Films Based on Augusta Wilson's 1867 Novel St. Elmo

Recently I made one of my frequent visits to Lantern, the Media History Digital Library, a wonderful resource that makes available full texts of 20th century magazines devoted to film, television and radio. I always find interesting items there, and this time I stumbled across an advertisement for the 1923 silent film, St. Elmo. You can see that ad below. I knew there had been more than one film version of Augusta Jane Evans Wilson's novel, so I decided to investigate; here's what I found. 

First, some background in case you aren't familiar with Wilson. She's one of Mobile's legendary residents; although born in Columbus, Georgia, she spent most of her life in the city. She published nine novels before her death in 1909, and some of them such as St. Elmo and Beulah made her one of the bestselling American novelists of her day. 

Like many female authors of that time, she began writing to supplement her family's income. St. Elmo sold over a million copies and made her the wealthiest female writer in America before Edith Wharton. Only Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin and Lew Wallace's Ben-Hur sold better among American novels in the nineteenth century.

There is a town in Mobile County named after the novel. Several of her works, including St. Elmo, can be found via Project Gutenberg. A recent book about Evans is The Life and Works of Augusta Jane Evans Wilson, 1835–1909 by Brenda Ayres [Ashgate, 2012]. 

In her entry on Wilson in the Encyclopedia of Alabama, Sarah Frear describes the story of St. Elmo. "In it, Evans depicted a moral struggle between good and evil. The novel's male protagonist, St. Elmo Murray, is at first a cynical and cruel man, but he is gradually converted to Christianity through his love for the virtuous heroine, Edna Earle. Edna willingly gives up her literary career when she marries St. Elmo, and this choice reflects Evans's belief that women were happiest, and most powerful, when they devoted themselves to their families and homes." Perhaps Wilson created a bit of wish fulfillment for herself in this story. 

From what I can determine, five silent film versions of the novel were made: two short ones in 1910, one in 1914, and two more in 1923. The first 1910 version was produced by the Thanhouser Company and released in March. The second one, produced by Vitagraph, came out the next month. You can follow the links below to Wikipedia articles giving more details on both films. The Internet Movie Database also has entries here and here. Both films ran for one reel, or some 10-12 minutes. 

The 1914 version was released in August and "promised 194 gorgeous scenes". Follow the Wikipedia link below for stills from a couple of them and more information on the film. This version was much longer, running six reels. I know a bit about silent film history, but did not recognize any cast members in these three films. I would imagine they are known only to serious silent film buffs and scholars.

However, I am familiar with the leads in the 1923 American version of Wilson's novel. John Gilbert played St. Elmo Thornton in the rising star period of his career. In 1924 Gilbert changed to MGM Studios and soon became as big a box office draw as Rudolph Valentino. Known as "The Great Lover", Gilbert made three films with Greta Garbo. Gilbert's career declined after the arrival of talkies, and he died in 1936 at the age of 38.

His co-star in St. Elmo was Barbara La Marr, known as "The Girl Who Is Too Beautiful." By 1923 she was a major star, but her career did not last much longer. A hard-partying young lady, alcoholic and probably a drug addict, La Marr died in 1926. She was 29 and married to her fifth husband at the time. She and Gilbert reportedly had a steamy affair during production of St. Elmo.

Another familiar name is Warner Baxter, who had a much longer career and died in 1951 at 62. Among many other films silent and sound, he played The Crime Doctor in a series of ten movies popular in the 1940's. 

The last film adaptation of the novel, also released in 1923, was a British production. Like so many silent films, apparently no prints of any of these five versions of Wilson's novel have survived. 

The ad below for the 1923 American film claims "For the past twenty years St. Elmo has been the most called for book in the libraries throughout America." One might think Wilson would be seldom read today, but she still has her fans. Some of them have commented enthusiastically on the GoodReads site. A much longer modern reaction can be found at Vintage Novels. 

 

 

 



Augusta Jane Evans Wilson

Source: Alabama Department of Archives & History

Source: Alabama Department of Archives & History 

 

 

Title page of a United Kingdom edition. The book was published under her maiden name; she did not marry Colonel Lorenzo Wilson until 1868.

