Biography

Lili Damita was a French-American actress, best remembered today for whom she married than for the movies in which she appeared. When the sound revolution arrived in Hollywood, all of the studio's scrambled to find actors who could speak lines and record well. It was at this time Lili burst onto the scene. While her accent would always be quite noticeable, the novelty of sound overcame the quality of lines uttered. In the MGM movie The Bridge of San Luis Rey (1929), she played against Ernest Torrence as his love interest. In 1931, she was cast with Gary Cooper in the early western Fighting Caravans (1931). After that, her career was almost over as she continued to make only a few other movies over the next few years. In 1935, she married a hell raiser by the name of Errol Flynn. This rocky tempestuous union lasted until 1942.

- IMDb Mini Biography By: Tony Fontana

Lili Damita was born Liliane Marie Madeleine Carré on July 10, 1904, in Blaye, France. As a child she studied ballet and attended school in several different countries. By the age of sixteen she was working as a professional model and dancer. In 1921 she won a beauty contest and was offered her first acting role. She appeared in more than a dozen silent films made in Europe. Lili married Hungarian director Michael Curtiz in 1925. They divorced just a year later. Producer Samuel Goldwyn saw Lili and offered her a part in the 1928 romantic adventure The Rescue. American audiences fell in love with the exotic beauty nicknamed "Tiger Lil". She appeared in a string of box office successes including The Cock-Eyed World and This Is The Night. Despite her thick accent she was easily able to make the transition to talkies. In 1935 Lili married actor Errol Flynn and decided to retire from the screen.

Her final role was in the 1938 French film Escadrille of Chance. Errol quickly became a superstar and Lili was now primarily known as his wife. The couple had a son in 1940, Sean, although their marriage was quite tumultuous. Errol had many affairs and Lili divorced him in 1942. They would spend years fighting over custody and child support. Lili continued to stay out of the spotlight and focused on raising her son. In 1962 she married American dairy farmer Allen R. Loomis and began living part-time in Iowa. Tragedy struck in 1970 when her son Sean went missing during a filming and journalistic trip to Cambodia during the Vietnam War, whereafter Lili spent fourteen years and millions of dollars searching for him however he was never found. Sean Flynn was declared legally dead in 1984. By this time Lili was divorced from Allen Loomis and was now suffering from Alzheimer's disease. She died on March 21, 1994 in Palm Beach, Florida, at the age of eighty-nine. Lili was buried at Oakland Cemetery in Fort Dodge, Iowa. The epitaph on her tombstone reads "She touched so many lives, brightened so many days."

- IMDb Mini Biography By: Elizabeth Ann