Marguerite Clark | |
---|---|
![]() Clark's favorite photograph of herself, 1917 | |
Born | Helen Marguerite Clark February 22, 1883 |
Died | September 25, 1940 57) New York City, New York, U.S. | (aged
Resting place | Metairie Cemetery |
Nationality | American |
Other names | Marguerite Clarke [1] |
Occupation | Actress |
Years active | 1900–1921 |
Spouse |
Helen Marguerite Clark (February 22, 1883 – September 25, 1940) was an American stage and silent film actress. As a movie actress, at one time, Clark was second only to Mary Pickford in popularity. [2] All but five of her films are considered lost.
Born in Avondale, Cincinnati, Ohio on February 22, 1883, she was the third child of Augustus "Gus" James and Helen Elizabeth Clark. She had an older sister, Cora, and an older brother named Clifton. Clark's mother Helen died on January 21, 1893. Her father worked in his self-owned successful haberdashery located in downtown Cincinnati before his death on December 29, 1896. Following his death, Clark's sister Cora was appointed her legal guardian and removed her from public school to further her education at Ursuline Academy. [3]
She finished school at age 16, decided to pursue a career in the theatre and soon made her Broadway debut in 1900. The 17-year-old performed at various venues. In 1903, she was seen on Broadway opposite hulking comedian DeWolf Hopper in Mr. Pickwick. The 6-foot-6-inch (1.98 m) Hopper dwarfed the nearly 5-foot-tall (1.5 m) Clark in their scenes together. Several adventure-fantasy roles followed. In 1909, Clark starred in the whimsical costume play The Beauty Spot , establishing the fantasy stories which would soon become her hallmark. [4] In 1910, Clark appeared in The Wishing Ring, a play directed by Cecil DeMille which was later made into a motion picture by Maurice Tourneur. That same 1910 season had Clark appearing in Baby Mine , a popular play produced by William A. Brady.
In 1912, Clark performed in a lead role with John Barrymore, Doris Keane and Gail Kane in the play The Affairs of Anatol , later made into a motion picture by Clark's future movie studio Famous Players-Lasky and directed by Cecil DeMille. That same year, she starred in a retelling of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs . [5] The classic tale was adapted for the stage by Winthrop Ames (writing under the pseudonym Jessie Braham White), who closely oversaw its production at his Little Theatre in New York and personally selected the lead actress. [5] Clark expressed her delight in the role, and the play had a successful run into 1913. [5] Clark's popularity led to her signing a contract in 1914 to make motion pictures with Adolph Zukor's Famous Players Film Company, and over the next two years she was cast in starring roles in more than a dozen features. [5] She then reprised her stage role in a film that would define the Clark persona—the influential 1916 screen version of Snow White .
At age 31, it was relatively late in life for a film actress to begin a career with starring roles, but the diminutive Clark had a little-girl look, like Mary Pickford, that belied her years. Also, film was not developed or mature enough to showcase Clark at her youthful best at the turn of the century. These were some of the reasons established Broadway stars refused early film offers. Feature films were unheard of when Clark was in her early 20s. She made her first appearance on screen in the short film Wildflower , directed by Allan Dwan. [6]
In 1915, Clark starred as "Gretchen" in a feature-length production of The Goose Girl based on a 1909 best-selling novel by Harold MacGrath. She performed in the feature-length production The Seven Sisters (1915), directed by Sidney Olcott, and she reprised a Broadway role, starring in the first feature-length film version of Snow White (1916).
Clark was directed in this by J. Searle Dawley, as well as in a number of films, notably when she played the characters of both "Little Eva St. Clair" and "Topsy" in the feature Uncle Tom's Cabin (1918). [6]
Clark starred in Come Out of the Kitchen (1919), which was filmed in Pass Christian, Mississippi, at Ossian Hall. The same year, she enrolled as a yeowoman in the naval reserves. Clark made all but one of her 40 films with Famous Players-Lasky, her last with them in 1920 titled Easy to Get, in which she starred opposite silent film actor Harrison Ford. Her next film, in 1921, was made by her own production company for First National Pictures distribution. As one of the most popular actresses going into the 1920s, and one of the industry's best paid, her name alone was enough to ensure reasonable box office success. As such, Scrambled Wives was made under her direction, following which she retired at age 38 to be with her husband at their country estate in New Orleans. [6]
On August 15, 1918, Clark married New Orleans, Louisiana, plantation owner and millionaire businessman Harry Palmerston Williams, [7] a marriage that ended with the death of Williams on May 19, 1936 in an aircraft crash. [8] After his death, Clark owned Wedell-Williams Air Service Corporation, which had built and flown air racers, along with other aviation enterprises, until sold in 1937.
