Billie Dove (born May 14, 1903 ; died December 31, 1997) was an American actress.
Early Life and Career
She was born Bertha Bohny in New York City to Swiss immigrants. As a teen, she worked as a model to help support her family and was hired at the age of 15 by Florenz Ziegfeld to appear in his Ziegfeld Follies Revue. She migrated to Hollywood in 1922 and began appearing in films. Her great beauty and easily recognizable name helped her become one of the most popular actresses of the 1920s. She was soon dubbed The American Beauty which was also the title of one of her films. She was often involved with her male counterparts during filming, and married the director of her second film, Irvin Willat, in 1923. The two separated and eventually divorced in 1929. Dove had a huge legion of male fans and one of her most persistent was Howard Hughes. She shared a three-year romance with Hughes and was engaged to marry him, but she ended the relationship without ever giving cause. Hughes cast her as a comedian in his film Cock of the Air (1932). She also appeared in his movie The Age for Love (1931).
Early Retirement
Following her last film, Blondie of the Follies (1932), Dove retired from the screen to be with her family, although at the time still popular. She next married oil executive Robert Kenaston in 1933, a marriage that lasted for 37 years. They had two children - one son and one adopted daughter. She later had a brief third marriage to architect John Miller. Aside from a brief cameo in Diamond Head (1962), Dove never returned to the movies. She spent her retirement years in Rancho Mirage before moving into the Motion Picture & Television Country House and Hospital in Woodland Hills, California where she died of pneumonia in 1997 at the age of 94. She has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame located at 6351 Hollywood Blvd.
