1886-1975
The daughter of touring "minstrels," Margarita Fischer was born on this day in Missouri Valley, Iowa. At one time she was more well known as the wife of director Harry A. Pollard, but during her career, she was most definitely a star and well known in her own right. Fischer started acting as a child on the stage and later became a bit of a sensation in live theater. She made her film debut in 1910 in the Selig short There, Little Girl, Don't Cry based on a James Whitecomb Riley poem. Having signed with Selig Polyscope, she would go on to appear in over a dozen films for them that year (many adventure and/or westerns). She even had her turn as a vamp in the Rudyard Kipling inspired The Vampire (November 1910). She continued her western adventures and series of short films at American Manufacturing Company (AMC). Many of these films were shot in Arizona and few survive, though a copy of Bertie's Bandit (1911) is known to be in the collection of MoMA. It was in these films that she started working with Pollard, whom she would wed in July of 1911. By 1912, she and Pollard both were appearing in films at IMP, with the Thomas Ince directed short The Trinity (1912) being a prime example of her work there; in it, she acts opposite King Baggot. It was also at IMP that Pollard began to hone his directing skills and his wife became a frequent player in his early films. Nothing Shall Be Hidden (1912) is one of their earliest collaborations in this regard. 1912 turned out to be a banner year for Fischer, she appeared in more than 35 films...to be sure they we all shorts, but still that's a lot of acting for just one year! She capped the year off with the Christmas short The Old Folks' Christmas, which was released on the 23rd of December and was directed by George Loane Tucker. It also finished up her stint at IMP; for 1913, she moved over to Rex Motion Pictures. Her first film with them was the short mystery The Great Ganton Mystery (March 1913). She wound up appearing in almost as many films in 1913 as she had the previous year, but in 1914, she returned to AMC to act in films directed by Pollard and it was in this year that she first made her appearance in a feature: Sweet Land of Liberty (March 1914) directed by, you guessed it...her husband. [The film not only survives, it is widely available for streaming.] She there-after went straight back to acting in shorts, finishing the year having appeared in more films in a 12 month period than she had before. In 1915 however, her film appearances slowed owed to her switching full time to feature length productions; all but one of which (The Lonesome Heart) were directed by Pollard. Aside from a brief stint in 1917, Fischer was officially done with short film acting for good. She became a pretty big star of the screen, with box office draw in the late 1910's. And, while she mostly starred in films by her husband, there were exceptions. A list of other directors that she worked with during this period of her career includes: Lloyd Ingraham, Edward Sloman, Roy William Neill, and George L. Cox. She appeared in multiple films by all of these directors; and, in fact, it was a Cox film that she appeared in that marked the beginning of the new decade: The Dangerous Talent (March 1920). After 1920, however, her acting slowed considerably. She made just two films in 1921, and skipping three years, she made only one film each for the years 1924, 1925 and 1927. After which she retired from acting altogether. Her last film was the 1927 large production of Uncle Tom's Cabin; it was a Universal partial silent and was, yes, directed by her Harry Pollard. Fischer lost her husband in in 1934 and she never remarried. She did go on to live a long life herself, dying in Encinitas, CA on the 11th of March at the age of 89. She in interred at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale.
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| Source: Scott G [Find a Grave] |
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| Source: Scott G. (Find A Grave) |
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