 

 

 



A still from the Thanhouser Company's one reel silent film released in March 1910

Source: Wikipedia

 



A New York newspaper ad for Vitagraph's April 1910 adaptation, also a short single reel film.

Source: Wikipedia




Poster for the Balboa Amusement Producing Company's 1914 release
Source: Wikipedia 

Ad for St. Elmo from Motion Picture News 12 September 1914

 

Source: Lantern 

Advertisement for the 1923 Fox Film Corporation release

Source: Motion Picture News July-August 1923 via Lantern

Mines, Mills & Moonshine: Silent Filmmaking in the Birmingham Area, Part 3

Part 1 of this series can be found here and part 2 here.

               A third silent film shot in the Birmingham area was Men of Steel, filmed in Ensley and released on Sunday, July 11, 1926. An advertising tag line used for the film was a modest one: “One of the Greatest Pictures ever produced.” All the details of international distribution are unknown, but the film did appear in Portugal in December 1927 and Finland in February 1928. Running time for the film is given by various sources as 96 or 100 minutes.

            The film premiered in New York City at the Mark Strand Theatre on Broadway. Opened in 1914 with a capacity of 2,989 people, the Strand managed to survive as a cinema in one form or another until it was demolished in early 1987.  In its review the next day, the New York Times noted about the film that “all the stupendous paraphernalia of a steel plant has been used, with the happy result of making that fascinating industry vivid without sacrificing narrative in the picture.”

This picture was a First National production. The company had been founded in 1917 when 26 of the largest cinema chains in the United States merged and created one chain of more than 600 theaters. Thomas L. Tally was the guiding force behind this effort, which was intended to compete with dominate Paramount Pictures. First National would produce, distribute and exhibit its own films.

 Quickly the firm signed Mary Pickford and Charlie Chaplin to the first million-dollar contracts in film history. In 1928 Warner Brothers bought a controlling interest in First National and continued production under its banner until 1936. Among the almost 400 productions the company released were such classics as So Big (1924, based on Edna Ferber’s bestselling novel), The Lost World (1925, based on the Arthur Conan Doyle novel), and Little Caesar (1931, from W.R. Burnett’s novel), one of the early gangster classics with Edward G. Robinson.

           Movie herald for Men of Steel. These two-sided pieces were included in film press kits and copies were provided to individual theaters to hand them out on the street, etc.

Source: eBay Item #370760843105 accessed 3-12-13

            Men of Steel was based on a short story, “United States Flavor” written by Ralph G. Kirk and published in the Saturday Evening Post issue of June 14, 1924. Kirk was born in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania in 1881 and died in 1960 in San Diego, California. Between 1921 and 1953, mostly in the 1920s and 1930s, he published numerous short stories, most of them in the Post. In 1923 he published a book, Six Breeds, a collection of five dog stories, including two that had been published in separate editions in 1917 and 1918. A 1922 film, The Scrapper, was based on his story “Malloy Campeador.” Little else is known at the moment about Kirk, and I haven’t seen the story yet and don’t know if it is set in Birmingham. Since Kirk was from another steel producing state, the story may be set there. Why Birmingham was chosen for a filming location is currently unknown.

Cover of a book by R.G. Kirk

Source: Amazon

            The Film Daily, a trade newspaper that covered the film and later television industries from 1915 until 1970, ran a front page column-long review of Men of Steel in its issue for Tuesday, July 13, 1926. “The picture has a punch that reaches wallop proportions at several climaxes,” reviewer Kann gushed. “’Men of Steel’ impresses,” he concludes. Unfortunately, the review makes no mention of filming in Birmingham. The same issue of the paper also contains a two-page advertisement for the film, crowing that “N.Y. Strand Busts Town Wide Open with ‘Men of Steel.’” The ad also reproduces a telegram from the Strand’s Joseph Plunkett who wrote breathlessly to executive Richard A. Rowland that “WE HAD TO STOP SELLING TICKETS FOUR TIMES STOP AUDIENCE VERY ENTHUSIASTIC.”

