Aileen Pringle
Encyclopedia
Aileen Pringle was an American stage and film actress during the silent film
Silent film
A silent film is a film with no synchronized recorded sound, especially with no spoken dialogue. In silent films for entertainment the dialogue is transmitted through muted gestures, pantomime and title cards...

 era.

Early life

Born Aileen Bisbee into a prominent and wealthy San Francisco, California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...

 family and educated in Europe, Pringle began her acting career shortly after her 1916 marriage to Charles McKenzie Pringle, the son of a wealthy titled British Jamaican landowner and a member of the Privy and Legislative Councils of Jamaica.

Career rise

One of Pringle's first high-profile roles was in the Rudolph Valentino
Rudolph Valentino
Rudolph Valentino was an Italian actor, and early pop icon. A sex symbol of the 1920s, Valentino was known as the "Latin Lover". He starred in several well-known silent films including The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, The Sheik, Blood and Sand, The Eagle and Son of the Sheik...

 film Stolen Moments
Stolen Moments (1920 film)
Stolen Moments is a silent movie starring Rudolph Valentino and Marguerite Namara. It was released in December 1920, just a few months before Valentino was elevated to stardom by his performance in The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse...

(1920). Many of Pringle's early roles were only modestly successful, and she continued to build her career until the early 1920s when she was selected by her friend, the romance novelist Elinor Glyn
Elinor Glyn
Elinor Glyn , born Elinor Sutherland, was a British novelist and scriptwriter who pioneered mass-market women's erotic fiction. She popularized the concept It...

 to star in the 1924 film adaptation of her novel Three Weeks
Three Weeks (film)
Three Weeks is a 1924 drama film directed by Alan Crosland. The movie is based on the novel by Elinor Glyn. Currently a lost film, FIAF database indicates a print is preserved by Russia's Gosfilmofond....

 opposite matinee idol Conrad Nagel
Conrad Nagel
Conrad Nagel was an American screen actor and matinee idol of the silent film era and beyond. He was also a well-known television actor and radio performer.-Biography:...

. The role catapulted Pringle into leading-lady status and her career began to build momentum.

Scandal

One small set-back occurred on November 15, 1924 when Aileen Pringle was among a select group of Hollywood elites who boarded a yacht in San Pedro, California called The Oneida owned by newspaper scion and billionaire William Randolph Hearst
William Randolph Hearst
William Randolph Hearst was an American business magnate and leading newspaper publisher. Hearst entered the publishing business in 1887, after taking control of The San Francisco Examiner from his father...

. The event was to be a birthday party organized by Hearst for film producer and director Thomas Ince
Thomas H. Ince
Thomas Harper Ince was an American silent film actor, director, screenwriter and producer of more than 100 films and pioneering studio mogul. Known as the "Father of the Western", he invented many mechanisms of professional movie production, introducing early Hollywood to the "assembly line"...

.

Other prominent guests aboard The Oneida included columnist Louella Parsons
Louella Parsons
Louella Parsons was the first American news-writer movie columnist in the United States. She was a gossip columnist who, for many years, was an influential arbiter of Hollywood mores, often feared and hated by the individuals, mostly actors, whose careers she could negatively impact via her...

, actor Charlie Chaplin
Charlie Chaplin
Sir Charles Spencer "Charlie" Chaplin, KBE was an English comic actor, film director and composer best known for his work during the silent film era. He became the most famous film star in the world before the end of World War I...

, actress Marion Davies
Marion Davies
Marion Davies was an American film actress. Davies is best remembered for her relationship with newspaper tycoon William Randolph Hearst, as her high-profile social life often obscured her professional career....

 (who was also Hearst's lover) and actresses Seena Owen
Seena Owen
Seena Owen was a Danish-American silent film actress.-Early Life:She was born Signe M. Auen at Spokane, Washington, the youngest of three children raised by Jens Christensen and Karen Auen. Her father and mother came from Denmark in the late 1880s and settled in Minnesota where they married in 1888...

