Bebe Daniels

She was awarded a Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 1716 Vine Street in Hollywood, California on February 8, 1960.

In 1930 she married Ben Lyon, with whom she went to England in the mid-'30s, where she became a successful West End stage star. She and her husband also had their own radio show in London, and became the most popular radio team in the country--especially during World War II, when they refused to return to the US and stayed in London, broadcasting even during the worst of the "blitz". They later appeared in several British films together as their radio characters.

Bebe Daniels already had toured as an actor by the age of four in a stage production of "Richard III". She had her first leading role at the age of seven and started her film career shortly after this in movies for Imperial, Pathe and others. At 14 she was already a film veteran, and was enlisted by Hal Roach to star as Harold Lloyd's leading lady in his "Lonesome Luke" shorts, distributed by Pathe. Lloyd fell hard for Bebe and seriously considered marrying her, but her drive to pursue a film career along with her sense of independence clashed with Lloyd's Victorian definition of a wife. The two eventually broke up but would remain lifelong friends. Bebe was sought out for stardom by Cecil B. DeMille, who literally pestered her into signing with Paramount. Unlike many actors, the arrival of sound posed no problem for her; she had a beautiful singing voice and became a major musical star, with such hits as Rio Rita (1929) and 42nd Street (1933).

Screenland magazine reported in January 1922, that Daniels and Viola Dana were more popular in Japan than Mary Pickford and Mary Miles Minter.

Her movie The Speed Girl (1921) was made to capitalize on her ten-day jail sentence for multiple speeding tickets. The movie's poster shows her walking out of a jail cell.

Her "vamp" role in Cecil B. DeMille's Why Change Your Wife? (1920) brought her enormous popularity and respect as a dramatic actress.

Had Spanish ancestry through her maternal grandmother, Eva Guadalupe García de la Plaza y Gil de Tejada Griffin (1850-1943), who was born in Palmira, Valle del Cauca, Colombia. Mrs. Griffin was descended from the Spanish conquerors of New Granada and from Josephine de Beauharnais, Napoleon's first wife and empress.