I have not been able to locate an image of the movie’s poster for use at theaters, but an article by Mark Caro published in the Chicago Tribune on March 13, 2012, gives us a few hints about its quality. Caro profiles Dwight Cleveland, who has amassed a collection of more than 35,000 such posters. Cleveland mentions “a brilliantly colored poster touting Milton Sills in "Men of Steel" (1926) and depicting one guy punching another in the face.  To Cleveland, ‘Men of Steel’ illustrates a key problem with his hobby. Although Sills and that silent film are long forgotten, the poster is a beautiful stone lithograph that the collector argues should be judged on its artistic merits. ‘That's a poster that should sell for 10,000 bucks at some point, when people really understand how important the artwork is,’ Cleveland said. ‘Then they'll realize this is a great example of early lithography, and it will rise. Now if it's just going to be valued by movie people, they're not going to think it's so important.’"

          Men of Steel was directed by George Archainbaud, an actor and manager who came to the U.S. from France in 1915. Before his death in 1959, he had worked primarily as a director in silent and sound films and television. He is perhaps best remembered today for several westerns, including some featuring Hopalong Cassidy. In 1932 he directed The Lost Squadron, in which three World War I aviators find jobs as stunt flyers in Hollywood after the war.

            The male lead in Men of Steel was Milton Sills, a popular star of the time; the movie was one of four he made in 1926 alone. Sills also wrote the script for the film based on Kirk’s short story. Born in Chicago in 1882, he attended the University of Chicago and worked there after graduation. In 1905 he joined a stock theater company and toured the country before settling in New York and making his Broadway debut in 1908. By 1914 Sills had moved to Hollywood for his film debut in The Pit. By the time he arrived in Birmingham his success put him in films of the largest studios and opposite such stars as Gloria Swanson and in such box-office hits as The Sea Hawk (1924). In 1927 Sills was among the 36 people who founded the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

  

 Milton Sills [1882-1930]

Source: Wikipedia

            Staring opposite Sills was Dorothy Kenyon, a native of New York who was fifteen years younger. She made her first film in 1915 and by 1924 appeared in Monsieur Beaucaire with Rudolph Valentino. She continued to act in films well into the sound period and had a few television appearances in the late 1950s. She died in 1979.  Sills and Kenyon carried their relationship beyond the set in Birmingham; they were married in October 1926 and had a son before Sills' death from a heart attack in 1930.

Doris Kenyon [1897-1979]

Source: Wikipedia

            Other individuals acting in the production included Victor McLaglen, May Allison and Frank Currier. Born in England in 1886, McLaglen served in World War I after several years on the boxing circuit. He even fought heavyweight champion Jack Johnson in an exhibition match. McLaglen acted in several silent films in Britain before moving to Hollywood where he quickly became a popular character actor, often playing intoxicated Irishmen. He was still acting in films and television until his death in 1959. His son Andrew McLaglen became a director in both film and television.

Victor McLaglen [1886-1959]

Source: Wikipedia

            Georgia native May Allison appeared on Broadway in 1914 but quickly moved to Hollywood. She became very popular in a series of some 25 films with leading man Harold Lockwood. However, his death in 1918 during the influenza pandemic resulted in a decline in the public’s interest in her. Allison made her final film, The Telephone Girl, the year after Men of Steel and then retired. She died in 1989.

May Allison [1890-1989]
Source: Wikipedia

            Born in Connecticut in 1857, Frank Currier acted in more than 130 films between 1912 and 1928. He also directed a number of films during that period.  He appeared in such silent classics as Ben-Hur and died in 1928.

            A synopsis of the film’s story by Hal Erickson can be found online at the allmovie.com site. “Sills plays Jan Bokak, a self-educated steelworker who finds himself in the middle of a romantic triangle. Two different girls -- wealthy socialite Claire Pitt (May Allison) and blue-collar worker Mary Berwick (Doris Kenyon) -- simultaneously fall for Bokak. It later develops that Claire and Mary are actually sisters, the first of a series of surprising plot twists leading to Bokak being accused of a murder he didn't commit. In the gutsy climax, the actual villain attempts to kill Bokak by pouring a vat of molten steel upon him!” 

            According to BhamWiki.com, Men of Steel premiered at the Franklin Theatre in Ensley, although no date is given. Located at 1819 Avenue E, the theatre was built in the early 1900s and closed in the early 1930s. The building remains vacant today.