, Jacqueline Logan
Jacqueline Logan
Jacqueline Logan was a star of the silent motion picture screen who was on board William Randolph Hearst's yacht The Oneida in 1924 when film director Thomas Ince died. The young actress was under contract to Ince at the time. Logan was a WAMPAS Baby Star of 1922. She was born in Corsicana, Texas...

 and Julanne Johnston
Julanne Johnston
Julanne Johnston was an American silent film actress born in Indianapolis, Indiana.Johnston is known for being on William Randolph Hearst's yacht The Oneida during the weekend in November 1924 when film director and producer Thomas Ince later died of heart failure...

.

At dinner that Sunday night, the group celebrated Ince's 42nd birthday. Early Monday morning, Ince was taken from the yacht by water taxi and brought ashore, accompanied by Dr. Goodman a licensed, though non-practicing, physician. By Tuesday night, Thomas Ince was dead.

Although the mysterious death of Thomas Ince was ruled to have been caused by a gastro-intestinal illness, the press frenzy that followed turned the event into a Hollywood legend; with various enigmatic and lurid stories being proffered by gossips. Among these, was a story of Hearst accidentally shooting Ince while aiming for Chaplin, who he believed to be having an affair with Marion Davies. Pringle's career weathered the controversy.

Later career

Pringle's acting career continued throughout the early 1920s, however, she was allegedly disliked by many of her co-workers for her apparently haughty and dismissive behavior. At one point she allegedly threatened actor Conrad Nagel
Conrad Nagel
Conrad Nagel was an American screen actor and matinee idol of the silent film era and beyond. He was also a well-known television actor and radio performer.-Biography:...

 with physical violence after he was instructed in a scene to carry her. Pringle's apparent disdain for her profession began to hurt her career, and by the late 1920s her roles became fewer.

Although disliked by some Hollywood insiders, Aileen Pringle was often dubbed by the press as the "Darling of the Intelligentsia" because of her close friendship with such literary figures as Carl Van Vechten
Carl van Vechten
Carl Van Vechten was an American writer and photographer who was a patron of the Harlem Renaissance and the literary executor of Gertrude Stein.-Biography:...

, Joseph Hergesheimer
Joseph Hergesheimer
Joseph Hergesheimer was a prominent American writer of the early 20th century known for his naturalistic novels of decadent life amongst the very wealthy.-Biography:...

, Rupert Hughes
Rupert Hughes
Rupert Hughes was an American historian, novelist, film director and composer based in Hollywood. Hughes was born in Lancaster, Missouri. His parents were Felix Turner Hughes and Jean Amelia Summerlin, who were married in 1865. His brother Howard R. Hughes, Sr., co-founded the Hughes Tool Company....

, and H. L. Mencken
H. L. Mencken
Henry Louis "H. L." Mencken was an American journalist, essayist, magazine editor, satirist, acerbic critic of American life and culture, and a scholar of American English. Known as the "Sage of Baltimore", he is regarded as one of the most influential American writers and prose stylists of the...

 who became a life-long friend of the actress. Ralph Barton
Ralph Barton
Ralph Barton was an American artist best known for his cartoons and caricatures of actors and other celebrities...

, American artist, was also a devoted friend and used her as the model for Dorothy in his illustrations for Gentlemen Prefer Blondes
Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (novel)
Gentlemen Prefer Blondes: The Illuminating Diary of a Professional Lady is a comic novel written by Anita Loos first published in 1925. Loos was inspired to write the book after watching a sexy blonde turn intellectual H. L. Mencken into a lovestruck schoolboy. Mencken, a close friend, actually...

by Anita Loos
Anita Loos
Anita Loos was an American screenwriter, playwright and author.-Early life:Born Corinne Anita Loos in Sisson, California , where her father, R. Beers Loos, had opened a tabloid newspaper for which her mother, Minerva "Minnie" Smith did most of the work of a newspaper publisher...

