Vilma Bánky

When Ms. Banky became ill in late 80s, she was upset with the lack of attention from the media and the public. So there was no offical mention of her death until late 1992.

She was the women's golfing champion in 1950 and 1951 at the Wilshire Country Club.

Vilma's first talking picture, "This Is Heaven," proved an awful experience for the almost inaudible Hungarian actress. Therefore, her illustrious silent film career did not survive the change to talkies. She made her very last film only four years later, in 1933.

Her only professional appearance with her husband was in a play entitled "The Cherries Are Ripe," during 1930 and 1931.

Her first talking movie was This Is Heaven (1929). She toured the U. S.

At her 1927 wedding to Rod La Rocque, Samuel Goldwyn gave the bride away. Cecil B. DeMille was best man and Louella Parsons was matron of honor.

Her best-known works were with Rudolph Valentino: daughter of a Russian aristocrat in The Eagle (1925) and an Arab dancer in The Son of the Sheik (1926).

Vilma Bánky appeared in Hungarian, Austrian and French movies between 1920 and 1925, the year in which Samuel Goldwyn signed her, in Budapest, to a Hollywood contract. In Hollywood she was billed as the "The Hungarian Rhapsody".

In the mid and late 1920s she was Goldwyn's biggest money maker, especially playing with Ronald Colman.