1890-1963
Actress of the early silent era Jane Gail was born Ethel S. Magee on this day in Salem, New York. Her entire career in film was not only encapsulated within the silent era, it is almost completely contained to the 1910's. She is well known from her appearances during this time, curiously in a series of science fiction roles; though she also appeared in melodrama and crime films and was very talented in a surprising number of short comedies. Before appearing in pictures, she, was like so many early actual actors in films, an actor of the stage; she even had a brief run on Broadway. While she is very famous as the imperiled fiancee opposite King Baggot's Dr. Jekyll in the 1913 Herbert Brenon directed version Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, she actually made her film debut a year earlier as an extra in yet another version of Dr. Jekyll directed by Lucius Henderson for Thanhouser. She quickly got a named role in her very next film: Her Heart's Refuge (1912), a romantic short made by Lubin Manufacturing. She actually appeared in 11 films between her two Dr. Jekyll films--a goodly number of them were narrative comedies and/or romances--though most are not remembered even in film history. A couple of sources cite that she is best known for her role in George Loane Tucker's "white slavery" film Traffic in Souls, but that probably has as much to do with the fact that the film has indeed survived and is widely available to purchase, as it does with anything--though it was the very first feature length picture in which she appeared (and it would not be her only appearance in a Tucker directed feature, probably the most famous among them is his Prisoner of Zenda in 1915, but there is also The Difficult Way from 1914 which had a running time of 1 hour and 15 minutes). For me personally though, her turn as "Child of Nature" in the 1916 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea is the performance that stands out. The film is the first adaptation of the famous Jules Verne novel and was ground breaking in that it was the first motion picture filmed under water, done with done with reflective techniques by the Williamson Submarine Company based in The Bahamas where the film was shot. She would only remain in films another three years, with 1917 being the boom year--appearing in over 10 films. She did not make a film at all in 1919 and had just one appearance each in 1918 and 1920. All of these films were shorts, save for her final film appearance, which was in the independent, shot on location (Florida everglades), film. She took the lead role opposite John Charles (who would die soon after the film's release). She was only 30 years of age when she decided to retire. Apparently the Florida area was to and her husband's liking, and they settled in the St. Petersburg area. She passed away there on her birthday in 1963 at the age of 72. She was, however, interred near her birth place at Ferncliff in Hartsdale, New York under her married name of Hill, along with her husband--a newspaper man and documentarian Edwin C. Hill--and a relative that I am assuming is her sister who is interred under their birth name of Magee.
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| [Source: Ginny M (Find A Grave)] |
Below are two still from 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea (1916)
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