Okay. Since no one here has any clue who Anita was, here goes....
She was a fairly important star in her time, mostly playing second leads to "A" stars like Joan Crawford and Bessie Love. The star's sister or best friend, that kind of thing.
What was great about her was that she was the last living link to an era of movies that is gone. There is now nobody left who knows from first-hand experience what it was like to work in silent films.
Anita made the transition to talkies okay, but retired (at 23!) over a contract dispute with M-G-M. She only made one other film in the next 60 years, then came back in cheap exploitation movies, God knows why.
If you have never watched a silent movie, you ought to try it sometime - there's a level of excitement that's missing once you get into the sound era. If you watch a new movie, you're watching people working in the movie business. If you watch a silent, you're watching people inventing the movie business. If you get your head into what they're doing, it's really pretty remarkable.
One of the easiest places to start is Show People, with Marion Davies. It's a comedy about Hollywood, maybe even the first ever.
If you want to see Anita, she's in Broadway Melody, the first M-G-M musical, from 1929. Hefty little thing, and no threat to Meryl Streep, but she's fun to watch.