            All three of these silent films made in the Birmingham area—Moonshiner’s Daughter, Coming Through, and Men of Steel—are among the many “lost” films of the silent era. Martin Scorsese’s Film Foundation has estimated that 90 percent of films made before 1929 are lost. These movies were made on nitrate film, which is highly flammable and chemically unstable. Improperly stored, these films can turn to toxic mush or powder in the canister. Sometimes "lost" silent films will surface in various unexpected places. In 2010, the Russian state film archive gave the Library of Congress copies of ten U.S. silent films believed lost but discovered in storage.

            Little is known about the local details of making these three silent movies. Hopefully some research in Birmingham area newspapers will uncover further information.

            If you would like to learn more about silent filmmaking, the print literature and web resources are vast. My own interest was sparked years ago by Kevin Brownlow’s book, The Parade’s Gone By [1976], an excellent place to start.

This piece first appeared on the Birmingham History Center's blog in May 2013.

Mines, Mills & Moonshine: Silent Filmmaking in the Birmingham Area, Part 4

Part 1 of this series can be found here; part 2 here; and part 3 here. 

           We don’t consider Birmingham a hotbed of silent filmmaking because it wasn’t. Yet three feature films were made in the area before the movies learned to talk. In recent posts on this blog I’ve discussed each of these films in some detail: The Moonshiner’s Daughter [1908?], Coming Through [1925] and Men of Steel [1926]. Since those pieces were written I’ve come across more information about the production of Men of Steel and would like to share it here.

            By way of introduction, let me quote myself on the South’s role in silent film production. “Silent filmmaking arrived in the South very early in the twentieth century. Beginning in 1908, the Kalem Company operated in Jacksonville, Florida, each winter. At least eight films were made between 1916 and 1926 at Norman Studios, also in Jacksonville; all featured totally black casts. For about a decade until 1919, when most filming had moved from the northeast to California, Florida was known as the “Winter Film Capitol of the World.” In addition, the very first Tarzan film, Tarzan of the Apes staring Elmo Lincoln, was shot in Louisiana in 1918.”

            Men of Steel was filmed in Ensley and released by the First National company in July 1926. The premier was held at the Mark Strand Theatre on Broadway in New York City. The studio’s advertising declared it “One of the Greatest Pictures ever produced.”  Directed by George Archainbaud, the film’s cast included three popular stars of the day: Milton Sills, Dorothy Kenyon and Victor McLaglen. Kenyon and Sills married just months after the film was released. According to the BhamWiki site, the local premier took place at the Franklin Theatre in Ensley.

A copy has not survived, but the film seems to have been just over 90 minutes long. Men of Steel was based on a short story, “United States Flavor” written by Ralph G. Kirk and published in a Saturday Evening Post issue in 1924. I have yet to determine whether the story is set in Birmingham or why the city was chosen for filming.

            As I noted in the earlier piece, “A synopsis of the film’s story by Hal Erickson can be found online at the allmovie.com site. ‘Sills plays Jan Bokak, a self-educated steelworker who finds himself in the middle of a romantic triangle. Two different girls -- wealthy socialite Claire Pitt (May Allison) and blue-collar worker Mary Berwick (Doris Kenyon) -- simultaneously fall for Bokak. It later develops that Claire and Mary are actually sisters, the first of a series of surprising plot twists leading to Bokak being accused of a murder he didn't commit. In the gutsy climax, the actual villain attempts to kill Bokak by pouring a vat of molten steel upon him!’”  That summary probably came from advertising material.

            Shortly after I completed the original Men of Steel piece, a new digital resource became available—Lantern, the Media History Digital Library. Included here are numerous issues of 20^th century magazines related to film, television and radio.  I hope to use this resource to investigate the other two films, but for now I’ve included some of the photographs and advertisements related to Men of Steel I found in Lantern. Of special interest is the photo taken on the set at the Ensley Mills with what must be director Archainbaud, some of his crew and a camera high above one of the vats. Note the man in the vat and the clothing worn by the men. I wonder what the city’s temperature was that day? Maybe they were filming in winter.

