1881-1956
American stage and very early film actress Marion Leonard was born on this day in Cincinnati, Ohio. And it was in Cincinnati that she began her stage career. She eventually wound up working in the New York area and was signed to a contract with the American Mutoscope and Biograph Company in 1908 at the age of 27. She made her film debut that same year in At The Crossroads Of Life, a film written by soon to be directing sensation D. W. Griffith. One of the films that she appeared in that is most remembered today in D. W. Griffith's 1909 The Sealed Room, basically Griffith's only horror film. With her contract up in 1910, she went to work with Reliance Films; most probably the first film that she made for them was The Gray Of The Dawn (1910). She did return to work at Biograph for a time, because she had begun a relationship with one of their most important behind-the-scenes writers and over-all mover and shaker Stanner E. V. Taylor. By 1914, the now married couple had started their own production house in the Marion Leonard Film Company; The Rose Of Yesteryear (1914) appears to be their first film. The last film that she appeared in before retiring from regular acting was directed by her husband; The Dragon's Claw was released in 1915. As far as Internet Movie Database in concerned, this is where her film appearances ended, but she was persuaded--in her mid-40's--to return to make at least one (possibly more) appearance in a 1926 Mack Sennett film. She died on the 9th of January 1956 at the Motion Picture and Television Country House & Hospital in Woodland Hills, California. Sadly there is no information as to her burial or cremation.
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| In Griffith's The Sealed Room |
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