Lyda Roberti – A Shanghai Star That Made it to Hollywood

I was blogging the other week about Lotus Liu, who started out in a Shanghai acting class and got to Hollywood. Other great stars that made it from China to Hollywood – Sari Maritza of Tientsin should be noted; sadly Nina Barsamova never quite made it. Lyda Roberti though made it big in Hollywood and on Broadway after Shanghai. She’s pretty forgotten now but worth remembering…

Lyda was born in Warsaw (then part of the Russian Empire) in 1906. Her grandfather and father were both famous circus clowns; her mother was a trick pony rider. They were a circus family. Lyda, fro childhood, was a circus performer and dancer and travelled with the circus around the world. Come the Russian Revolution the family fled across Siberia and eventually settled in Shanghai – another White Russian refugee family in the city. Sadly the reformed circus went bankrupt in Shanghai but Lyda got a job dancing at the Carlton Cafe (Which was a fabulous establishment and worthy of its own blog post one day). Lyda made enough money to get a ship to America (it’s been said she wanted to escape her abusive father) and became a star of the Vaudeville circuit (including alongside Eddie Cantor) with her blonde good looks, Polish accent and dancing skills. To cut a longish story short she eventually made it into the movies. The papers loved her Shanghai past and she was happy to play it up (see below)…”…Lyda Roberti, who draws a Paramount contract, waited on tables in China when her show stranded there.”

Lyda played a Mata-Hari type alongside WC Fields…took a lot of Mae West type roles….eloped and married the radio announcer Hugh Ernst…all the usual Hollywood shenanigans. But her health was never good, she suffered frequent heart attacks and finally succumbed to heart disease in 1938. Her mother and father remained in Shanghai and I’m not sure what became of them. Anyway, Lyda lived the dream from Shanghai to Hollywood…