After the death of her husband, Clark moved to New York City where she lived with her sister Cora. On September 20, 1940, she entered LeRoy Sanitarium where she died five days later of pneumonia. [9] A private funeral was held at Frank E. Campbell Funeral Chapel on September 28. [10] She was cremated and buried with her husband in Metairie Cemetery in New Orleans. [11]
For her contribution to the motion picture industry, Marguerite Clark has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6304 Hollywood Boulevard. [12]
Date | Production | Role |
---|---|---|
September 24 – November 10, 1900 | The Belle of Bohemia | Rosie Mulberry |
October 7 – November 30, 1901 | The New Yorkers | Mary Lamb |
May 5 – August 30, 1902 | The Wild Rose | Lieutenant Gaston Gardennes |
January 19 – May 1903 | Mr. Pickwick | Polly |
June 22 – July 18, 1903 | George W. Lederer's Mid-Summer Night Fancies | Dorothy |
October 2, 1905 – June 2, 1906 | Happyland | Sylvia |
December 3, 1908 – January 16, 1909 | The Pied Piper | Elviria |
April 10 – August 7, 1909 | The Beauty Spot | Nadine, General Samovar's daughter |
January 10 – January 22, 1910 | The King of Cadonia | Princess Marie |
January 20, 1910 – Closing date unknown | The Wishing Ring | |
May 10 – June 1910 | Jim the Penman | |
August 23, 1910 – Closing date unknown | Baby Mine | Zoie Hardy |
October 14 – December 1912 | The Affairs of Anatol | Hilda |
November 7, 1912 – Closing date unknown | Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs | Snow White |
May 1 – May 1913 | Are You a Crook? | Amy Herrick |
October 27, 1913 – Closing date unknown | Prunella | Prunella |
Year | Title | Role | Notes |
---|---|---|---|
1914 | Wildflower | Letty Roberts | Lost film |
1914 | The Crucible | Jean | Lost film |
1915 | The Goose Girl | Anita Alvarez | Lost film |
1915 | Gretna Green | Dolly Erskine | Lost film |
1915 | The Pretty Sister of Jose | Pepita | Lost film |
1915 | The Seven Sisters | Mici | Lost film |
1915 | Heléne of the North | Heléne Dearing | Lost film |
1915 | Still Waters | Nesta | Lost film |
1915 | The Prince & the Pauper | Prince Edward/Tom Canty | Lost film |
1916 | Mice and Men | Peggy | Lost film |
1916 | Out of the Drifts | Elise | Lost film |
1916 | Molly Make-Believe | Molly | Lost film |
1916 | Silks and Satins | Felicite | |
1916 | Little Lady Eileen | Eileen Kavanaugh | Lost film |
1916 | Miss George Washington | Bernice Somers | Lost film |
1916 | Snow White | Snow White | |
1917 | The Fortunes of Fifi | Fifi | Lost film |
1917 | The Valentine Girl | Marion Morgan | Lost film |
1917 | The Amazons | Lord Tommy | Lost film |
1917 | Bab's Diary | Bab Archibald | Lost film |
1917 | Bab's Burglar | Bab Archibald | Lost film |
1917 | Bab's Matinee Idol | Bab Archibald | Lost film |
1917 | The Seven Swans | Princess Tweedledee | Lost film |
1918 | Rich Man, Poor Man | Betty Wynne | Lost film |
1918 | Prunella | Prunella | incomplete film |
1918 | Uncle Tom's Cabin | Little Eva St. Clair/Topsy | Lost film |
1918 | Out of a Clear Sky | Countess Celeste de Bersek et Krymm | Lost film |
1918 | The Biggest and the Littlest Lady in the World | The Little Lady | Lost film; a short about war bonds |
1918 | Little Miss Hoover | Ann Craddock | |
1919 | Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch | Lovey Mary | |
1919 | Three Men and a Girl | Sylvia Weston | Lost film |
1919 | Let's Elope | Eloise Farrington | Lost film |
1919 | Come Out of the Kitchen | Claudia Daingerfield | Lost film |
1919 | Girls | Pamela Gordon | Lost film |
1919 | Widow by Proxy | Gloria Grey | Lost film |
1919 | Luck in Pawn | Annabel Lee | |
1919 | A Girl Named Mary | Mary Healey | Lost film |
1920 | All of a Sudden Peggy | Peggy O'Hara | Lost film |
1920 | Easy to Get | Molly Morehouse | Lost film |
1921 | Scrambled Wives | Miss Mary Lucille Smith | Lost film |
Gladys Marie Smith, known professionally as Mary Pickford, was a Canadian-American stage and screen actress and producer with a career that spanned five decades. A pioneer in the US film industry, she co-founded Pickford–Fairbanks Studios and United Artists, and was one of the 36 founders of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Pickford is considered to be one of the most recognisable women in history.
