Hay was born at
Fort Bliss in Texas on August 22, 1901, the daughter of
Frank Merrill Caldwell (1866–1937), a
West Point graduate and noted career army officer, and Mary Hay (1865–1957), the daughter of an
Oshkosh, Wisconsin, hardware merchant. Hay was a graduate of the
Anna Head School for Girls in Berkeley and had studied dance at
Ruth St. Denis’ Denishawn studio in Los Angeles. During this period film directors would often recruit Denis’ students to fill minor dancing roles, a process that one day led to Hay being chosen by
D. W. Griffith to play the little French dancer in the 1918
World War I film,
Hearts of the World. Taking Griffith's advice to get stage experience before entering film, the following year Hay traveled to New York where she was given the opportunity to play in a
Ziegfeld Follies comedy skit opposite a talented trick performing dog. The dog was played by comedian Phil Dwyer. Realizing she had stage presence, Ziegfeld soon elevated Hay to dance in his
Nine O’clock Frolic,
Ziegfeld Follies of 1919, and
Ziegfeld Girls of 1920 performances staged at the
New Amsterdam Roof Theatre. In 1920 Hay convinced D. W. Griffith that she was ready to assume the role of the 'squire's niece' after the untimely death of actress
Clarine Seymour during the filming of his adaptation of the
Parker -
Grismer pastoral play,
Way Down East. Hay had known actor
Richard Barthelmess, who starred in the film opposite
Lillian Gish, since she had worked on
Hearts of the World. Their engagement and subsequent wedding on June 18, 1920, at Manhattan's
Church of the Heavenly Rest was widely covered by the press and entertainment tabloids of the day. That December Hay supported
Marilyn Miller and
Leon Errol playing Rosalind Rafferty in the extremely successful
Sally, a Ziegfeld produced musical comedy written by
Guy Bolton with lyrics from
Clifford Grey and music by
Jerome Kern and
Victor Herbert. Hay played the supporting role ‘Miss Barbara Sternroyd’ in
Marjolaine, a musical comedy by
Catherine Chisholm Cushing that opened at the
Broadhurst Theatre on January 24, 1922.
Marjolaine, based on the comedy
Pomander Walk by
Louis N. Parker, soon came under fire from
Dr. John Roach Straton for contributing to the wrecking of female virtue in America. In an
open letter printed in
The New York Times, the play's producer,
Russell Janney, defended the piece and all involved in its production and invited the clergy to a special afternoon performance of the play.
Marjolaine closed in late May after a successful run of 136 performances. On
Christmas Day, 1923, Hay created the title role in
Mary Jane McKane, a musical comedy by William Carey Duncan and
Oscar Hammerstein II. The play had a lucrative run at the
Imperial Theatre that extended into May 1924. The following September she played ’Weenie Winters’ in the phenomenally successful musical comedy
Sunny by Oscar Hammerstein II and
Otto Harbach.
Sunny opened at the New Amsterdam on September 22, 1925, and closed there after 517 performances on December 11, 1926. Her last Broadway play was
Greater Love, which she co-wrote and played in.
Greater Love ended its run at the
Liberty Theatre on March 19, 1931 after 8 performances. By May 1925, Hay had separated from Barthelmess with an arrangement to share custody of their young daughter, Mary Hay Barthelmess. During this time she formed a dancing act with
Clifton Webb ('Tom Lawrence' in
New Toys) performing at
supper clubs in Europe and later America. Her marriage ended in mid January 1927, a few weeks after a Paris court had granted a divorce decree, and several months after Hay had traveled to France for solely that purpose. On April 9, 1927 at
Greenwich, Connecticut, Hay married Vivian Bath, a wealthy British rubber merchant from Singapore, where the two planned to live. This marriage ended in 1934 at San Francisco, some six years after the birth of their daughter Anne. Hay remained in San Francisco where she became active in
little theater productions and, in 1939, married artist Richard Hastings, a grandson of
Serranus Clinton Hastings. Hay's third daughter, Joyce Hastings, was born the following year in Georgia, not far from their second home in
Carrabelle, Florida. ==Later years and death==