Lilyan Tashman

Lilyan Tashman was born in Brooklyn, New York, the tenth sibling in the family. Lilyan's birth date is always listed as October 23, but as either 1896 or 1899. She attended the Girl's High School in Brooklyn, during which time she did freelance modeling. By 1914 she was on the vaudeville circuit, appearing with Eddie Cantor and others. Eventually Lilyan, like so many future film actresses, did a turn in Ziegfeld's Follies. Subsequent Broadway shows didn't further her career however, and she decided to try her hand at film.

Lilyan's film debut was small role in the Richard Barthelmess film Experience (1921). Her second appearance was in Mabel Normand's Head Over Heels (1922). Feeling film was her future, she and Edmund Lowe, her soon to be husband, relocated to Hollywood in 1924.

Hollywood liked her, and Lilyan was in five films in 1924, including Manhandled, starring Gloria Swanson, and Is Love Everything?, starring ill-fated Alma Rubens. Variety said of Lilyan in 1924's Nellie, the Beautiful Cloak Model (what a title) that she "does a loose lady vamp in a manner that registers as to the manner born." She appeared in another ten films in 1925, including Ports of Call with Edmund Lowe co-starring. They married on September 1, 1925. From then till the talkies, Lilyan was in another 20 plus films and became relied upon as a solid supporting player, with an occasional lead role to boot. From 1930 till her death in 1934, Lilyan appeared in another 22 films, including One Heavenly Night (1931), Up Pops the Devil (1931), Millie (1931), Those We Love (1932), Wine Women and Song (1933), and Riptide (1934).

Though she successfully hid her illness from the public, those in the industry knew she was not well. Lilyan died of abdominal cancer on March 21, 1934.

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A publicity still from 1929's New York Nights

Stars Of The Photoplay, 1930 edition

Photoplay, October 1931

Photoplay, February 1932 - two page fashion spread.

New Movie Magazine, January 1932

Movie Classic, June 1933

Motion Picture magazine, October 1933

Modern Screen, November 1933

Frame grabs from Millie, one of the few films featuring Lilyan that is readily available.

"In Memoriam" from Picture Play, June 1934

Lilyan Tashman - What do you think - Allure?