--- name: "Betty Compson" canonical: "https://film.one/person/betty-compson" fi1m_id: "betty-compson" imdb_id: "nm0173993" tmdb_id: 13556 wikidata_id: "Q255846" roles: ["Actor"] born: "17 March 1897" died: "18 April 1974" reviewed_on_fi1m: 1 average_as: "actor" average_over: 1 updated: "2026-09-25T06:29:54.416339+00:00" licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL." --- # Betty Compson ## Identity Betty Compson - **Canonical:** https://film.one/person/betty-compson - **Type:** Person - **Fi1m ID:** betty-compson - **IMDb ID:** nm0173993 - **TMDB ID:** 13556 - **Wikidata ID:** Q255846 - **Same entity:** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betty_Compson, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q255846, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0173993/, https://www.themoviedb.org/person/13556 Actor. Born 17 March 1897 in Beaver, Utah, USA. Died 18 April 1974. ## Details - **Work:** Actor - **Born:** 17 March 1897, Beaver, Utah, USA - **Died:** 18 April 1974 - **Also known as:** Eleanor Luicime Compson, ベティ・カンプソン - **Academy Awards:** 1 Oscar nomination - **Elsewhere:** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betty_Compson, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q255846, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0173993/, https://www.themoviedb.org/person/13556 ## Fi1m on Betty Compson > Betty Compson lets a troubled woman keep her pride, and makes us care without insisting on pity. We rate her highly in *The Docks of New York*, even when its melodrama gives her less to work with. In the Sandbar tavern in *The Docks of New York* (1928), Betty Compson's Mae gives us more to watch than the romance alone requires. George Bancroft supplies Bill Roberts with the necessary presence, but Compson and Olga Baclanova, as Lou, suggest pride and hurt that make the simpler emotions around them seem thin. We were moved by those communal scenes because the women helped make the crowd feel like people with troubles beyond this one evening. Josef von Sternberg's smoke-filled images deserve attention, but we kept looking for the faces within them. Compson began in Al Christie comedy shorts in 1915, then broke through in features opposite Lon Chaney in *The Miracle Man* (1919). Paramount stardom followed between 1921 and 1925, before a late-1920s resurgence with *The Docks of New York* and *The Barker* (1928). In the latter she plays Carrie, a manipulative carnival girl, a useful reminder that her troubled women were not always there simply to be pitied. Mae offers the more compelling evidence for us: Compson makes her sympathetic without asking us to forget her pride. She made the transition to sound successfully, with a voice that recorded well. In James Cruze's *The Great Gabbo* (1929), she plays Mary, the put-upon assistant to a ventriloquist, opposite Erich von Stroheim. It is another part in which an actress has to make someone worth watching while someone else treats her badly. Character roles followed through the 1930s and 1940s, including Gertie in Alfred Hitchcock's *Mr. & Mrs. Smith* (1941). Those smaller jobs need not become neglected triumphs for us to take her earlier work seriously. The caveat is clearest in the film we most readily recommend. Some of *The Docks of New York* is blunt melodrama, and Compson cannot make that disappear. Her work with Baclanova does, however, keep us interested when the film settles for less complicated feelings than the performances suggest. Start with von Sternberg's film; its blunt passages are worth accepting for the time spent with Mae and Lou. ## Biography Betty Compson, born Eleanor Luicime Compson, was an American actress and film producer. She began her career in 1915, appearing in numerous silent shorts and features, and later worked as a producer. She is best known for her performances as Mae in *The Docks of New York* (1928) and as Carrie in *The Barker* (1928); the latter role earned her a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actress. Compson continued acting into the sound era and received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for her contributions to motion pictures. *Sources: en.wikipedia.org, imdb.com.