Alla Nazimova

Her contribution to the film industry has been recognized through a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. By 1990, she had quietly retired from acting. Alla Nazimova died in 1945 in Los Angeles and was interred in Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Glendale, California. She also guest-starred four times on the classic Rod Serling anthology series "Night Gallery" and was a frequent visitor of "The Love Boat" and "Fantasy Island." After playing an LAPD homicide detective investigating the murder of singer Ciji Dunne (Lisa Hartman) on "Knots Landing" in 1983, Pettet's career slowed down in the mid-1980s. With little choice, she gave up on the film industry, returning to perform on Broadway until the early 1940s when she appeared in a few more films, ostensibly in need of money. Her feature film appearance became sporadic in the 1970s, but Pettet re-emerged as the star of over a dozen made-for-television movies during that decade, including "The Delphi Bureau" (1972), "The Weekend Nun" (1972), "Pioneer Woman" (1973), "A Cry in the Wilderness" (1974), "The Desperate Miles" (1975), "The Hancocks" (1976), "Sex and the Married Woman" (1977), and "The Return of Frank Cannon" (1980). By 1925 she no longer could afford to invest in more films and financial backers withdrew their support. During that time, she married American actor Alex Cord and gave birth to a son in 1968.

However, her creativity did not meet consumer tastes and the films lost a great deal of money. Pettet got her start on Broadway in such plays as "Take Her, She's Mine," "The Chinese Prime Minister" and "Poor Richard" with Alan Bates and Gene Hackman before she was discovered by director Sidney Lumet for his sumptuous 1966 film adaptation of Mary McCarthy's novel, "The Group." The success of that film launched a film career that included roles in "Night of the General" (1967), the James Bond spoof "Casino Royale" (1967), "Blue" (1968) with Terence Stamp, and the Victorian period comedy "The Best House in London" (1969). Daring for the times, in her adaptations of works by such notable playwrights as Oscar Wilde or Henrik Ibsen she instituted her own ideas for filmmaking. Her mother remarried and settled in Canada, where she was adopted by her stepfather and assumed "Pettet" as her last name. In 1918, at age 39, Nazimova felt confident enough in her abilities that she began producing and writing films in which she also starred. Her father, Harold Nigel Edgerton Salmon, was a British RAF pilot killed in the war. Loyal Davis, Nazimova was made godmother to their daughter, former first lady Nancy Davis-Reagan. Talented, blonde Joanna Pettet was born Joanna Jane Salmon on November 16, 1944 in London, England.

A friend of Edith Luckett and her husband, Dr. For help, see How to Edit a Page and the style and How-to Directory . Her studio squelched the stories surfacing about her bisexual lifestyle and to cover it up, for more than a dozen years she lived in a partnership of mutual convenience with the homosexual actor Charles Bryant. After the article has been cleaned up, you may remove this message. She became widely gossiped about for the outlandish and allegedly debauched parties in her large mansion on Sunset Boulevard known as the Garden of Allah. This article needs cleanup.
This article needs to be edited to conform to a higher standard of article quality. Over the next few years she made a number of highly successful films that earned her a considerable amount of money.

She toured Europe as well the United States where her first Broadway performances in 1906 drew critical acclaim. Deciding to make the USA her home, she worked on stage until she made her silent film debut in 1916. Under the stage name, Alla Nazimova, her career blossomed and she married a fellow actor but it did not last long. As a teenager she began to pursue an interest in the theatre and took acting lessons before joining a theater company in Moscow. Her emotional distress caused her to rebel against authority as a way to gain attention but nonetheless, she was a talented child who was playing the violin by age seven.

She grew up in a very dysfunctional family and was shuffled between foster homes and relatives. Born Mariam Edez Adelaida Leventon, into a Jewish family in Yalta in the Crimea which at the time was a part of Russia but today is an autonomous region of Ukraine. Alla Nazimova, born May 22, 1879 - died July 13, 1945, was a Ukrainian born stage and film actress, scriptwriter, and producer.