.
Another admirer was George Gershwin
George Gershwin
George Gershwin was an American composer and pianist. Gershwin's compositions spanned both popular and classical genres, and his most popular melodies are widely known...

 who met her in Hollywood and wrote much of the Second Rhapsody
Second Rhapsody
Second Rhapsody is a concert piece for orchestra with piano by American composer George Gershwin, written in 1931. It is commonly referred to by its original title, Rhapsody in Rivets....

 at her Santa Monica, California home. Her wit, keen intellect and sparkling personality made her a sought-after companion.

After her 1926 divorce from Charles Pringle, Aileen Pringle further focused on her acting career, including Dream of Love
Dream of Love
Dream of Love is a 1928 MGM silent film, directed by Fred Niblo, and starring Joan Crawford and Nils Asther. The film is based on the play Adrienne Lecouvreur by Eugène Scribe and Ernest Legouvé. In the film, Asther plays Prince Maurice de Saxe and Crawford plays Adrienne Lecouvreur, a Gypsy...

(1928) with Joan Crawford
Joan Crawford
Joan Crawford , born Lucille Fay LeSueur, was an American actress in film, television and theatre....

 and Wall Street
Wall Street (1929 film)
Wall Street was a drama film released on December 1, 1929 and was produced by Harry Cohn, directed by Roy William Neill, and starred Ralph Ince, Aileen Pringle, Sam De Grasse, Philip Strange, and Freddie Burke Frederick.synopsis...

(1929) co-starring Ralph Ince
Ralph Ince
Ralph Ince , was an American film director, actor and screenwriter of the silent era. He directed 171 films between 1910 and 1937. He also appeared in 110 films between 1907 and 1937....

, brother of Thomas Ince. However, with the advent of talkies, the studios began heavily promoting a new crop of starlets and Pringle's career faded.

During the sound era, she continued to take small parts in major films and even uncredited roles. In 1944 Pringle married the author, James M. Cain
James M. Cain
James Mallahan Cain was an American author and journalist. Although Cain himself vehemently opposed labeling, he is usually associated with the hardboiled school of American crime fiction and seen as one of the creators of the roman noir...

, but the union lasted only two years and ended in divorce. By the late 1940s, Pringle retired from the screen and lived a wealthy retirement in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

, where she died in 1989 at the age of 94.

For her contribution to the motion picture industry, Aileen Pringle was awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame
Hollywood Walk of Fame
The Hollywood Walk of Fame consists of more than 2,400 five-pointed terrazzo and brass stars embedded in the sidewalks along fifteen blocks of Hollywood Boulevard and three blocks of Vine Street in Hollywood, California...

 at 6723 Hollywood Blvd., in Los Angeles, California
Los Angeles, California
Los Angeles , with a population at the 2010 United States Census of 3,792,621, is the most populous city in California, USA and the second most populous in the United States, after New York City. It has an area of , and is located in Southern California...

.

Filmography

Year Film Role Notes
1920 The Cost Olivia as Aileen Savage
The Sport of Kings as Aileen Savage
Earthbound as Aileen Savage
Stolen Moments
Stolen Moments (1920 film)
Stolen Moments is a silent movie starring Rudolph Valentino and Marguerite Namara. It was released in December 1920, just a few months before Valentino was elevated to stardom by his performance in The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse...

Inez Salles as Aileen Savage
Short film; Extant
1922 Oath-Bound Alice
The Strangers' Banquet Mrs. Schuyler-Peabody
My American Wife
My American Wife
My American Wife is a 1922 silent drama film directed by Sam Wood and starring Gloria Swanson. The film is considered to be lost, since no prints seem to have survived.-Cast:* Gloria Swanson - Natalie Chester* Antonio Moreno - Manuel La Tessa...

Hortensia deVereta Lost film
1923 The Christian
The Christian (1923 film)
The Christian is a silent film drama, released by Goldwyn Pictures, directed by Maurice Tourneur, and starring Richard Dix and Mae Busch.-Production background:...