* ## On Fi1m (1) - *The Docks of New York* (1928), Fi1m 84, as Mae — [page](https://film.one/film/the-docks-of-new-york.md) ## Complete filmography (129) Every credit, newest first. Titles without a page can be requested for review on the HTML page. - *Halloween Monster Bash* (1991), as Mrs. Kessler (archive footage) - *Here Comes Trouble* (1948), as Martha Blake - *Second Chance* (1947), as Mrs. Davenport - *Hard Boiled Mahoney* (1947), as Selena Webster - *Her Adventurous Night* (1946), as Miss Spencer - *Danger! Women at Work* (1943), as Madame Sappho - *Confessions of a Vice Baron* (1943), as Mrs. Lucy Morgan (edited from Mad Youth) (archive footage) (uncredited) - *Escort Girl* (1941), as Ruth Ashley - *Invisible Ghost* (1941), as Mrs. Kessler - *Roar of the Press* (1941), as Mrs. Thelma Tate - *Mr. & Mrs. Smith* (1941), as Gertie - *Laughing at Danger* (1940), as Mrs. Van Horn - *Mad Youth* (1940), as Lucy Morgan - *Strange Cargo* (1940), as Suzanne (uncredited) - *Cafe Hostess* (1940), as Cafe Hostess - *Cowboys from Texas* (1939), as Belle Starkey - *News Is Made at Night* (1939), as Kitty Truman - *Hotel Imperial* (1939), as Soubrette (uncredited) - *Under the Big Top* (1938), as Marie - *Religious Racketeers* (1938), as Ada Bernard - *Torchy Blane in Panama* (1938), as Kitty, Gomez's Moll - *The Beloved Brat* (1938), as Eleanor Sparks - *Two Gun Justice* (1938), as Kate - *A Slight Case of Murder* (1938), as Loretta - *Port of Missing Girls* (1938), as Chicago - *Blondes at Work* (1938), as Blanche Revelle - *Federal Bullets* (1937), as Sue, Gang Moll - *God's Country and the Man* (1937), as Roxey Moore - *Circus Girl* (1937), as Carlotta - *Two Minutes to Play* (1936), as 'Fluff' Harding - *Killer at Large* (1936), as Kate - *Bulldog Edition* (1936), as Billie Blake - *Hollywood Boulevard* (1936), as Betty - *The Drag Net* (1936), as Mollie Cole - *The Millionaire Kid* (1936), as Gloria Neville - *Laughing Irish Eyes* (1936), as Molly - *August Week End* (1936), as Ethel Ames - *False Pretenses* (1935), as Clarissa Stanhope - *No Sleep on the Deep* (1934), as Mrs. Eldridge - *Notorious But Nice* (1933), as Millie Sprague - *Destination Unknown* (1933), as Ruby Smith - *West of Singapore* (1933), as Lou - *Guilty or Not Guilty* (1932), as Maizie - *The Silver Lining* (1932), as Kate Flynn - *Hollywood Halfbacks* (1931), Actor - *The Gay Diplomat* (1931), as Baroness Corri - *The House That Shadows Built* (1931), as (archive footage) - *Three Who Loved* (1931), as Helga Larson Hanson - *Virtuous Husband* (1931), as Inez Wakefield - *The Lady Refuses* (1931), as June - *The Boudoir Diplomat* (1930), as Helene - *She Got What She Wanted* (1930), Actor - *The Spoilers* (1930), as Cherry Malotte - *Inside the Lines* (1930), as Jane Gershon - *Midnight Mystery* (1930), as Sally Wayne - *The Czar of Broadway* (1930), as Connie Colton - *Those Who Dance* (1930), as Kitty - *Isle of Escape* (1930), as Stella - *The Case of Sergeant Grischa* (1930), as Babka - *Blaze o' Glory* (1929), as Helen Williams - *The Show of Shows* (1929), as Performer in 'The Pirate Number' & 'Lady Luck' Numbers (uncredited) - *Woman to Woman* (1929), as Deloryce / Lola - *The Great Gabbo* (1929), as Mary - *Skin Deep* (1929), as Sadie Rogers - *Street Girl* (1929), as Frederika Joyzelle - *On With the Show!