Betty Compson was an American actress and film producer who got her start during Hollywood's silent era. She is best known for her performances in The Docks of New York and The Barker, the latter of which earned her an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress.
1917 in film was a particularly fruitful year for the art form, and is often cited as one of the years in the decade which contributed to the medium the most, along with 1913. Secondarily the year saw a limited global embrace of narrative film-making and featured innovative techniques such as continuity cutting. Primarily, the year is an American landmark, as 1917 is the first year where the narrative and visual style is typified as "Classical Hollywood".
The year 1916 in film involved some significant events.
John Charles Smith, known professionally as Jack Pickford, was a Canadian-American actor, film director and producer. He was the younger brother of actresses Mary and Lottie Pickford.
Mary William Ethelbert Appleton Burke was an American actress who was famous on Broadway and radio, and in silent and sound films. She is best known to modern audiences as Glinda the Good Witch of the North in the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer movie musical The Wizard of Oz (1939).
Ida Estelle Taylor was an American actress, singer, model, and animal rights activist. With "dark-brown, almost black hair and brown eyes," she was regarded as one of the most beautiful silent film stars of the 1920s.
William King Baggot was an American actor, film director and screenwriter. He was an internationally famous movie star of the silent film era. The first individually publicized leading man in America, Baggot was referred to as "King of the Movies," "The Most Photographed Man in the World" and "The Man Whose Face Is As Familiar As The Man In The Moon."
Laurette Taylor was an American stage and silent film star who is particularly well known for originating the role of Amanda Wingfield in the first production of Tennessee Williams's play The Glass Menagerie.
Sarah Blanche Sweet was an American silent film actress who began her career in the early days of the motion picture film industry.
Louise Huff was an American actress of the silent film era.
Vola Vale was a silent film actress.
Marguerite Snow was an American silent film and stage actress. In her early films she was billed as Margaret Snow.
Anna Pennington was an American actress, dancer, and singer who starred on Broadway in the 1910s and 1920s, notably in the Ziegfeld Follies and George White's Scandals.
Marguerite Lucile Jolivet, known professionally as Rita Jolivet, was a British actress in theatre and silent films in the early 20th century. She was known in private life as the Countess Marguerita de Cippico.
Mary Pickford (1892–1979) was a Canadian-American motion picture actress, producer, and writer. During the silent film era she became one of the first great celebrities of the cinema and a popular icon known to the public as "America's Sweetheart".
Betty Ross Clarke was an American stage and film actress. She appeared in more than 30 films between 1920 and 1940, including silent and sound films, in both credited and uncredited roles.
Gladys Leslie Moore was an American actress in silent film, active in the 1910s and 1920s. Though less-remembered than superstars like Mary Pickford, she had a number of starring roles from 1917 to the early 1920s and was one of the young female stars of her day.
Uncle Tom's Cabin was a 1918 American silent drama film directed by J. Searle Dawley, produced by Famous Players-Lasky Corporation and distributed by Paramount Pictures under the Famous Players-Lasky name. The film is based on Harriet Beecher Stowe's 1852 novel Uncle Tom's Cabin and George Aiken's eponymous play.
Come Out of the Kitchen is a lost 1919 American silent film produced by Famous Players-Lasky and distributed by Paramount Pictures. It was directed by John S. Robertson and starred Marguerite Clark. The film is based on Alice Duer Miller's 1916 Broadway play of the same name that starred Ruth Chatterton.