Myrna Loy cinema card

Description:

Hand-colored cinema card for actress Myrna Loy with a short biography on the back. American actress Myrna Loy was born Myrna Adele Williams on 2 August 1905 in Helena, Montana. Originally trained as a dancer, Loy began acting in small roles in silent films. Her first major role was in the 1925 film What Price Beauty?, and she also had a small role in the first "talkie" The Jazz Singer (1927). Loy was often cast as a vamp or femme fatale in her early films, but her career prospects improved after she appeared in the popular film The Thin Man (1934). Over the course of her acting career, Loy appeared in 129 films. It is also believed that Loy was the infamous gangster Jack Dillinger's favorite actress as he was shot after leaving her 1934 film Manhattan Melodrama in which she starred opposite actors Clark Gable and William Powell. Loy became the first Hollywood celebrity to join the U.S. National Commission for UNESCO in 1948 and published her autobiography in 1987. In 1988, Loy was awarded a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Kennedy Center and received an Academy Honorary Award in 1991. She died on 14 December 1993 at the age of 88 and is remembered for her contributions to the film industry with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

This card belongs to a set titled "Cinema Stars: A Series of 30 Hand Coloured Pictures" which features popular film actresses from the 1930s. Collectible cards like this were very popular during the 1920s and 1930s, and they were distributed by various brands in both tobacco and food products. In the 1920s, Cavanders Ltd. also released the following sets of cards: "Beauty Spots of Great Britain," "Foreign Birds," and "River Valleys."