Myrna Loy

Loy's mother saw great potential in Southern California, and during one of his visits she encouraged her husband to purchase real estate there. Among the properties he bought was land he later sold at a considerable profit to Charlie Chaplin so the filmmaker could construct his studio there. Although Loy's mother tried to persuade her husband to move to California permanently, he preferred ranch life and the three eventually returned to Montana. Soon afterward, Loy's mother needed a hysterectomy and insisted Los Angeles was a safer place to have it done, so she, Loy, and Loy's brother David moved to Ocean Park, where Loy began to take dancing lessons. They continued after she returned to Montana, and at the age of 12, Myrna Williams made her stage debut performing a dance she choreographed based on The Blue Bird from the Rose Dream Operetta at Helena's Marlow Theater. Read Less

The statue was vandalized several times, and at one point was removed from display. However it has been rebuilt using bronze, and is on display again, surrounded by some thorny rosebushes to protect it.

Loy left school at the age of 18 to help with the family's finances. She obtained work at Grauman's Egyptian Theatre, where she performed in elaborate musical sequences that were related to and served as prologues for the feature film. During this period she saw Eleonora Duse in the play Thy Will Be Done, and the simple acting techniques she employed made such an impact on Loy she tried to emulate them throughout her career.

Portrait photographer Henry Waxman had taken several pictures of Loy, and they were noticed by Rudolph Valentino when the actor went to Waxman's studio for a sitting. He was looking for a leading lady for Cobra, the first independent project he and his wife Natacha Rambova were producing. She tested for the role, which went to Gertrude Olmstead instead, but soon after she was hired as an extra for Pretty Ladies, in which she and fellow newcomer Joan Crawford were among a bevy of chorus girls dangling from an elaborate chandelier. Read Less

When gangster John Dillinger was shot to death after leaving a screening of the film at the Biograph Theater in Chicago, the film received widespread publicity, with some newspapers reporting that Loy had been Dillinger's favorite actress. Read Less

Loy was married and divorced four times:

Loy had no children of her own, though she was very close to her first husband Arthur Hornblow's children.

There were rumors that Myrna Loy had affairs with:

In later life, she assumed an influential role as Co-Chairman of the Advisory Council of the National Committee Against Discrimination in Housing. In 1948 she became a member of the U.S. National Commission for UNESCO, the first Hollywood celebrity to do so. She was also an active Democrat.

Loy was a devout Methodist and during her time of residence in New York City she was a member of St. Paul's Methodist Church (which later became known as The United Methodist Church of St. Paul and St. Andrew).

Her autobiography, Myrna Loy: Being and Becoming, was published in 1987. Loy had two mastectomies in 1975 and 1979 for breast cancer. Read Less