Lady Robert Ure Lost film
The Tiger's Claw Chameli Brentwood
Souls for Sale
Souls for Sale
Souls for Sale is a silent film written, directed, and produced by Rupert Hughes from his novel of the same name. The film featured Eleanor Boardman in her first leading role, having won a contract with Goldwyn Studios through their "New Faces of 1921" contest just two years prior.The film is most...

Lady Jane Extant(Turner/Warner Brothers)
Don't Marry for Money Edith Martin
In the Palace of the King
In the Palace of the King
In the Palace of the King is a 1923 silent film historical drama based on the novel by F. Marion Crawford and was directed by Emmett J. Flynn. A previous silent version had been made and released in 1915 by the Essanay company. Prior to the films the story saw Broadway in a 1900 production...

Princess Eboli Lost film
1924 Name the Man Isabelle
Three Weeks
Three Weeks (film)
Three Weeks is a 1924 drama film directed by Alan Crosland. The movie is based on the novel by Elinor Glyn. Currently a lost film, FIAF database indicates a print is preserved by Russia's Gosfilmofond....

The Queen
True As Steel Mrs. Eva Boutelle
His Hour
His Hour
His Hour is a 1924 silent drama film directed by King Vidor.This film was the follow-up to Samuel Goldwyn's Three Weeks, written by Elinor Glyn, and starring Aileen Pringle, one of the biggest moneymakers at the time of the amalgamation...

Tamara Loraine Extant
The Wife of the Centaur
The Wife of the Centaur
The Wife of the Centaur is a 1924 silent drama film directed by King Vidor, and released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer shortly after it formed from a merger of Metro Pictures, Goldwyn Pictures, and Mayer Pictures in April 1924....

Inez Martin Lost film
1925 A Thief in Paradise
A Thief in Paradise
A Thief in Paradise is a 1925 silent film, written by Frances Marion and directed by George Fitzmaurice. It is an adaptation of Leonard Merrick's novel The Worldlings . It is a "lost film".-Plot:...

Rosa Carmino Lost film
One Year to Live Elsa Duchanier
A Kiss in the Dark Janet Livingstone
Wildfire Claire Barrington Extant(Library of Congress)
The Mystic
The Mystic
The Mystic is a 1925 silent drama film directed by Tod Browning, who later directed MGM's Freaks . Aileen Pringle's gowns in the film were by already famous Romain de Tirtoff .-Plot:...

Zara Extant(Turner/Warner Brothers)(Trailer-Library of Congress)
Soul Mates
Soul Mates (film)
Soul Mates is a 1925 silent drama film directed by Jack Conway, based on the 1911 novel The Reason Why by Elinor Glyn. The movie was the second successful collaboration between Glyn and Conway. -Plot:...

Velma
1926 Camille
Camille (Barton film)
Camille is a short film by Ralph Barton, the creation of which is described in Bruce Kellner's The Last Dandy, a biography of Barton....

Estelle Short film
The Wilderness Woman Juneau MacLean
The Great Deception
The Great Deception
The Great Deception is a 1926 silent era American film starring Basil Rathbone, Ben Lyon and Aileen Pringle. It is based on a novel about WW1 era espionage by writer George Gibbs. This film is currently a lost First National film. -Cast:...

Lois
Tin Gods Janet Stone
1927 Adam and Evil Evelyn Trevelyan
Body and Soul
Body and Soul (1927 film)
Body and Soul is a 1927 silent film starring Aileen Pringle, Norman Kerry, and Lionel Barrymore. The movie was directed by Reginald Barker.-Cast:*Aileen Pringle as Hilda*Norman Kerry as Ruffo*Lionel Barrymore as Dr. Leyden...

Hilda
Tea for Three Doris Langford
1928 Wickedness Preferred Kitty Dare
Beau Broadway Yvonne
The Baby Cyclone Lydia
Show People
Show People
Show People is a 1928 comedy silent film directed by King Vidor. The movie was a starring vehicle for actress Marion Davies and actor William Haines and included notable cameo appearances by many of the film personalities of the day, including stars Charlie Chaplin, Douglas Fairbanks, William S....