            Finally, I’ve included something else on the subject of Birmingham’s silent film history. This clipping from the Birmingham News published on April 28, 1925 is online at the Birmingham Public Library’s DigitalCollections. The article describes the release of a silent film made by the Imperial Film Company, Things You Ought to Know about Birmingham. Being shown at the Trianon Theater, it “shows more than one thousand Birmingham citizens” and “many local scenes and places.” Yet another fascinating topic for research! 

This piece originally appeared on the DiscoverBirmingham.org site in November 2013.

Johnny Mack Brown as Billy the Kid

I recently picked up and flipped through my copy of William K. Everson's classic A Pictorial History of the Western Film, as one does when escaping the heat of an Alabama summer day. What did I find but a couple of stills and some discussion of Johnny Mack Brown's role as William Bonney in the 1930 film Billy the Kid. Let's investigate.

I've already written about the Dothan native, University of Alabama football star and actor in several pieces on this blog. Early in his career MGM tried to turn him into a romantic lead, such as the 1928 silent film Our Dancing Daughters in which he starred with Joan Crawford and fellow Alabama native Dorothy Sebastian. That same year major star Norma Shearer and Brown appeared in A Lady of Chance. I've devoted five posts to that film, since much of it is set in Alabama. 

In 1930 he was teamed with Crawford again in Montana Moon, which also co-starred Dorothy Sebastian. A third pairing with Crawford did not work out. Audiences failed to respond to early showings and MGM ordered the film Complete Surrender reshot with Clark Gable opposite Crawford. 

Brown soon left MGM and moved into westerns. I've posted about one of those, the 1945 "Flame of the West" in which he plays a new physician in town. Now it's time to look at another. 

Billy the Kid was one of four films Brown made in 1930 and was directed by King Vidor [1894-1982], whose career in the movies began in 1913 and lasted until 1980. The film also stars Wallace Beery as Pat Garrett, the lawman who tracked down and shot Billy on July 14, 1881. The outlaw had been sentenced to hang, escaped and killed two deputies in the process. As it happens, Garrett was born in Chambers County, so there's a second Alabama connection in this film.  

Today Henry McCarty aka William Bonney aka Billy the Kid is an iconic character with many appearances in popular culture, ranging from films and television episodes to comics and video games. But in 1930 he was just beginning his rise in the pantheon of western outlaws.

A folk song "Billy the Kid" appeared at some point in the west; the Sons of the Pioneers recorded it in 1937. A play "Billy the Kid" ran on Broadway in 1906. Two silent films about Billy were released in 1911; both starred women impersonating the male outlaw. Brown & Vidor's 1930 film was the first sound movie devoted to the Kid, and the first in which a male starred in the role!

This film was one of two released in 1930 that a used 70mm widescreen process; the other was The Big Trail starring John Wayne. Unfortunately, the Great Depression prevented cinemas from upgrading to widescreen and only a few such  movies were made at the time. The process would lie dormant until The Robe filmed in Cinemascope and released in 1953. Wayne's widescreen version has been restored, but the only known version of Brown's film is standard-width. 

Billy the Kid runs 95 minutes and was release on October 18, 1930. The film was shot on various locations such as Zion National Park, the Grand Canyon, San Fernando Valley, and Gallup, New Mexico. As the IMDB notes, the great silent film star of Westerns William S. Hart was an uncredited technical advisor. He owned some of Billy the Kid's "six shooters" and was friends with such legends of the West as Wyatt Earp and Bat Masterson. 

Images two through six below are taken from Everson's book and offer some interesting details about the film. Hart is shown in the first photo offering one of Billy's guns to Brown. The second photo is a scene with a confrontation between Garrett and Billy. In the the text shown from the book, Everson discusses the dominance of long shots and lack of closeups and the effect of that in the standard-width version. The film is available from Warner Archive; a preview can be seen on YouTube. 

By the mid-1930s Brown began a long series of western films for several studios, including Republic, Universal and Monogram. In the 1950s his likeness appeared in a series of comic books published by Dell. He is an inductee of the College Football Hall of Fame [1957] and the first class of the Alabama Sports Hall of Fame [1969]. He died November 14, 1974. Brown was inducted into the Hall of Great Western Performers in 2008. 

