Blythe Daly (Blithe Nightly)

Don’t get confused! I don’t mean Blythe Danner or Tyne Daly, but just what I said, Blythe Daly (1901-1965), although I’ve seen many spelling permutations of same, including Blyth Daly, Blyth Daley, and Blythe Daley.

Daly was one of the “Four Riders of the Algonquin“, a kind of adjunct quartet to the famous assemblage of wits, of whom the other three were Tallulah Bankhead,Estelle Winwood, and Eva Le Gallienne. The daughter of the important theatrical figures Arnold Daly and Mary Blythe (the latter of whom later married Frank Craven, a third important theatrical figure), she was a Broadway star and social fixture of Jazz Age New York, residing in tony nearby Great Neck.

Daly appeared in 11 plays during that time, including The Charm School (1920 with James Gleason), Happy-Go-Lucky (1920), The Varying Shore (1921), Spring Cleaning (1923, with Winwood), New Brooms (1924, by Craven), Outside Looking In (1925, with James Cagney), A Most Immoral Lady (1928), Ladies Leave (1929, by Sophie Treadwell, with Henry Hull and Walter Connolly), Two Second (1931), Riddle Me This (1932, with Craven and Thomas Mitchell), and Bridal Wise (1932). During this period she also co-starred in the silent film Little, But Oh My! (1921) with Ernest Truex.

When the Depression slammed Broadway she tried her luck in Hollywood, but there she only managed to secure bit parts, with the exception of the movie That’s Gratitude (1934), which was written and directed by her stepfather, Craven. During these years, radio was her bread and butter. Later, she had walk-ons in the films It’s a Joke, Son (1947) with Kenny Delmar; The Model and the Marriage Broker (1951), A Star is Born (1954), and The Chapman Report (1962). That latter credit sounds almost like stunt casting. Like Bankhead and Le Gallienne, Daly was rumored to be bisexual. There is a story that she once bit Charlie Chaplin clean through the lip when he ambushed her at a party and tried to smooch her. Wooed many times, she was never won.

For more on show business history please see No Applause, Just Throw Money: The Book That Made Vaudeville Famous,and for more on silent film see Chain of Fools: Silent Comedy and Its Legacies from Nickelodeons to Youtube,