Elissa Landi

Elissa Landi was an Austrian-American actress popular in Hollywood during the 1920s and 1930s. Born in Venice and educated in England, she first hoped to become an author and wrote fiction throughout her career. She made her stage debut in Dandy Dick in 1923, joined the Oxford Repertory Company, and in 1926 starred in the West End production of Dorothy Brandon's Blind Alley. After appearing in British, French, and German films, she went to the United States to appear on Broadway in A Farewell to Arms in 1930. Fox signed her in 1931, and she starred in The Yellow Ticket. In 1932 she played Mercia in The Sign of the Cross for Cecil B. DeMille. She starred alongside Robert Donat in The Count of Monte Cristo (1934), a box office hit, and later appeared in After the Thin Man (1936). She retired from acting in 1943 and wrote six novels and poetry. Landi died in 1948.