Jeanne Eagels

Around 1911, Eagels moved to New York City, where she bleached her brown hair blonde (though the specs list her natural hair as blonde) and worked in chorus lines. She studied with Beverley Sitgreaves and appeared in the supporting cast of Mind the Paint Girl in 1912. In 1916-17, she played opposite George Arliss in three plays, and made her first film in 1915, including three for Thanhouser Film Corporation. In 1918, she appeared in Daddies, but left due to illness and traveled to Europe. She acted in several Broadway shows between 1919 and 1921.

Her breakthrough came in 1922 as Sadie Thompson in Rain, a role she considered her favorite. She toured with the play for two seasons and gave a farewell Broadway performance in 1926. Offered the part of Roxie Hart in Chicago that year, she walked out during rehearsals. In 1927, she starred in the comedy Her Cardboard Lover with Leslie Howard, but missed performances and was later banned from the stage for 18 months by Actors Equity in 1928. She turned to film, making two sound pictures for Paramount: The Letter and Jealousy, both released in 1929. Her performance in The Letter earned her a posthumous Academy Award nomination.

Eagels was married twice. Her second husband was Edward "Ted" Coy, a former Yale football star and stockbroker; they divorced in July 1928 with no children. During her peak success, she struggled with drug and alcohol addiction, including heroin use, and attended several sanatoriums. Her health declined in her 30s. In September 1929, she underwent eye surgery and, after ten days, returned to her Park Avenue apartment. On October 3, 1929, she collapsed while speaking with a doctor and died. The medical examiner ruled her death a result of alcoholic psychosis, with toxicology revealing alcohol, heroin, and chloral hydrate, an overdose of the sedative being the attributed cause.