Forgotten 'Silent' Ladies of the Silver screen.

[VintageKell]

Principally those ladies who featured in at least one silent movie and who don't already have a thread or major Postings here already, and who are from the early Vintage era. The aim here is to feature in one thread, those silent film girls who will never have a fan base sufficient to generate an active thread on their own, but who collectively will attract an audience for their undoubted charms.

So just to repeat, to qualify for this thread these Ladies Must have been in at least one silent film i.e. Career started no later than 1930 AND should really be

• Of the vintage type i.e. born Pre 1936 - obviously to have featured in a silent movie then realistically it should probably be pre 1914ish.
• Should have no existing threads.
• Have no major posts inside other threads such as the Lesser Known & Bit Part Actresses - Vintage Edition (which doesn't restrict to Silent Movie stars), and
• Have some photos in the posting.

As these ladies have no existing threads, it would be ideal if threads were started for extensive postings, but in general there will obviously be no problem on posting new photos of them here, but Please make them new pictures, and not just re-posts.

Only one other consideration .... no requests please.

First postings below - I have over a hundred of these garnered when researching another thread

[VintageKell]

June Elvidge was an early 20th century film actress from St. Paul, Minnesota.

Elvidge's parts of note were when she was cast as as a vamp in silent movies such as 'The Lure of Woman' in 1915 and The Poison Pen in 1919. She also appeared in westerns and in all she acted in seventy motion pictures before the beginning of the sound era. After the conclusion of her movie career in 1924 Elvidge toured America on the Orpheum Circuit, Inc., in vaudeville. She debuted in 'Passing Show of 1914' produced by Sam Shubert at the Winter Garden in New York City. She retired from show business in 1925 when she got married.

June Elvidge died in 1965 at the Mary Lee Nursing Home in Eatontown, New Jersey. She was seventy-two years old, the widow of Britton Busch, a stockbroker.

Pictures:

[VintageKell]

Irene Fenwick (b.Irene Frizzel ) was a stage and silent film actress who after a marriage and divorce, returned to the stage, she met Lionel and married him. She was married to Lionel Barrymore from 1924 until her death in 1936. She made just 10 movies between 1915 and 1917 being primarily a stage actress .... she died of anorexia at age 49.

Trivia:

• Her stage nickname was "The Pocket Venus."
• She was a one-time lover of Barrymore's brother John before her first marriage.

Pictures:

[VintageKell]

Florence Gilbert was an American film actress of the silent 1920's. Born and raised in Chicago her family moved to Los Angeles when she was 14. Spotted by comedian Monty Banks she broke into movies and made over 50 film appearances from 1920 until 1926.

She retired after marriage but when her husband returned from filming 'The New Adventures of Tarzan in Guatemala' with his co-star Ula Holt in tow and insisted that Holt be able to live in the Dearholt home ... three's a crowd, especially in a marriage

She subsequently married 'Tarzan' creator Edgar Rice Burroughs, who was 28 years her senior, after he admitted he had admired her in films. She later left this marriage, because according to her after a period of happiness, during which the couple moved to Hawaii, Burroughs began drinking, treated her coldly, and was verbally hostile towards her son, while lavishing affection on her daughter. Florence Gilbert's third husband was Albert S. Chase who legally adopted both her children.

Trivia:

• Daughter Caryl Lee eventually became an animal trainer in Hollywood, using the name Cindy Cullen.

Pictures:

[VintageKell]

Linda Arvidson was an American actress in silent films. She is prhaps best known (if she is known at all) as the the first wife of film director D.W. Griffith. She played lead roles in many of his earliest films in which she was sometimes credited as 'Linda Griffith'. In all she featured in 163 movies, but who remembers her now? The pair separated around 1912 and finally divorced in 1936 when Griffith wished to remarry.

Trivia:

• In 1925, she authored her autobiography 'When the Movies Were Young'.
• She is mentioned in William J. Mann's The Biograph Girl, a novel based on Florence Lawrence.
• Her Salary for 'Her First Biscuits' in 1909 was $5.00/day

Pictures:

[VintageKell]

May Allison was an American stage and film actress whose greatest success was achieved in the early part of the 20th century in the medium of silent film. She made her Broadway stage debut in 1914 before settling in Hollywood, California in the early days of motion pictures. Allison's screen debut was as an ingenue in the 1915 star-making Theda Bara vehicle 'A Fool There Was'.

