Lily Damita; Star of Early Talking Films

Lily Damita, a Paris-born beauty who came to Hollywood in 1928 to become one of the film industry’s first glamorous stars at the dawn of talking pictures, has died.

The Associated Press said Thursday that she had been suffering from Alzheimer’s disease and died Monday in Palm Beach, Fla.

Anthologies differ on her date of birth but she was believed to be about 90.

Born Liliane Marie Madeleine Carre, she appeared in French, German, Austrian and British movies during the 1920s, including “Fiacre No. 13,” an early work by director Michael Curtiz of “Casablanca” fame.

Biographies say she was making a picture in Berlin when she was discovered by Samuel Goldwyn, who brought her to Hollywood to star opposite Ronald Colman in the film adaptation of Joseph Conrad’s “Rescue.”

Over the next seven years, she made a dozen pictures and gained notoriety for her work, her various hairstyles and her romances.

Her American films included the 1929 version of “The Bridge of San Luis Rey,” “The Cockeyed World,” “Brewster’s Millions” and “The Devil on Horseback.”

Her last picture was “Frisco Kid” with James Cagney.

In 1930, Goldwyn permitted her to perform on Broadway in “Sons o’ Guns” and two years later in “George White’s Music Hall Varieties” opposite Burt Lahr and Eleanor Powell.

Her career ended abruptly with her marriage to Errol Flynn in 1935 when Flynn was first breaking into films.

They divorced in 1942 after having a son, Sean, a photojournalist who disappeared in Cambodia in 1970.