CORINNE GRIFFITH 1932 Dorothy Wilding DELUXE PORTRAIT

Original 11 inch x 9 1/2 inch Portrait of CORINNE GRIFFITH (1896 - 1979). Educated at a New Orleans convent. She was signed in 1916 on a movie contract by the New York-based Vitagraph. In the early 1920s, she moved to First National in Hollywood, where she became known as the “Orchid Lady” for her delicate beauty. Miss Griffith, whose stature as “the world’s most beautiful woman” in the silent era equaled that of Hedy Lamarr in the talkike era, was rarely called upon to act, but remained highly popular through to the end of the silent period. She appeared in a handful of talkies before retiring from the screen a wealthy woman. She then turned to business and writing. One of her dozen books, Papa’s Delicate Condition, was adapted to the screen in 1963. Her several husbands included actor-director Webster Campbell, screen producer Walter Morosco and Washington Redskins owner Preston Marshall.

Portrait by London Photographer Dorothy Wilding for Paramount British Studios, Elstree.
Dorothy Frances Edith Wilding (10 January 1893 - 9 February 1976) was a noted English society photographer from Gloucester. Wilding’s earliest professional experience was as a photographic retoucher, working as an apprentice for London retouch artist Ernest Chandler. She became particularly skilled at her handling of the human face, de-emphasizing lines and wrinkles that artificial studio light tended to exaggerate. In 1915, having saved enough money from her apprenticeships and freelance retouching work, Wilding opened her own portrait studio and soon became known for being a woman’s photographer, specializing in portraits of theatre actresses and dancers.
By 1929 she had already moved studio a few times and in her Bond Street, London, studio she attracted theatrical stars and shot her first British Royal Family portrait of the 26-year-old Prince George (later Duke of Kent) in 1928.

The portrait, on double weight paper, is in very good condition with Wilding’s name stamped on the reverse.