Leila Hyams (May 1 1905 - December 4 1977) was an American film actress.
Born in New York, New York to vaudeville comedy performers John Hyams and Leila McIntyre, Hyams appeared on-stage with her parents while still a child. As a teenager she worked as a model and become well known across the United States after appearing in a successful series of newspaper advertisements. This success led her to Hollywood.
She made her first film in 1924, and with her blonde hair, delicate features, and good natured demeanour, was cast in a string of supporting roles, where she was required to do very little but smile and look pretty. She proved herself capable of handling the small roles she was assigned, and over a period of time she came to be taken seriously as an actress. By 1928 she was playing starring roles, achieving success in MGM's first talkie release, Alias Jimmy Valentine (1928) opposite William Haines, Lionel Barrymore and Karl Dane. The following year she appeared in the popular murder mystery The Thirteenth Chair, a role that offered her the chance to display her dramatic abilities as a murder suspect.
The quality of her parts continued to improve as the decade turned, including a role as Robert Montgomery's sister in the prison drama The Big House (1930) with Chester Morris and Wallace Beery, for which Hyams once again received positive reviews. She then appeared in Surrender (1931).
Although she succeeded in films that required her to play pretty ingenues, and developed into a capable dramatic actress in 1930s crime melodramas, she is perhaps best remembered for two early 1930s horror movies, as the wise-cracking but kind hearted circus performer in Freaks (1932), and as the heroine in Island of Lost Souls (1933). Hyams was the original choice to play Jane in Tarzan the Ape Man (1932), but turned it down. The role was ultimately played in that film and several Tarzan films by Maureen O'Sullivan.
She also appeared in the controversial Jean Harlow film Red-Headed Woman (1932), the musical comedy The Big Broadcast (1932) with Bing Crosby, George Burns and Gracie Allen, and was widely praised for her comedic performance in Ruggles of Red Gap (1935).
After ten years and fifty films, Hyams retired from acting in 1936, but remained part of the Hollywood community for the rest of her life. She was married to the agent Phil Berg from 1927 until her death in Bel Air, California, aged 72.
Leila Hyams was one of the top leading ladies of the early talkie pre-code years. She was a likable, pleasing actress with a charming presence. She had much spark, personality and charisma, she had a touch of down to earthiness and naturalness that won movie fans, they could relate to her. A versatile, excellent actress she was, able to conform to any role and maintain that special heart-felt sincerity she always displayed in her role. "Freaks" was Leila's most known movie, starring as Venus, where she gave a compassionate performance. Her image on screen was beautiful but not conceited, not high and mighty like Joan Crawford, attainable unlike Garbo, tough but sweet unlike Bette Davis, and Leila had sex appeal but always a lady who still maintained innocence unlike Jean Harlow. Those were the qualities that carried her to fame and set her apart from the other leading ladies of early Hollywood.
