne.

[14] Throughout the 1910s, Sweet continued her career appearing in a number of highly prominent roles in films and remained a publicly popular leading lady.

She often starred in vehicles by Cecil B. DeMille and Marshall Neilan, and she was recognised by leading film critics of the time to be one of the foremost actresses of the entire silent era.

[17] Of Sweet’s performance, The New York Times wrote: “It would be difficult to imagine any actress doing better in this exacting role.”[18] In successive years, she starred in Tess of the d'Urbervilles and The Sporting Venus, both directed by Neilan.

Sweet made just three talking pictures, including her critically lauded performance in Show Girl in Hollywood (1930), then retired in 1930 and married stage actor Raymond Hackett in 1935.

[20] In 1980, Sweet was one of the many featured surviving silent film stars interviewed at length in Kevin Brownlow's documentary Hollywood.

Photoplay cover image of Sweet, April 1915
Sweet, seen in an official January 1918 Photoplay publicity photo
Sweet, seen in 1919 "Unpardonable Sin"