Nina Byron
Nina Byron (born Nina Clarice Betts; July 27, 1900 – January 21, 1987) was a New Zealand–American silent film actress and showgirl.
Nina Byron
National Film Corporation of America / Pioneer Film Corporation · Moving Picture World (May 1919) at the Internet Archive · Public domain
- Birth Name
- Nina Clarice Betts
- Born
- 27 July 1900
- Birthplace
- Christchurch, New Zealand
- Died
- January 21, 1987 (aged 86)
- Place of death
- Lynchburg, Virginia, U.S.
- Occupation
- * Actress
- Nationality
- New Zealand
VALÉORINE Encyclopedia
VALÉORINE documentary reading
Documentary summary
Nina Byron (born Nina Clarice Betts; July 27, 1900 – January 21, 1987) was a New Zealand–American silent film actress and showgirl.
Admitted source layer · organised and presented by VALÉORINE
Note VALÉORINE
No house-authored Note is published until its assertions and sources pass the VALÉORINE evidence contract. The documentary article remains available in full while that enrichment is being consolidated.
Documentary enrichment in progress · no unsupported statement published
Reference Check
Propose documentary evidence for Nina Byron. A contribution is never written directly as fact: identity, source, rights and evidence gates still decide.
Sign in to contribute
Documentary evidence
Evidence Panel
not yet certified
- Identity
- unresolved
- Independent source families
- 0
- Admitted assertions
- 0
- Open conflicts
- 0
Authority files
wikidata · Q7037884 · wikipedia · Nina Byron
In this article
Key facts
Key facts
• Birth Name — Nina Clarice Betts • Born — 27 July 1900 • Birthplace — Christchurch, New Zealand • Died — January 21, 1987 (aged 86) • Place of death — Lynchburg, Virginia, U.S. • Occupation — * Actress • dancer • showgirl
Broadway
Broadway
Byron was a member of the Ziegfeld Follies during 1923 and 1924. She was also featured in the 1924 Broadway musical Paradise Alley.
Personal life
Personal life
Byron met her first husband, Nicholas Dunaew, in New York City. Dunaew, a Russian silent film actor, claimed to have met Byron in 1916 and brought her and her mother to Los Angeles, where the couple married in 1918. According to Dunaew, they separated in 1920 after she left him. Unhappy with Byron's "reprehensible conduct," Dunaew asked for a divorce, stating: "She has treated me even as her mother treated her father. She left him in New Zealand, and when she heard that he had committed suicide, she laughed; Nina also laughed—these women who had practically killed a man with cruelty laughed at his action in putting himself out of his misery." Her second marriage was to cinematographer Harold Rosson in 1924. The two divorced in 1926, and she married set designer Frank Hotaling in 1939, to whom she remained married until his death.
New Zealand film actress and Ziegfeld showgirl, ca. 1917
Evans LA
Places
Named by the record
Places
Only places the record itself states, plotted where the house gazetteer settles their coordinates. Nothing is inferred from a name or a nationality.
Christchurch.
Birth place
Lynchburg.
Death place
Film actress
Byron was born Nina Clarice Betts in Christchurch, New Zealand, in 1900 to George Arthur Betts and his wife, Grace (Goodman) Betts. She traveled to the United States and made her first film with William S. Hart in the 1917 production Truthful Tulliver. As Abby Hope in The Heir of the Ages (1917), Byron was described by a critic as having substantial acting skills. She was the ingenue (stock character) for House Peters. The material she was given to work with, according to the reviewer, did not test her ability. Her character was merely required to laugh like the silent film icon Mary Pickford. Her other film credits are for roles in The Cruise of the Make-Believes (1918), The Source (1918), The Dub (1919), Johnny Get Your Gun (1919), The Boomerang (1919), and her last film, The Broken Butterfly (1919).
Citations
References
Each reference names the institution holding it, so a reader may go to the document itself.
reference work
Partially resolvedreference work
Partially resolved
The Encyclopedia exists whether or not anything is for sale. Corrections are recorded rather than overwritten, and every version of this record is kept. Published 17 September 2026.
Elsewhere in Film memorabilia
37,515 published records in this field, each with its sources named.
- Nina ArsenaultPerson
- Nina BottPerson
- Nina BoucicaultPerson
- Nina BroshPerson
- Nina DobrevPerson
- Nina DoroshinaPerson
- Nina EichingerPerson
- Nina FochPerson
Best supported in this field
For owners
Own a work by Nina Byron?
A specialist will read what you send and tell you what the house can establish, what it cannot, and whether the object is suited to sale. There is no charge and no obligation. The object stays with you throughout; nothing is shipped to us unless it is arranged in writing beforehand.