Florence Lawrence
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Florence Lawrence (January 2, 1886 – December 28, 1938) was an inventor and silent film actress, who is often referred to as "The First Movie Star." She was also known as "The Biograph Girl" and "The Girl of a Thousand Faces". During her lifetime, Lawrence appeared in more than 270 films for various motion picture companies.
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[edit] Early life and career
Born Florence Annie Bridgwood in Hamilton, Ontario, she was the child of Charlotte Bridgwood, a vaudeville actress who went by the name Lotta Lawrence. Florence's surname was changed at age four to her mother's stage name.
She was one of several Canadian pioneers in the film industry who were attracted by the rapid growth of the fledgling motion picture business. In 1906, at twenty years of age, she made her first motion picture. The next year, she appeared in 38 movies for the Vitagraph film company. In 1908 she met and married film director Harry Solter.
During the cinema's formative years, silent screen actors were just faces without names, because studio owners refused to identify cast members, fearing that fame might lead to demands for higher wages. However, Lawrence soon became a much sought-after actress.
[edit] Departure from Vitagraph
D.W. Griffith, the head of Biograph Studios, saw one of Vitagraph's films with a beautiful blonde-haired woman whose screen presence captured his interest.
Because the film's actors received no mention, Griffith had to make discreet enquiries to learn she was Florence Lawrence and to arranged a meeting. With the Vitagraph Company, she had been earning $20 a week but over and above acting, she was required to work as a costume seamstress. Griffith offered her a job acting only and with a raise to $25 a week that Florence jumped at.
Lawrence quickly gained much popularity but because her name was never publicized, fans began writing the studio asking for it. But, even when her "anonymous" face had gained wide recognition, particularly after starring in the highly successful Resurrection, Biograph Studios only labeled her as "The Biograph Girl."
[edit] Departure from Biograph Studios
In 1910, Carl Laemmle, who later founded Universal Pictures, started his own motion picture company. Needing a star, he lured Lawrence away from Biograph by promising to give her a marquee, making her the first performer to be identified by name on screen and in film advertising. First though, Carl Laemmle organized a publicity stunt by starting a rumor that Lawrence had been killed by a street car in New York City.
Then, after gaining much media attention, he placed ads in the newspapers that announced, "We nail a lie," and included a photo of Lawrence. The ad declared she is alive and well and making The Broken Oath, a new movie for his IMP Film Company to be directed by Harry Solter.
Laemmle then had Lawrence make a personal appearance in St. Louis, Missouri with her leading man to show her fans that she was very much alive. Partially as a result of Laemmle's ingenuity, the "star system" was born and before long, Florence Lawrence became a household name. However, her fame was such that the studio executives who had concerns over wage demands soon had their fears proved correct.
[edit] Joining Lubin Studios, the creation of Victor Film Company
By late 1910, Lawrence left IMP to work for Lubin Studios, advising her fellow young Canadian, the 16-year-old Mary Pickford, to take her place as IMP's star.
In 1912 she and husband Solter created the Victor Film Company. They established a film studio in Fort Lee, New Jersey and made a number of films starring Lawrence and Owen Moore before selling out to the new Univeral Pictures in 1913.
[edit] Inventions
Lawrence invented the first turn signal, a device attached to a motor vehicle's rear fender. Dubbed as the "auto signaling arm", when a driver pressed a button, an arm raised or lowered, with a sign attached indicating the direction of the intended turn. Following this, she developed a brake signal based on the same concept where an arm with a sign reading "STOP" was raised whenever the driver stepped on the brake pedal. However, Lawrence's inventions were not patented, and others in the rapidly expanding auto industry developed their own versions.
[edit] Injury, crash of '29, and suicide
In 1915, she was badly burned in a studio fire after an attempt to rescue someone from the flames. Although still only 29 years old, after her recovery, she never regained her stature as a leading film star. In 1920, her husband died. The following year she married Charles Byrne Woodring, but he died in 1930, and in 1933 she married for the third time to Henry Bolton but this union lasted less than a year.
When Lawrence's mother died in 1929, she had an expensive bust sculpted for her mother's tomb. By then, in her mid-forties, demand for her in films had long since disappeared and the stock market crash and the ensuing Great Depression saw Lawrence's fortune decline. Alone, discouraged, and suffering with chronic pain from myelofibrosis, a rare bone marrow disease, she committed suicide by consuming ant poison in Beverly Hills, California.
Just nine years after she had paid for an expensive memorial for her mother, Lawrence was interred in an unmarked grave not far from her mother in the Hollywood Cemetery, which is now Hollywood Forever Cemetery, in Hollywood, California.
She remained forgotten until 1991, when an unnamed benefactor (presumed to be actor Roddy McDowall) donated the funds for a proper gravestone that reads: "'The Biograph Girl'. The First Movie Star."[1]
In William J. Mann's 2000 novel The Biograph Girl, Mann asks the question "What if Lawrence didn't die in 1939 from eating ant poison, but is 106 and living in a nursing home in Buffalo, New York?". The novel faithfully covers Lawrence's life up to 1939 and takes it beyond, after her "supposed" suicide.
[edit] Partial filmography
- Daniel Boone
- Romeo and Juliet
- Julius Caesar
- Antony and Cleopatra
- Betrayed by a Handprint
- The Girl and the Outlaw
- The Heart of O'Yama
- Where the Breakers Roar
- The Stolen Jewels
- Ingomar, the Barbarian
- The Vaquero's Vow
- The Planter's Wife
- The Call of the Wild
- The Pirate's Gold
- The Taming of the Shrew
- The Song of the Shirt
- The Ingrate
- A Woman's Way
- Mrs. Jones Entertains
- The Reckoning
- The Test of Friendship
- An Awful Moment
- Mr. Jones at the Ball
- The Helping Hand
- One Touch of Nature
- The Honor of Thieves
- The Sacrifice
- Mr. Jones Has a Card Party
- The Fascinating Mrs. Francis
- The Girls and Daddy
- A Wreath in Time
- The Politician's Love Story
- The Golden Louis
- His Wife's Mother
- The Roue's Heart
- The Lure of the Gown
- The Deception
- And a Little Child Shall Lead Them
- The Medicine Bottle
- Jones and His New Neighbors
- The Road to the Heart
- Confidence
- Lady Helen's Escapade
- The Drive for Life
- The Note in the Shoe
- Resurrection
- Jones and the Lady Book Agent
- Two Memories
- Eloping with Auntie
- Eradicating Auntie
- The Necklace
- The Country Doctor
- The Cardinal's Conspiracy
- The Slave
- Mrs. Jones' Lover
- The Hessian Renegades
- The Awakening
- The Broken Oath
- The Forest Ranger's Daughter
- The Angel of the Studio
- Her Two Sons
- A Good Turn
- Flo's Discipline
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- Brown, Kelly R., Florence Lawrence, the Biograph Girl: America's First Movie Star (1991). ISBN 0-7864-0627-5.
