1894-1951
Olive Tell was born in New York City probably on this date in 1894--though some records either record her birth as unknown during that year or another date altogether. Olive graduated from the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in 1915, and, along with her acting sister Alma, began appearing on stage as a duo. They frequented Broadway with their act, and became quite well known. She was accomplished enough to be recognized as a "bankable" talent in film from the start. She made her film debut in 1917 in The Silent Master, a film made for the Robert Warwick Film company and distributed by the new Selznick Distribution. At first, Tell despised movie acting--a not uncommon sentiment amongst actors of the stage at the time--but unlike many stage actors who opted out of that line of work after their first taste of it, she continued to take roles in films. In fact, she had steady film work through the first World War, but her appearances began to slow considerably after that. Her last film before a multi-year hiatus was World's Apart in 1921. She wouldn't appear in another film until 1925 with Chickie. One of the reasons for her absence was that her first husband was killed in the war. In 1926 she married for the second time, this time to a movie producer--Henry Hobart--who moved the couple out to Hollywood. While there, her film career was revived, though was never prolific. Possibly because of her husband's connections, she also never acted in a silent film after 1928. She appeared in 3 films and 1 short in 1929, starting with The Trial Of Mary Dugan; all of them had full sound. During the taking era of the early 1930's, her on-screen appearances picked up considerably, especially in 1931. She had a goodly number of roles between 1930 and 1936; after this, however, she only made two more film appearances, the last of which was in an uncredited part in the 1938 George Cukor film Zaza. Sometime after this point, she returned to New York, where she would remain until her death at the age of 56 on the 6th of June 1951. Her burial is unknown.
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