Born Marem Ides (Adelaide) Leventon, in a family that emigrated from Chisinau to Yalta in 1875. After studying acting with Stanislavsky, Ala Nazimova came to America in 1905 and triumphed on Broadway in Enrik Ibsen's plays 'Hedda Gabler' and A' Doll's House. By 1916 the flamboyant "Nazimova" had embarked on a film career and in short order became the highest paid actress at Metro. Known for playing glamorous but anguished heroines, some of her productions were extravagant failures; neither her art deco "modernization" of 'Camille (1921) nor her scandalous film version of Oscar Wilde's Salome (1923) - complete with a gay and lesbian cast and crew - proved successful. Her career was already on the wane when The Motion Picture Production Code of 1930 dealt it a final blow. 'The Code - which forbade immorality or impropriety on screen - was ap- plied to the private lives of actors as wel. Drugs, infidelity, promiscuity, and espe- cially homosexuality were all taboo. Nazimova's lavender relationship' to gay actor Charles Bryant fooled no one. At the height of her career she had earned a reputation as a lady-killer with legendary conquests that included Eva Le Gallienne, Jean Acker, director Dorothy Arnzer, writer Mercedes de Acosta, and Anna May Wong. When her personal fortunes turned for the worse she went from renting her estate to renting a single room within it.