* (1929), as Nita - *The Time, the Place and the Girl* (1929), as Doris Ward - *Weary River* (1929), as Alice Gray - *The Barker* (1928), as Carrie - *The Docks of New York* (1928), as Mae — Fi1m 84, [page](https://film.one/film/the-docks-of-new-york.md) - *Court Martial* (1928), as Belle Starr - *Life's Mockery* (1928), as Kit Miller/Isabelle Fullerton - *The Masked Angel* (1928), as Betty - *The Desert Bride* (1928), as Diane Duval - *The Big City* (1928), as Helen - *Scarlet Seas* (1928), as Rose - *Cheating Cheaters* (1927), as Nan Carey - *Temptations of a Shop Girl* (1927), as Ruth Harrington - *Love Me and the World Is Mine* (1927), as Mitzel - *Say It with Diamonds* (1927), as Betty Howard - *The Belle of Broadway* (1926), as Marie Duval / The Young Adele - *The Wise Guy* (1926), as Hula Kate - *The Palace of Pleasure* (1926), as Lola Montez - *Counsel for the Defense* (1925), as Katherine West - *The Pony Express* (1925), as Molly Jones - *Paths to Paradise* (1925), as Molly - *Beggar on Horseback* (1925), as Princess in Pantomime - *Eve's Secret* (1925), as Eve - *New Lives for Old* (1925), as Olympe - *Locked Doors* (1925), as Mrs. Norman 'Mary Reid' Carter - *The Garden of Weeds* (1924), as Dorothy Delbridge - *The Fast Set* (1924), as Margaret Sones - *The Female* (1924), as Dalla - *Ramshackle House* (1924), as Pen Broome - *The Enemy Sex* (1924), as Dodo Baxter - *The White Shadow* (1924), as Nancy Brent / Georgina Brent - *Miami* (1924), as Joan Bruce - *The Stranger* (1924), as Peggy Bowlin - *The Royal Oak* (1923), as Lady Mildred Cholmondeley - *Hollywood* (1923), as Betty Compson - *The Woman with Four Faces* (1923), as Elizabeth West - *The Rustle of Silk* (1923), as Lala De Breeze - *The White Flower* (1923), as Konia Markham - *Woman to Woman* (1923), as Louise Boucher / Deloryse - *Kick In* (1922), as Molly Brandon - *To Have and to Hold* (1922), as Lady Jocelyn Leigh - *The Bonded Woman* (1922), as Angela Gaskell - *Always the Woman* (1922), as Celia Thaxter / Queen Neco Tokris · Producer - *Over the Border* (1922), as Jen Galbraith - *The Green Temptation* (1922), as Genelle / Coralyn / Joan Parker - *Law and the Woman* (1922), as Margaret Rolfe - *The Little Minister* (1921), as Lady Babbie - *Ladies Must Live* (1921), as Christine Bleeker - *For Those We Love* (1921), as Bernice Arnold · Writer - *At the End of the World* (1921), as Cherry O'Day - *Prisoners of Love* (1921), as Blanche Davis · Writer - *The Miracle Man* (1919), as Rose - *The Devil's Trail* (1919), as Rose - *The Light of Victory* (1919), as Jane Ravenslee - *The Terror of the Range* (1919), as Thelma Grant - *The Sheriff* (1918), as School Teacher - *Border Raiders* (1918), as Rose Hardy - *Crazy by Proxy* (1917), Actor - *As Luck Would Have It* (1917), Actor - *Out for the Coin* (1917), Actor - *Hubby's Night Out* (1917), as Wifey - *That Doggone Baby* (1916), as Wifie Parker - *The Making Over of Mother* (1916), as Mrs. Newlywed - *Inoculating Hubby* (1916), Actor ## Gallery - ![Betty Compson](https://film.one/media/person/3850721/gallery-5aafe06c9d5c.jpg) Betty Compson — Tilford Cinema Corporation / W. W. Hodkinson Corporation, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/58/Miami_%281924%29_-_2.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail_unscaled) - ![Still from the American drama film The Barker (1928). From the back: "Step Up Ladies and Gentlemen - Milton Sills and the winsome Betty Compson in an interestin](https://film.one/media/person/3850721/gallery-a5c3611d8cea.jpg) Still from the American drama film The Barker (1928). From the back: "Step Up Ladies and Gentlemen - Milton Sills and the winsome Betty Compson in an interestin — Unknown authorUnknown author, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons (https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/a2/The_Barker_%28SAYRE_14177%29.jpg/1280px-The_Barker_%28SAYRE_14177%29.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail) - ![Betty Compson](https://film.one/media/person/3850721/gallery-3bfd38d3ae2b.jpg) Betty Compson — Image via TMDB - ![Betty Compson](https://film.one/media/person/3850721/gallery-0d96fa8ad0a3.jpg) Betty Compson — Image via TMDB - ![Betty Compson](https://film.one/media/person/3850721/gallery-298af7a4a599.jpg) Betty Compson — Image via TMDB - ![Betty Compson](https://film.one/media/person/3850721/gallery-887a4952f936.jpg) Betty Compson — Image via TMDB ## Awards ### Academy Awards — 0 won, 1 nominated - 1929: Best Actress (nominated), for *The Barker* *From Wikidata, which records wins more completely than nominations.* --- © Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/person/betty-compson