Estelle Brody; Silent Film Actress

Estelle Brody, 94, an actress who started her screen career in silent films. She was born in New York on Aug. 15, 1900, (or in Montreal four years later as some accounts state). Brody started her career as a dancer in the United States, then moved to Britain, where she had her first starring movie role in 1926, playing the title role in “Mademoiselle From Armentieres.” The petite actress with huge brown eyes followed this with “Hindle Wakes” in 1927. “Kitty,” in which she starred in 1929, was only narrowly beaten in the race to become Britain’s first talking picture by “Blackmail,” made by Alfred Hitchcock earlier that year. Brody moved to Hollywood in the 1930s but found no success. She dropped out of movies and married American stockbroker Oscar Alexander, the first of her two husbands. She later went back to Britain but didn’t return to the movies until 1950, when she played an American war correspondent in “They Were Not Divided.” She and her second husband, British film agent Robert Fenn, left London in 1969 to live permanently in Malta. In Malta on June 3.