Born Today May 9: Katharine Kaelred

1882-1942

The absolute original "vamp" Katharine Kaelred was born on this day some where in England. She was primarily a stage actor and first played the role of "The Vampire" in a stage production of A Fool There Was six years before Theda Bara famously played the character in the Fox film version.  She lived for a time in Australia before immigrating to the United States. She was active on Broadway at least thorugh the year of 1920.  She, like so many stage actors during the 1910's, was persuaded to go into film acting, only to find the technology too limiting for lack of actual speaking roles.  She was active in the industry for only around three years. Her motion picture debut came in Your Girl and Mine: A Woman Suffrage Play in 1914.  Probably the best known of her film performances came next in The Winged Idol in 1915--it was her second film appearance and her first starring role.  She subsequently appeared in two films in 1916 and a further two in 1917. One of these, The Girl with the Green Eyes (1916), was directed by the husband of director Alice Guy: Herbert Blaché.  Yet another, House of Cards (1917), was written and directed by Guy herself.  Kaelred then left off film acting until 1921, when she appeared in Mama's Affair, a romantic comedy produced by Constance Talmadge's production company and directed by Victor Fleming.  When she retired from acting, she chose to stay in the New York City area for the rest of her life, dying there on the 26 of March in 1942 at the age of just 59.  She is perhaps most famous for her portraits taken in the photographic medium by famed British early photographer Alexander Bassano, many of which hang in Britain's National Portrait Gallery.  Public records from New York indicate that she was buried on the 28th of March, but I cannot locate information listing where.  She was married to noted stage actor and director J. H. Benrimo.  Below are a few examples of Bassano photographic portraits of her.

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