Madge Bellamy was born in 1899. During her teenage years she appeared on the stage. Her first film was The Riddle: Woman (1920) starring Geraldine Farrar and Montague Love. By her third film, Bellamy was the star or co-star.
Her co-stars included Hobart Bosworth, Matt Moore, William Haines, Charles Farrell, George O'Brien, John Bowers, Jack Holt, and Buck Jones. She worked under the direction of King Vidor in Love Never Dies (1921), Maurice Tourneur in Lorna Doone (1922), John Ford in The Iron Horse (1924), and Frank Borzage in Lazybones (1925). By 1929, she had appeared in over 40 silent movies, many of them for Fox Pictures.
As with many other silent actresses, her career declined greatly with the coming of sound. She gives a stiff performance in White Zombie (1932) in which Bela Lugosi and his zombies overshadow the remainder of the cast. By 1934, she is well down the cast list in Charlie Chan in London (1934). Her last appearance, in Crack-Up (1936), was uncredited. Her autobiography, A Darling of the Twenties, was published in 1989, one year before her death in 1990.
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