The story of America’s favourite Hungarian silent movie actress

Without a doubt, Hungary gave many excellent actors, actresses, and directors to the American film industry like Béla Lugosi, Michael Curtiz or Tony Curtis; some of them even earned the honour to receive a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. One of them is an actress who is considered to be the leading lady of Hollywood’s silent movie era in the 1920s. This young woman from Hungary did not even expect to become the greatest silent star in America when her career started.

Vilma Bánky (born as Vilma Koncsics) was born in Hungary, Budapest on January 9, 1901, in a simple Hungarian family in Nagydorog (Tolna County). The family moved to the Hungarian capital where Koncsics finished her studies and started to work as a stenographer in the field of commerce. Although she had excellent skills and knowledge for her job, Koncsics’ real dream was to become a famous actress. Her family always needed money to earn a living, including Koncsics’ income, but she managed to save some which she spent on to apply for a school where she started to learn acting. Hungary’s greatest and most famous actors began to work with the young girl and discovered her incredible talent. Soon, Koncsics began to play in the Belvárosi Theatre (Budapest, today: Ferenc Deák Square, city centre) where she got small roles. Later, she got her first role in a movie called Tavaszi Szerelem (Love in Spring) in 1920, and her career as a movie actress started.

The real change in her life happened in 1925 when Hollywood’s most influential man Samuel Goldwyn visited Budapest to look for young talents for his upcoming production in the States. He noticed Koncsics’ portrait on the street in a store and wanted to meet her immediately. When Goldwyn saw the young and talented actress for the first time he offered a five-year contract for Koncsics which she accepted.

The young Koncsics was famous in the United States even before her first movie was released. When she arrived in America, thousands of people gathered together to see Hollywood’s newcomer and the future star of Metro Goldwyn Mayer. In order to recognise her name easily, production managers changed her name to Vilma Bánky. She also had to lose weight and to buy herself a brand-new and fashionable wardrobe which Goldwyn paid for. She also had to dress like an American because European fashion was unpopular in the States and to use makeup in her everyday life as well, not just when shooting a movie. Bánky was taken to hundreds of balls and celebrations to meet with Hollywood’s most prominent businessmen, thousands of photographs were made about her and were distributed to the American market in newspapers and on postcards.

Although she did not speak the English language, her beauty served as an excuse for her. While Bánky was sitting at her apartment studying her new mother tongue, other people were expecting her first movie and seeing what the Hungarian girl is capable of. On the other hand, Bánky was lonely and sad because she did not have any friends and was unable to communicate with anybody around her. She was tired about the press which was constantly running after her, the strict diet she had to follow, and the suspicious fellow actors and actresses around her who did not understand and were envious for Bánky’s quick and enormous fame. With these negative facts on her shoulders, she started to shoot her first American movie.