Partnered with actor Harold Lockwood they starred in approximately twenty-five highly successful features but his death of Spanish Flu saw her career falter markedly without her popular leading male co-star. She continued to act in films throughout the 1920s, and her last film of her 59 movie titles before retiring was 1927's 'The Telephone Girl' ..... Married three times, her third marriage, to Carl Norton Osborne, lasted over forty years until his death in 1982. She died of respiratory failure in Bratenahl, Ohio in 1989 at the age of 98 and laid to rest at the Gates Mills South Cemetery in Gates Mills, Cuyahoga County, Ohio.

Trivia:

• She was the editor of Photoplay Magazine after husband's death.

Pictures:

[VintageKell]

Mary Maguire Alden was an American motion picture and stage actress. She began her career on the Broadway stage where she spent five years before moving to Hollywood. Her most popular roles in movies came in 'Birth of a Nation' directed by D.W. Griffith in 1915 and in 1916 she was in Griffith's 'Intolerance'.

In 1917 she took a temporary leave from motion pictures, acting on the stage to much acclaim in 'The Old Nest' in 1921 and 'The Man With Two Mothers' in 1922. Overall she was prolific as a motion picture actress making 118 movies throughout the 1920's and into the early 1930's where she survived the transition (but only just, as she was largely uncredited in her later movies).

Alden died aged 63 at the Motion Picture Country Home in Woodland Hills, Los Angeles, California in 1946

Trivia:

• She was one of the first Broadway actresses to work in Hollywood.
• The play 'The Man With Two Mothers' was produced by Sam Goldwyn.
• She graduated from the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York City in 1910.
• Among her classmates were director Paul Bern (who was murdered by his first wife just after marrying Jean Harlow).
• William de Mille, whose father named the Academy when he was a teacher there, spoke at the graduation ceremonies for the Class of 1910. He and his brother Cecil B. also graduated from the Academy.

Pictures:

[VintageKell]

Viola Barry was an American silent film actress. She started on the stage, where she had four years of stage experience, two of these with Benson's Shakespearean Company in England before she signed with the Belasco Theater Company to be their new ingénue (naive, innocent girl or young woman).

She was in motion pictures from 1911 through 1920 making 29 movies up until 1916. Married twice, her second marraige was to screenwriter Frank McGrew Willis and she died in 1964 in Hollywood, California.

Trivia:

• Her father was the socialist mayor of Berkeley, California from 1911-1913.
• She was the mother of writer Rosemary Foster

Pictures:

[VintageKell]

Lily Cahill was an American actress of the stage and screen. She began her career in 1910 at the age of 15 playing supporting roles in several silent films directed by D.W. Griffith. In 1911 she was given leading parts in 'A Victim of Circumstances' and 'The Failure'.

In 1912 she abandoned her movie career for the stage, making her Broadway debut 'The Road to Arcady' and she remained highly active in the New York theatre scene up until 1941 which included appearances on the London stage and in regional theatre both in the Northeast United States and in her native Texas. Cahill returned films throughout her stage career and made 12 movies. She also appeared in one episode of the television series 'The Philco Television Playhouse' in 1953. She was briefly married to Irish born American actor Brandon Tynan

Trivia:

The granddaughter of Confederate Army Colonel John Jacob Myers.

Pictures:

[VintageKell]

Alice Brady was an American actress who began her career in the silent film era and survived the transition into talkies. She was something of a star, but the light from this has dimmed over the years. The film you may remember her for is 'My Man Godfrey' in 1936, and 'In Old Chicago' in 1938, for which she won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress.

She first went on the stage when she was 14 and got her first job on Broadway in 1911 at the age of 18, and she continued to perform there (often in shows her father produced) for the next 22 years. She diversified into movies, making her first silent feature appearance in 'As Ye Sow' in 1914. She appeared in 53 films in all over the the following decade, before concentrating on the stage, but she returned to Hollywood after talkies, and her final film of 79 titles was 'Young Mr. Lincoln' in 1939.

Sadly, Alice Brady died from cancer on October 28, 1939, five days before her 47th birthday.

Trivia:

• In 1931 she appeared in the premiere of Eugene O'Neill's 'Mourning Becomes Electra'.
• Her step-mother was Broadway star Grace George.
• At the Academy Award presentation dinner, Brady's Oscar statuette was stolen by a man who came onstage to accept the award on the absent actress' behalf. It was never recovered, and the impostor was never tracked down. The Academy issued a replacement statue which was later presented to Brady.

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