Florence Lawrence

Florence Lawrence (January 2, 1886 (her birth date has also been reported as 1890) - December 28, 1938) was an inventor and actress, who was referred to as "The First Movie Star."

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 early Hollywood who made their way to Hollywood, attracted by the rapid growth of the fledgling motion picture business. In 1907, at twenty-one 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 these formative years in Hollywood, silent screen actors were just faces because studio owners refused to list the names of the film's cast members, fearing that fame might lead to demands for higher wages. D.W. Griffith, the head of Biograph Studios, saw one of Vitagraph's films with a beautiful blonde-haired girl 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 a meeting was arranged. 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.

Ms. Lawrence quickly gained much popularity but because her name was never publicized, fans began writing the studio asking for her name. 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."

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 included a photo of Ms. Lawrence, declaring she was alive and well and was making The Broken Oath, a new movie for his IMP Film Company to be directed by Harry Solter.

Laemmle then had Ms. Lawrence make a personal appearance in St. Louis, Missouri with her leading man to show her fans that she was very much alive. 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. 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 Harry 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.

During her lifetime, Lawrence appeared in more than 270 films for various motion picture companies. Nicknamed "The Girl of a Thousand Faces", at the height of her career, she was earning a great deal of money and could afford an automobile, something that at the time was still a luxury for most people. Born with a curious mind, she 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 up whenever the driver stepped on the brake pedal. However, Ms. Lawrence's inventions were not patented, and others in the rapidly expanding auto industry developed their own versions.

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, Harry Solter 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 Ms. Lawrence's fortune decline. Alone, discouraged, and suffering with chronic pain from a rare bone marrow disease, she committed suicide in Beverly Hills, California.

Just nine years after she had paid for an expensive memorial for her mother, Florence 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 (actor Roddy McDowall) donated the funds for a proper gravestone to be placed in her memory that reads: "The First Movie Star."

In 1999, a biography written by Kelly R. Brown was published under the title Florence Lawrence, the Biograph Girl: America's First Movie Star (ISBN 0786406275)

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

See also: Other Canadian pioneers in early Hollywood