Born Today June 25: Dorothy Bernard

[Photo portrait by: Thomas Steadeli]

1890-1955

Silent era actress Dorothy Bernard was born Nora Dorothy Bernard on this day in Port Elizabeth in what was then the British Cape Colony, now part of South Africa. Though she appeared in productions in the 1950's (almost all of them television), her film career ran between the years 1908 and 1921.  She worked as a child actress in theatrical productions, having got into the business via her theater manager father, a Kiwi ex-pat from New Zealand working in the Portland, Oregon theater district. She made her film debut in the D.W. Griffith Biograph written & directed A Woman's Way in 1908 [a print is reportedly held in the UCLA collection] (Griffith reportedly was acquainted with her father in some way). After this, she became a fixture in Griffith's films and remained so until late in 1910, when she was next directed by Frank Powell in the comedy Turning the Tables, also a Biograph production. Still, she continued to be a Griffith favorite, occupying medium sized roles in his later Biograph shorts (she appears, for example, in the surviving His Trust films, which are available on restored on disc to modern audiences). Despite this, she remained at Biograph after Griffith's departure, though her roles were much fewer and far between. By 1915, she too had left the company. She next shows up in a Kalem production directed by Kenean Buel: The Second Commandment; and returns to be directed by Powell, who was by this time working at Fox, in Princess Romanoff.  Aside from a film with Lubin and one with Famous Players, she stayed with Fox after her second outing with Powell as director.  There she found frequent roles in Oscar Apfel films. Her last outing in a silent film came in Cosmopolitan's The Wild Goose, a late Albert Capellani film, in 1921. In the late teens, she had returned to regular stage appearances and her film acting took a back-seat; she was reportedly a very reliable and talented stage performer...and who could blame a stage performer through and through for tiring of silent film acting after a time?  Her daughter with actor A. H. Van Buren who was affectionately known as Midge, was a long time employee of the Screen Actors Guild; this probably accounts to her return to acting on television in 1950's. She filmed several appearances on a number of series in 1955, many of which aired after her untimely death of a heart attack on the 15th of December of that year. She was 65 years old. Her family were long time residents of Hollywood and she was cremated at the famed Chapel of the Pines Crematory. 

Bernard with young daughter and their doggy

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