Mary Philbin

Silent film star, almost exclusively with Universal, a beauty contest runner-up invited to Hollywood by studio boss Carl Laemmle (the winner, Gertrude Olmstead, also enjoyed success in film). After two years in Hollywood Philbin played in her first important film, Erich von Stroheim's lavish "Merry-Go-Round" (1923), opposite Norman Kerry, with whom she would act in five films. Philbin's best-known role remains that of aspiring opera singer Christine Daae, tutored and beloved by the frightful "Phantom of the Opera" (1925), with Lon Chaney in the title role. She later gave a touching performance as the blind heroine who becomes enamored of another disfigured protagonist (Conrad Veidt) in Paul Leni's stunning adaptation of Victor Hugo's "The Man Who Laughs" (1928).