Source: YouTube 

Source: Grand Comics Database

Birmingham & Tinseltown in the 1920's & 1930's

I recently finished a fascinating book by William J. Mann, Tinseltown: Murder, Morphine, and Madness at the Dawn of Hollywood. Mann examines the 1922 murder of famed silent film director William Desmond Taylor and three actresses whose lives and careers intersected with his own: Mable Normand, Mary Miles Minter and Margaret Gibson. 

The book develops a new solution to Taylor's murder, which has never been officially solved. Along the way it details other scandals of the era involving illegal drugs and alcohol, wild parties, orgies, and other such behavior that so delighted gossip mongers and horrified self-appointed moral watchdogs, or "church ladies." Anyone unfamiliar with the American silent film era, from its earliest days in New York and New Jersey before the move to southern California, should read this book. It's a great introduction to the times, early film making, and the strong personalities on both sides of the camera.

Early in the book, in a discussion of pressures building to reform the film industry, I found it on page 68--the Alabama connection:

"On the various affiliated Committees for Better Films scattered throughout the country, such women as ...Mrs. Neil Wallace of Birmingham, Alabama..." As Mann notes, "These reform-minded women seemed to be everywhere." Those committees were affiliated with the National Board of Review, an organization "charged by the industry to ensure that all films released were suitable for the screen." 

The film industry hoped that by policing itself, regulation by federal and state governments would not develop. This battle between film makers and reformers continued until the early 1930's when Hollywood adopted the Hays Code of even stricter self-regulation. That Motion Picture Production Code, as it was formally known, governed film content until 1968.

Wondering about further details on Mrs. Neil Wallace, I remembered having a copy of Kristen Nicole Kitchen's, "Film Censorship in Birmingham, Alabama, 1921-1937: The Marginally Successful Reign of the Birmingham Better Films Committee." She completed this master's thesis at the University of South Alabama in 2000.

Early in her account, Kitchen writes, "Birmingham, Alabama, addressed the issue of motion picture regulation in 1921 by passing a city ordinance establishing the Office of Amusement Inspector (City Commission Minutes 191, City Ordinance 743-C). The Amusement Inspector was responsible for regulating all forms of public amusements and had complete control over which movies were shown within the Birmingham City limits (Appendix C). The Amusement Inspector was often called by concerned citizens, requesting that she view
certain films and consider banning them from public viewing. Using criteria outlined in the Birmingham City Code (Appendix C), the Amusement Inspector could force theater managers to cease exhibition of any film she deemed 'unsuitable.' Reasons for film closures ranged from onscreen nudity to inappropriate subject matter, such as birth control or unfaithful wives.

"Shortly after Birmingham's first Amusement Inspector was installed in office in 1921, it became clear that there were simply too many movies for one person to view. Needing immediate assistance, the Amusement Inspector formed the Birmingham Better Films Committee, an informal control group designed to provide her with movie reviews and recommendations." [page 2] 

As Mann discusses, this pattern developed in many cities across the country, bringing pressure from many different community groups on the film industry. As Kitchen notes, by 1930 around 100 were attempting to regulate film content. Mrs. Wallace served as Birmingham's Amusement Inspector in 1930. Film censorship ordinances remained on the books in the city until 1961.

I suspect that this Mrs. Wallace was the Neil Robinson Wallace listed in the 1940 U.S. Census as living on 14th Avenue South, aged about 70. She was also listed in the 1910 census as a widow, although her name given there is Neal R. Wallace. Her obituary appeared in the Birmingham News, page 6, on February 8, 1960. You can read more about her here and here. Her birth name was Cornelius Robinson; she was named after her father and called "Neil." She had married John Henderson Wallace in September 1887. One day I'll have to dig out that obituary and confirm the connection. 

A specific example of "Banned in Birmingham" is mentioned in Stephen Vaughn's article "Morality and Entertainment: The Origins of the Motion Picture Production Code" published in Journal of American History 77(1): 39-65, June 1990. On page 40 Vaughn notes, "In 1929 Birmingham, Alabama, banned The Road to Ruin (1928), which dealt with female drinking, abortion, and incest." The BBFC was not doubt involved. Further research in local newspapers should uncover some details of such events. 