Herself Cameo appearance; Extant(Turner/Warner Brothers)
Dream of Love
Dream of Love
Dream of Love is a 1928 MGM silent film, directed by Fred Niblo, and starring Joan Crawford and Nils Asther. The film is based on the play Adrienne Lecouvreur by Eugène Scribe and Ernest Legouvé. In the film, Asther plays Prince Maurice de Saxe and Crawford plays Adrienne Lecouvreur, a Gypsy...

The Duchess Lost film
1929 A Single Man Mary Hazeltine
Night Parade Paula Vernoff Incomplete(Library of Congress)
Wall Street
Wall Street (1929 film)
Wall Street was a drama film released on December 1, 1929 and was produced by Harry Cohn, directed by Roy William Neill, and starred Ralph Ince, Aileen Pringle, Sam De Grasse, Philip Strange, and Freddie Burke Frederick.synopsis...

Ann Tabor
1930 Puttin' on the Ritz
Puttin' on the Ritz (film)
Puttin' on the Ritz is a musical film, directed by Edward Sloman and starred Harry Richman, Joan Bennett, and James Gleason. The screenplay was written by James Gleason and William K. Wells, based on a story by John W...

Mrs. Teddy Von Rennsler
Prince of Diamonds Eve Marley
Soldiers and Women Brenda Ritchie
1931 Subway Express Dale Tracy
Murder at Midnight
Murder at Midnight (1931 film)
- Plot summary : This movie was the movie within a movie in The Mirror Crack'd with Angela Lansbury, Elizabeth Taylor, Rock Hudson, Tony Curtis, Kim Novak, and an uncredited Pierce Brosnan as "Jamie".- Cast :*Aileen Pringle as Esme Kennedy...

Esme Kennedy
Convicted Claire Norville
1932 Police Court
Police Court
Police Court is a 1932 American Monogram Pictures drama motion picture starring Henry B. Walthall, Leon Janney, Lionel Belmore, and King Baggot. Directed by Louis King and produced by I. E. Chadwick, the screenplay was adapted by Stuart Anthony from his story...

Diana McCormick
The Age of Consent Barbara
The Phantom of Crestwood
The Phantom of Crestwood
The Phantom of Crestwood is a murder mystery film released by RKO Radio Pictures, directed by J. Walter Ruben, and starring Ricardo Cortez, Karen Morley, Richard "Skeets" Gallagher, Anita Louise, H. B. Warner, and Pauline Frederick...

Mrs. Herbert Walcott
1933 By Appointment Only Diane Manners
1934 Love Past Thirty Caroline Burt
Jane Eyre
Jane Eyre (1934 film)
Jane Eyre is a 1934 American romantic drama film directed by Christy Cabanne, starring Virginia Bruce and Colin Clive. It is based on the 1847 novel of the same name by Charlotte Brontë, and is the first adaptation to use sound.- Plot summary :...

Lady Blanche Ingram
Once to Every Bachelor Judy Bryant
Sons of Steel Enid Chadburne
1935 Vanessa: Her Love Story Herries Servant Uncredited
1936 Wife vs. Secretary
Wife vs. Secretary
Wife vs. Secretary is a comedy film directed and co-produced by Clarence Brown. It stars Clark Gable as a successful businessman, Jean Harlow as his secretary, and Myrna Loy as his wife, supported by May Robson as his mother and James Stewart, in one of his first memorable roles, as the...

Mrs. Anne Barker Uncredited
The Unguarded Hour
The Unguarded Hour
The Unguarded Hour is a 1936 film starring Loretta Young and Franchot Tone under the direction of Sam Wood. The prosecutor in a murder trial is unaware that his wife is involved.-Cast:*Loretta Young as Lady Helen Dudley Dearden...

Diana Roggers
Piccadilly Jim
Piccadilly Jim (1936 film)
Piccadilly Jim is a 1936 romantic comedy film directed by Robert Z. Leonard. The film is based on the 1917 novel of the same name written by P. G. Wodehouse.-Plot:...

