Anita Page - Silent Screen Siren Page Dies

Silent movie star ANITA PAGE has died at the age of 98.

The veteran actress passed away in her sleep at her Los Angeles home on Saturday morning (06Sep08).

Page - real name Anita Pomares - broke into Hollywood in 1928, at the age of 18, when she landed a role alongside Joan Crawford in Our Dancing Daughters.

She went on to win a role in the musical The Broadway Melody in 1929, and the film became the first spoken word movie to win an Academy Award in 1930 for Best Picture.

Page wed her first husband, The Broadway Melody composer Nacio Herb Brown, in 1934, but the union was annulled the following year.

In 1936, she married second husband Herschel House, six weeks after they met, and took a near 30-year break from acting to became a doting housewife to the U.S. Navy officer.

But she returned to the limelight in 1994, three years after House's death, with a part in thriller Sunset After Dark.

Throughout her career, Page starred alongside the likes of Lon Chaney, Walter Huston, Clark Gable and silent film legend Buster Keaton, with whom she appeared in 1930's Free and Easy, and 1931's Sidewalks of New York.

Her last film appearance came in Frankenstein Rising, a horror due for release later this year (08).