Ben Lyon Collection

Hollywood owes more to Ben Lyon's legacy than a survey of his body of work would seem to indicate.

Born in Atlanta, Georgia, the youngest son of a piano player turned businessman, Ben Lyon, Jr. grew up in Baltimore but never quite shook his southern accent. He began appearing in local amateur productions before deciding to try his luck on the Great White Way. In 1923, he was hot enough to share a Broadway marquee with Jeanne Eagels, but he was already a veteran of the budding silent film industry, having appeared in The Transgressor (1918), Warner Bros' anti-venereal disease propaganda film Open Your Eyes (1919), and The Heart of Maryland (1923).

Lyon helped to define the "flapper era" by appearing in Flaming Youth (1923) with Colleen Moore. The "racy" film featured "neckers, petters, white kisses, red kisses, pleasure mad daughters, [and] sensation craving mothers", not to mention a scandalous "skinny-dipping" sequence which was shot in silhouette. Although he was considered a "leading man" rather than an A-list star, he appeared with such silent film heavyweights as Pola Negri, Gloria Swanson, Barbara La Marr, Anna Q. Nilsson, and Mary Astor. Photoplay magazine warned: "Girls, Ben Lyon looks harmless but we have reliable information that he is irresistible, so watch your step."

When the talkies began, Ben was already cast in Howard Hughes' Hell's Angels (1930). The film is best known today as the vehicle which introduced Jean Harlow to the screen (and established Hughes' reputation as a difficult personality to deal with). Shooting began in 1927 with Norwegian silent film star Greta Nissen as the leading lady. Hughes' first director, Marshall Neilan quit rather than deal with the millionaire's peculiarities. Midway through the shoot, the Jazz Singer (1927) debuted, launching the craze for talking films. Miss Nissen's thick Norwegian accent would not work in a sound film, so Hughes paid her off and brought a then unknown Jean Harlow aboard. The real selling point of the film was not the dialog, but the dangerous flying scenes. Not only did Hughes fly in the film, Lyon and co-star James Hall were allowed to do some of their own piloting.

The same year Hell's Angels was finally released, Ben appeared in Alias French Gertie (1930) as partner to a jewel thief played by Bebe Daniels. Miss Daniels had been a child star during the silent era and would eventually accrue more than 200 film credits. She and Ben were married in June 1930. Lyon's career took a downturn as the Great Depression progressed, and he was placed in mostly B-grade films. Hoping to find more lucrative employment, he and Bebe put together a song and dance act and moved to Great Britain to try their luck in vaudeville and English cinema. They were hired by the British Radio to appear as a bickering couple in the long-running Hi, Gang! (which was made into a film in 1941). The couple chose to remain in Britain through the Blitz. Ben was a flier with the RAF until America joined the War and he transferred to the Army Air Corp, eventually achieving the rank of Lt Col in the Special Services coordinating entertainment for US troops.

After the War, the Lyon's made a temporary return to Hollywood where Ben took a job as an executive in the casting department of Twentieth Century Fox. He was working in that capacity when he met a pretty blond starlet named Norma Jean Dougherty. Lyon's gave her a stage name based on his good friend and former co-star Marilyn Miller (Lyon and Miller created a splash in 1928 when they broke off their engagement but remained friends) and told his bosses at Fox that "It's Jean Harlow all over again", and that is how Marilyn Monroe got her name.

Ben and Bebe returned to England to star in Life With the Lyons, an "Ozzie and Harriet type" show which featured their children, Barbara and Richard.

Bebe died of a cerebral hemorrhage in 1971, and her ashes were sent to Hollywood where they were interred at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery. Ben married actress Marian Nixon with whom he had been friends since the silent era. They were vacationing together aboard the Queen Elizabeth II near Honolulu when Ben suffered a fatal heart attack on March 22, 1979. His ashes were interned next to Bebe Daniels'.

A Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 1724 Vine St honors Ben Lyon's contributions to Motion Pictures.