Betty Blythe is one of Hollywood's earliest sex symbols. Born Elizabeth Blythe Slaughter in Los Angeles, she studied at USC and appeared on Broadway and the London stage before making her film debut in 1918.Two years later she signed with Fox Films as a replacement for screen vamp Theda Bara and became a very popular matinee idol in costume epics and dramas with high society settings. A voluptuous brunette, Blythe was among the first American movie stars to do nude scenes and her acting ability often took a back seat to her wardrobe, or lack of it. Her biggest hit was "The Queen of Sheba" (1921).

She later said of it, "I had 28 costumes in that picture, and if I'd worn them all at once I couldn't have kept warm". With the exception of "She" (1925), all her major silent films are considered lost, with only stills as evidence of their censorship-challenging raciness.