Lenore Ulric

Lenore Ulric

Lenore Ulric in the 1937 re-issue trailer for the film Camille
Born Lenore Ulrich
(1892-07-21)July 21, 1892
New Ulm, Minnesota, U.S.
Died December 30, 1970(1970-12-30) (aged 78)
Orangeburg, New York, U.S.
Years active 1911-1947
Spouse(s) Sidney Blackmer
(m.1928-1939; divorced)
Lenore Ulric as Wetona in the Frohman-Belasco Broadway production The Heart of Wetona, 1916.

Lenore Ulric (July 21, 1892 – December 30, 1970) was a star of the Broadway stage and Hollywood films of the silent-film and early sound era. Her father, Franz Xavier Ulrich, was a United States Army hospital steward. He reportedly named his daughter Lenore due to his fondness for the Edgar Allan Poe poem, "The Raven". She later dropped the "h" from her surname, using the name Lenore Ulric as her acting name.

Early Theater and Silent Films

As a schoolgirl, Lenore obtained a job with a stock company in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. She played with stock companies in Grand Rapids, Michigan and Chicago, Illinois. She worked briefly as a film actress for Essanay Studios and joined another stock company in Schenectady, New York. She found work in The First Man (1911), A Polished Burglar (1911), Kilmeny (1915), and The Better Woman (1915). In 1915 she went to work for Pallas Pictures starring in several pictures that survive today at the Library of Congress.

Broadway

Just before she was discovered by theatrical producer David Belasco, Miss Ulric toured in a road company of The Bird of Paradise. She wrote to Belasco and in the fall of 1915 she made her New York debut at the Princess Theater in The Mark of the Beast. Soon she played the lead in The Heart of Wetona. Under Belasco's management Lenore played a variety of female roles. She was an Indian maid in Tiger Rose, a French-Canadian heroine in The Son-Daughter, and a Chinese girl in Kiki. One of Ulric's biggest hits for Belasco was in 1926's Lulu Belle where she played a prostitute, a genre that spawned several Broadway hits in the 1920s.

Hollywood and Return to Theater

Lenore came to Hollywood in 1929 and appeared in Frozen Justice and South Sea Rose. She signed with Fox Film Corporation to make several films with an approximate salary of $650,000. Frozen Justice was directed by Allan Dwan. Some of the scenes were filmed in Alaska. She was successful in a supporting role in Camille, which starred Greta Garbo. Ulric returned to Broadway in 1940, acting in The Fifth Column by Ernest Hemingway and again in 1947, in a revival of Antony and Cleopatra.

Personal life

Ulric was married to actor Sidney Blackmer from 1928-1939. She died of heart failure in Rockland State Hospital, Orangeburg, New York on December 30, 1970, aged 78.

Filmography

Lenore Ulric watches as Howard Davies and Forrest Stanley fight in a scene still from The Heart of Paula, 1916.

(LoC = Library of Congress)

References

External links

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