Profile of Lilyan Tashman on Famous Like Me

Lilyan Tashman (October 23, 1899 – March 21, 1934) was an American actress.

Born in Brooklyn, New York, Tashman was the youngest of ten children, and as a teenager worked as an model. By 1914 she had also starting working in vaudeville, on a bill that included the up and coming double act Eddie Cantor and Al Lee. Tashman and Lee were married in 1914. Cantor and Lee broke up, with Cantor going on to a successful solo career, Lee going on to become a manager for George White's Scandals and Tashman trying out for whatever Broadway show she could find. In 1916 she made the first of her Ziegfeld Follies appearances with a cast of newcomers that included Marion Davies. She stayed with the show for its 1917 and 1918 seasons and in 1919 Tashman left the Ziegfeld company.

Later in 1919 she was given a job by the producer David Belasco in a comedy called The Gold Diggers starring Ina Claire. The show was a success, and ran for two years and in addition to her own supporting role, Tashman acted as Claire's understudy.

In 1921 she made her first film Experience (1921) with Richard Barthelmess and Nita Naldi. After a period of misfortune in New York in which one show closed, and she was fired from another, Tashman decided to move to Hollywood to further her film career. By this time she and Al Lee had divorced, and she had started dating the actor Edmund Lowe, who had already moved to Hollywood. Tashman followed and was soon cast in a supporting role in a Mabel Normand film, Head Over Heels.

By 1925 Tashman had built a reasonable career as a film actress. She appeared in Pretty Ladies (with Joan Crawford and Myrna Loy also taking small roles) and Ports of Call with Lowe, whom she married later in the year.

As a couple Tashman and Lowe became more prominent in Hollywood than they had as single people. They entertained lavishly in their Art Deco Beverly Hills home, and Tashman began appearing on "Best Dressed" lists. Their respective film careers began to improve as a result of the publicity they were beginning to generate.

Over the next few years Tashman appeared in numerous supporting roles, and several starring roles, and with the advent of talking pictures made an easy transition. She had a rich, contralto voice, and a confident delivery after years spent on the stage. After a busy year in 1931 in which Tashman appeared in eight films, she began to reduce her work schedules while newspapers speculated about the state of her health. After denying repeatedly that there was a problem with her health, Tashman was eventually hospitalised, and upon her release answered further rumors with a statement saying that she had undergone an apendectomy. It was only when she died soon after, that it was revealed she had died from cancer.

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