I have examined silent films made in the Birmingham area in a series of blog posts beginning here. 

The Road to Ruin was remade in 1934 as a sound film.

Source: Wikipedia 

Film Actresses from Alabama before 1960 (1): Lois Wilson

Source: BhamWiki.com

One of the earliest actresses from Alabama to find success in Hollywood, Lois Wilson is probably unknown to most state residents today. Although born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, on June 28, 1894, her family soon moved to Birmingham where she grew up. 

We can find some interesting information about the family in the 1910 U.S. Census. Her father is A.K. Wilson, a Canadian native. Her mother Constance was born in Pennsylvania. Also listed are three other daughters, all younger than Lois, and grandfather William Wilson. The family lived in the city's 15th Ward. 

She graduated from Alabama Normal College in Livingston, which is now the University of West Alabama. Apparently Wilson just missed the era of famed educator and reformer Julia Tutwiler, who directed the school from 1881 until 1910.

By 1915 Wilson was teaching school. We can assume her ambitions ran beyond that; she entered a Miss Birmingham contest sponsored by the Birmingham News and Universal Pictures. By winning she received a trip to Hollywood for an audition. After a brief period in Chicago, she won her first film role--a small part in a short, The Palace of Dust. She made four other films in 1915 alone. By the time she more or less retired from the movies in 1941, Wilson had acted in more than 100 silent and sound motion pictures.

Wilson appeared with various established or up-and-coming film stars of the silent and early sound eras: Pola Negri in Bella Donna [1923], Rudolph Valentino and Bebe Daniels in Monsieur Beaucaire [1924], Louise Brooks in The Show Off [1926], Bette Davis in Seed, Davis' second film [1931] and Tom Mix in Rider of Death Valley [1932].

She worked with Russian ballerina Anna Pavlova in The Dumb Girl of Portici in 1916. Wilson played heroine Molly Wingate in one of the most popular westerns of the silent era, The Covered Wagon [1923]. In that same year she appeared in Hollywood, one of the earliest films using cameos by a parade of stars--in this case ones such as Gloria Swanson, Douglas Fairbanks, Noah Beery, Mary Astor, William S. Hart and Alan Hale. She played Shirley Temple's mother in Bright Eyes [1934].

In 1922 Wilson was in the first group of WAMPAS Baby Stars of actresses expected to be major stars. That campaign was a promotional effort by the Western Association of Motion Picture Advertisers and ran annually until 1934.

In 1926 she played Daisy Buchanan in the first film version of The Great Gatsby released just a year after the novel was published. Like so many silent films, this one has not survived but a one-minute trailer does exist. Thus we have an Alabama actress playing a character based on Alabama native Zelda Fitzgerald. 

Wilson made other films with Alabama connections. In 1921 she played the title character in Miss Lulu Bett; her male co-star in the film was Milton Sills. You can read a long review of the film by Fritzi Kramer here. A few years later Sills would star in Men of Steel, a picture filmed mostly in Birmingham. In 1922 she appeared in Manslaughter with Thomas Meighan. Two years later Meighan would be in the Birmingham area to film Coming Thru. 

After 1941 Wilson made only one more movie, The Girl from Jones Beach in 1949. The comedy starred Ronald Reagan and Virginia Mayo; Wilson played the mother of Mayo's character. She did not completely retire from acting, however. She had a couple of roles in Broadway productions and did network television work on the soap operas The Guiding Light and The Secret Storm.  

Wilson was a good friend of silent film star Gloria Swanson and made an appearance on the 1957 episode of the television series This Is Your Life when it profiled Swanson. In 1950 Swanson had played former silent star Norma Desmond in Sunset Blvd., one of the great films about Hollywood. 

Wilson died at 93 on March 3, 1988, in Riverside Hospital in Reno, Nevada. She is buried in Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale, California. She never married. Whether she ever returned to Alabama after leaving in 1915 is currently unknown. 

.

Picture-Play Magazine December 1918
In the section titled "Favorite Picture Players" she follows Mary Pickford and Alice Joyce

Wilson made the cover of Picture-Play in April 1923.

Motion Picture Studio Directory for 1919
Wilson's entry is in the right hand column, 3rd down