Leone Lane

Leone Lane was a rarity among starlets in Tinsel town – a trained artist, she specialized in fabric painting and was working in the garment industry before she landed in movies. For a time she had this parallel career, trying to score it big as an actress. Sadly her movie career nosedived, and she returned to her artistic roots, working as a dressmaker. Let’s learn more about her!

EARLY LIFE

Leone Hallie Lane was born on November 17, 1908, in Boston, Massachusetts, to Charles T. Lane and Hallie Stiles, their first child. Her father was a shoe salesman.

Leone grew up in Boston, attending elementary and high school there. She developed a passion for the performing arts pretty early, and was a seasoned amateur dancer by the time she entered her teens. After graduating from high school, Leone went to UK and studied art and designing at the Brighton Art School in London, following this with a period of professional dancing on the stage in England, resuming this career on returning to America (New York to be precise).

Leone was a specialty dancer for a time on the East coast, before deciding to go west to seek more fame and fortune. To be a proper actress, she studied a year at the Wallace Dramatic School in Los Angeles. To earn money for her education, Leone painted fabrics in Los Angeles for two years.

Ultimately, Leone racked up a splendid training for the stage and in other artistic branches. When she was ready, she made the rounds of the studios until she found work at RKO. She was later signed by for small parts in two-reel comedies. One of the Paramount executives saw Leone in several of the short films and signed her up.

And of the went!

CAREER

As with most actor playing in the silents, it’s a tragedy but sadly the truth when I say a large number of their movies have been lost. Leone appeared mostly in silents, and many of her modest movie output have been lost. Her lost movies are: Stairs of Sand, Betrayal, The Case of Lena Smith–

The three movies that Leone appeared in and are not lost are:

The River of Romance is a southern drama, based on a Booth Tarkington novel. Behold the plot (taken from IMDB): Buddy Rogers was raised by the Quaker relatives of his mother. He returns home to father Henry B. Walthall’s southern plantation, where he quickly becomes engaged to June Collyer, while her younger sister, Mary Brian also falls in love with him. No sooner has Walthall announced the engagement, than in comes Walter McGrail, who challenges Rogers to a duel. Rogers, because of his upbringing, thinks there’s no reason to fight, so Walthall kicks him out for violating the Code Of The Southern Gentleman and marries Miss Collyer to McGrail, who turns out to be an utter dud. Rogers heads out and falls in with one-eyed Wallace Beery, who teaches him how to act like a bloodthirsty maniac.

The movie seems like a dud, mostly because the actors were mostly miscast, and their accents were terrible, and they didn’t quite know to to act in a talkie, A lot of early talkies have this problem, and no wonder, since the change from silents to talkies was huge in terms of technical elements.

Second movie was The Saturday Night Kid, a movie with Clara Bow, Jean Harlow and Jean Arthur in it! Sadly, that’s about the only outstanding things about it, it’s a lukewarm. It’s about two sisters, who both work as salesgirl, who fall for the same guy. Interesting to note that Jean Arthur plays the bad sister, and Clara plays the good sister! This is a total twist from their usual roles, and it doesn’t quite work. Clara comes of as underused and boring as a virtuous heroine, plus her leading man, James Hall, is pretty much a limited talent and quite wooden.

The third and last movie, made with a time-skip of 5 years, was Dante’s Inferno. a not too famous Columbia drama, most notable for being a showcase for the dancing skills of young Rita Hayworth. While not a top tier movie, it does reveal some intelligent touches, with references to the seminal works of the Italian renaissance), with a on his way to stardom Spencer Tracy is always fun to watch! Plus Claire Trevor!

That was it from Leone!

PRIVATE LIFE

At her prime, Leone weighted 123 pounds, and was five feet, six Inches. Tall, darkhaired and striking, Leone was quite popular with the boys in Hollywood.

However,Leone never married, and sadly no mentions of a boyfriend/fiancee was found in the papers. One wonders what happened to Leone, what was her story, as choosing this path, especially in the early 20th century, took quite a bit of guts and will power. What an interesting woman, but sad I could not find more info on her.

The reason why Leone may be remembered today is that she was a very close friend of Jean Harlow. They met while working on a same movie, bonded very quickly and were thick as thieves until Jean’s untimely death in 1937.

Her acting career long over, Leone became a dressmaker in Los Angeles. She lived with her widowed mother until her death in the 1970s.

Leone Lane died on March 28, 1993 in Los Angeles.