Trivia

Attended Ruth St. Denis Dancing School, where she was discovered by D.W. Griffith. He provided her with professional acting and dancing lessons, grooming her to become his leading star from 1918-26. She apparently spurned her mentor's offer of marriage. She retired from films in 1926 to marry an investment banker, Edwin Larsen, in 1929.

She had a lengthy relationship with director D.W. Griffith while he was estranged from his wife, Linda Arvidson.

The other actresses in D.W. Griffith's stock company--particularly Lillian Gish, Dorothy Gish, Miriam Cooper and Mae Marsh--detested her because she mimicked their acting styles rather than developing a style of her own. This resentment grew when Griffith--who had become obsessed with Dempster--turned away from his stock actresses because he thought he now had a little bit of all of them wrapped up in one package.