Aileen Pringle (Aileen Pringle)

Aileen Pringle

Actress. She starred in numerous Hollywood features of the 1920s and 1930s. Born Aileen Bisbee to a family of wealth and high position, she was educated in Europe and started her theatrical career shortly after her 1916 marriage to Charles McKenzie Pringle, child of rich British nobility. Billed as “Aileen Savage” in her first few films, she made her silver screen bow in 1920 with “The Cost”, that same year seeing her star in “Stolen Moments” with Rudolph Valentino. Gradually building her resume, her major breakthrough came opposite Conrad Nagel in the 1924 “Three Weeks”, a work she was later to say was her favorite project. Aileen survived a potential scandal on November 15, 1924, as she was a guest on William Randolph Hearst’s yacht “The Oneida” when producer Thomas Ince became ill and died under circumstances that have never been fully explained. Her career continued through the 1920s, though with time she gained a reputation as rude and difficult to work with. Following her 1926 divorce, she starred in “Dream of Love” (1928) with Joan Crawford and the 1929 “Wall Street” with Ralph Ince. Intelligent and well-read, she developed significant friendships within the literary community, and was said to have been the model for Ralph Barton’s illustrations in Anita Loos’ 1925 novel “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes”. (It is also rumored that journalist H.L. Mencken tried to recover the letters from a rather steamy correspondence that he and Aileen had carried on). The dislike she engendered reduced the quality, though not the quantity, of her work, relegating her to bit, and even uncredited, roles through the 1930s and early 1940s. She left the screen with the 1944 “Laura”, and married author James M. Cain, though the union was to be brief and turbulent. From the late 1940s on, she lived a retired life of comfort in New York City. Aileen has been honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. (bio by: Bob Hufford)  Family links:  Spouse:  James Mallahan Cain (1892 – 1977)* *Calculated relationship

Born

  • July, 23, 1895
  • USA

Died

  • December, 12, 1989
  • USA

Cemetery

  • Woodlawn Cemetery
  • USA

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