Paducah Pomeroy
Wanted: Jane Turner Norris' Secretary Uncredited
1937 Criminal Lawyer Mrs. Manning Uncredited
The Last of Mrs. Cheyney
The Last of Mrs. Cheyney (1937 film)
The Last of Mrs. Cheyney is a 1937 drama/comedy motion picture starring Joan Crawford, William Powell, Robert Montgomery and Frank Morgan. The film tells the story of a chic jewel thief in England, who falls in love with one of her marks....

Maria
John Meade's Woman Mrs. Melton
Thanks for Listening Lulu, Blackmailer Leader
She's No Lady Mrs. Douglas
Nothing Sacred
Nothing Sacred (film)
Nothing Sacred is a 1937 Technicolor screwball comedy film made by Selznick International Pictures and distributed by United Artists. It was directed by William A. Wellman and produced by David O. Selznick, from a screenplay credited to Ben Hecht, based on a story by James H. Street...

Mrs. Bullock Uncredited
1938 Man-Proof Second Gossipy Woman Uncredited
Too Hot to Handle
Too Hot to Handle (1938 film)
Too Hot to Handle is a 1938 film about a newsreel reporter, the aviatrix he is attracted to, and his fierce competitor, played by Clark Gable, Myrna Loy, and Walter Pidgeon respectively...

Mrs. Arthur MacArthur Uncredited
1939 The Hardys Ride High Miss Booth, Dress Saleslady
Calling Dr. Kildare Mrs. Thatcher Uncredited
Should a Girl Marry? Mrs. White
The Women
The Women (1939 film)
The Women is a 1939 American comedy-drama film directed by George Cukor. The film is based on Clare Boothe Luce's play of the same name, and was adapted for the screen by Anita Loos and Jane Murfin, who had to make the film acceptable for the Production Code in order for it to be released.The film...

Miss Carter (saleslady) Uncredited
The Night of Nights Dress Saleslady Uncredited
1941 Appointment for Love Nurse Gibbons Uncredited
They Died with Their Boots On
They Died with Their Boots On
They Died with Their Boots On is a 1941 western film directed by Raoul Walsh and starring Errol Flynn and Olivia de Havilland. Despite being rife with historical inaccuracies, the film was one of the top-grossing films of the year, being the last of eight Flynn–de Havilland collaborations.Like...

Mrs. Sharp Uncredited
1942 Between Us Girls Guest Uncredited
1943 The Youngest Profession
The Youngest Profession
The Youngest Profession is a 1943 film, directed by Edward Buzzell, and starring Virginia Weidler, John Carroll, Edward Arnold, Scotty Beckett, and Agnes Moorehead. It contains cameos by Greer Garson, Lana Turner, William Powell, Walter Pidgeon, and Robert Taylor....

Miss Farwood Uncredited
Dr. Gillespie's Criminal Case Chaperon Uncredited
Happy Land
Happy Land (film)
Happy Land is a 1943 film directed by Irving Pichel and starring Don Ameche.-Synopsis:Lew Marsh, s pharmacist to the small community of Hartfield, Iowa, is lunching with his devoted wife Agnes when a telegram arrives notifying them that their only child, Russell, whom they called Rusty, has been...

Mrs. Prentiss Uncredited
1944 Since You Went Away
Since You Went Away
Since You Went Away is a 1944 film distributed by United Artists, a big-budget epic about the American home front during World War II. It was directed by John Cromwell and adapted and produced by David O. Selznick from the novel Since You Went Away: Letters to a Soldier from His Wife by Margaret...

Woman at Cocktail Lounge Uncredited
A Wave, a WAC and a Marine Newswoman
Laura
Laura (1944 film)
Laura is a 1944 American film noir directed by Otto Preminger. It stars Gene Tierney, Dana Andrews and Clifton Webb. The screenplay by Jay Dratler, Samuel Hoffenstein, and Elizabeth Reinhardt is based on the 1943 novel of the same title by Vera Caspary....

Woman Uncredited

External links

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