Silent Film Star: Mary Alden.

Mary Alden (June 18, 1883 – July 2, 1946). Born in New York City, Alden began her career on Broadway before moving to Hollywood where she worked for the Biograph Company and Pathe Exchange.

Her most popular role in movies, Birth of a Nation(1915) directed by D.W. Griffith. Alden played the role of a mulatto girl in love with a northern politician. The film is about the relationship of two families in Civil War and Reconstruction-era America: the pro-Union Northern Stonemans and the pro-Confederacy Southern Camerons over several years.

The assassination of President Abraham Lincoln by John Wilkes Booth, is also dramatized.

The film was a commercial success, but was highly controversial because its portrayal of African American men (played by white actors in blackface) and the portrayal of the Ku Klux Klan (whose original founding is dramatized) .

There were widespread protests against The Birth of a Nation, and it was banned in several cities. The outcry of racism was so great that Griffith was inspired to produce the film, Intolerance the following year. The movie is also credited as one of the events that inspired the formation of the "second era" Ku Klux Klan at Stone Mountain, Georgia.

It was the first motion picture to be shown at the White House. President Woodrow Wilson supposedly said the film was "like writing history with lightning".

The following year she performed in Griffith's, Intolerance(1916) with Mae Marsh, Miriam Cooper, and Vera Lewis. Intolerance is a silent film directed by D. W. Griffith and is considered one of the great masterpieces of the Silent Era.

The three-and-a-half hour epic parallels four story lines each separated by several centuries: A contemporary melodrama of crime and redemption; a Judean story: Christ’s mission and death; a French story: the events surrounding the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre of 1572; and a Babylonian story: the fall of the Babylonian Empire to Persia in 539 BC.

Intolerance, please click here to view movie.

After making, Less Than The Dust(1917) with Mary Pickford, she took a temporary leave from film, to go back on Broadway.

Many believe that Alden's performance of the mother, Mrs. Anthon in,  The Old Nest (1921) and her performance of an old lady in, The Man With Two Mothers (1922). Were her best performances.

Other movies that she was well known for were: The Plastic Age (1925), The Joy Girl (1927), Ladies of the Mob (1928) and Port of Dreams (1929).

The final films she received screen credit for are: Hell's House, Rasputin and the Empress, and Strange Interlude, each from 1932.

Alden died at the Motion Picture Country Home in Woodland Hills, Los Angeles, California in 1946. This had been her residence for the last four years of her life. She was 63 years of age.

Pre- Code: Strange Interlude(1932)

Strange Interlude(1932). Romantic drama. D: Robert Z. Leonard. Cast: Norma Shearer, Clark Gable, May Robson, Maureen O'Sullivan, Robert Young, Ralph Morgan, Henry B. Walthall and Mary Alden.

In a small New England town, shortly after the World War, writer Charlie Marsden returns home from Europe to visit the woman he is secretly in love with.  There he finds Nina Leeds, angry with her father for preventing Gordon from marrying her before he died in a plane crash during the war. Announcing, that she is going to move to Boston to work as a nurse in a sanitarium for wounded soldiers.

One year later, Nina is called home when her father becomes ill. By the time she arrives home with, Dr. Ned Darrell, and Sam Evans, her father has already died.

Later when, Nina confesses to Charlie that her obsession with Gordon has caused her to be promiscuous with men, Charlie, even though he wants to marry her, realizes that Nina needs a strong man, suggests that she should marry Sam. Wanting a normal married life, Nina agrees.

Nina, soon realizes her mistake, when Sam's mother confides in her that insanity runs in the family and they should not have any children. Mrs. Evans then tells Nina that Sam knows nothing about the "family curse" and suggests Nina, have children by another man.

Nina, soon regrets her marriage and when Ned visits, she tells him about the Evans curse and the two decide to conceive a child. During their afternoon together, Nina realizes that she loves Ned, but.. Ned is not ready to get married and to prevent Nina from telling Sam, Ned announces that Nina is pregnant and that he is leaving for Europe for a year. After Ned's leaves, Nina gives birth to a son, named Gordon.

Realizing that he made a mistake, Ned returns and begs her to run away with him but, Nina, realizing that Sam would be destroyed, tells him that she is happy with the way things are.

Ned and Charlie, become silent partners in Sam's business and Sam makes them all wealthy.

Later when Ned, Charlie, Nina and Sam come to watch Gordon, now a collage athlete compete in a regatta, Ned announces that Gordon plans to marry, Madeleine. Nina, objects and asks Ned to stop the marriage and tell Sam the truth about his paternity. When Ned refuses, Nina decides to tell Charlie the truth. Gordon wins the regatta and Sam, overcome with excitement, suffers a fatal heart attack.

After the funeral, Gordon and Ned get into an argument and Gordon hits Ned, causing Nina to blurt out that he has struck his own father. Gordon, misunderstands and says that he always knew Nina and Ned were in love and gives them his blessing. Ned is about to tell Gordon the truth, but.. will Nina have a change of heart and stop him?

Fun Fact: This was the first film in which Clark Gable's trademark mustache appeared.

By the end of this emotionally moving film, you feel sorry for just about everyone in it and they all deprived themselves of happiness. Great acting, especially for Norma Shearer and Clark Gable

 May Robson (19 April 1858 – 20 October 1942).  In 1884, after being widowed, she became an actress simply to support her children.

Over the next several decades, she flourished on the stage. She starred in the 1916 silent film, A Night Out, an adaptation of the play she co-wrote, The Three Lights.

She made several other silent films, then successfully transitioned to talkies.

 She made 45 films during the 1930s. Among her starring roles was 1931's The She-Wolf, in which she was cast as a miserly millionaire businesswoman based on Hetty Green.

She also starred in the final segment of the anthology film, If I Had a Million (1932) as a rest home resident who gets a new lease on life when she is given a $1,000,000 check by a dying business tycoon.

She played the Queen of Hearts in Alice in Wonderland (1933), Countess Vronsky in Anna Karenina (1936), Aunt Elizabeth in Bringing Up Baby (1938), Aunt Polly in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1938), and a sharp-tongued Granny in A Star Is Born (1937).

Miss Robson was top-billed as late as 1940, starring in Granny Get Your Gun at age 82.

Her last film was 1942's Joan of Paris.