Another from my mother's scrapbook of movie stars from the late 20's. This is Patsy Ruth Miller, who was born in St Louis in 1904. She was discovered on a trip to LA with her folks when she was only 16. She met film star Alla Nazimova at a party and she was quite taken with Patsy. Now it did not say so in anything I read, but Nazimova was a notorious carpet muncher and her wild lesbo orgies at the 'Garden of Allah Hotel' off Sunset, which she owned, were the stuff of Hollywood legend. I will let your imagination take it from there.

That connection got her a part in "Camille" with Nazimova and Rudolph Valentino and she became a WAMPAS Baby Star of 1923. Her biggest role was as the Gypsy dancing girl Esmeralda in the Lon Cheney Sr. silent version of "The Hunchback of Notre Dame", which was a huge hit for the studio and set up her career.

After that Miller starred in a series of light romantic comedies and eventually retired in the early 30's as the talkies took hold and acting styles changed and grew subtler.

Miller turned to being a writer and won three O'Henry awards for short stories and a wrote a novel. She also acted on Broadway for a bit.

Patsy was married three times, first to director Tay Garnett and then screenwriter John Lee Mahin, both ending in divorce. Her last husband was E.S. Dean, a successful businessman that lasted until he died in 1986. Miller passed in 1995 at the ripe old age of 91 in Palm Desert, CA, the seeming elephant dying ground of old movie stars......