Louise Glaum: Silent Screen Vamp
Louise Glaum (September 4, 1888 – November 25, 1970) was an American actress. She was known for her roles as a vamp in silent era motion picture dramas and was credited in her early career with giving one of the best characterizations in such parts.
Early Life and Education
Glaum was born near Baltimore, Maryland, the third of four daughters of John W. Glaum and Lena Katherine Kuhn. Her father, born as Johannes Wilhelm Glaum in Germany, emigrated to the U.S. in 1869 and lived in Indiana and Prince George’s County, Maryland before the family moved west. Her mother was born in New York City to German-born parents. The Glaum family relocated to Southern California in the late 1890s, settling in Pasadena before moving to Los Angeles. Louise attended Berendo School on South Berendo Street in Pico Heights.
Career and Achievements
Glaum began her acting career in stock stage productions in Los Angeles in 1907. On November 12, 1907, she appeared in the cast of Crucifixus, a Passion play, at the Gamut Auditorium. In June 1908, she performed in How Baxter Butted In at the Los Angeles Theatre. She then toured as an ingenue with a road show in Why Girls Leave Home, earning $25 a week and making her own costumes. After reaching Chicago, she played ingenues in the Imperial Stock Company for a year and a half, appearing in productions including The Lion and the Mouse and The Squaw Man. While performing in Toledo, she created the ingenue role in Officer 666, a farce by playwright Augustin MacHugh.
Upon the death of her younger sister Margaret in June 1911, Glaum returned to Los Angeles. She compromised with her mother’s wishes to keep her home by combining stage work with film studio rounds. Her movie debut came in 1912 as Mary Gordon in the western comedy When the Heart Calls at Nestor Studios. She appeared in over 110 movies from 1912 to 1925, playing leads exclusively and never doing slapstick work.
Signing with Thomas Ince, Glaum took her first vamp role as Mademoiselle Poppea in The Toast of Death (1915), a five-reel feature directed by Ince at Inceville Studio in Topanga Canyon. That same year, she played cabaret star Kitty Molloy in The Iron Strain, the first American film adaptation of Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew. She played Milady de Winter in The Three Musketeers (1916) and appeared in six westerns opposite William S. Hart, including Hell’s Hinges (1916), The Aryan (1916), and The Return of Draw Egan (1916). Other notable roles included Leila Aradella in The Wolf Woman (1916) and Marie Chaumontel in Somewhere in France (1916).
After starring in Greater Than Love (1921), Glaum retired from the screen and moved to New York. Her final film appearance came in 1925 in Fifty-Fifty, a drama directed by Henri Diamant-Berger in which she starred opposite Lionel Barrymore as the conniving other woman under contract with Associated Exhibitors. For over three years, Glaum headlined on the vaudeville circuit in dramatic playlets. She presented a play in which she starred, Trial Marriage, in Los Angeles in 1928. In the mid-1930s, she opened and appeared in her own theatre in Los Angeles and became a drama instructor.
Notable Events and Milestones
On February 27, 1915, Glaum married director Harry J. Edwards; they divorced on March 17, 1919. In 1925, after leaving film, she sued for money owed her for movie work amounting to $103,000, though the suit was ultimately dismissed by the court due to technicalities. Her stage career spanned decades, with her earliest recorded performance in Crucifixus on November 12, 1907, and her theatre ownership and instruction work beginning in the mid-1930s.
Awards and Honors
Glaum was active in music clubs over the decades following her film career. She served as president of the Matinee Musical Club for many years and was also state president of the California Federation of Music Clubs.
Additional Resources
Louise Glaum’s career spans the transition from stage to silent film and back to theatre and music education. More detailed information about her filmography, stage work, and contributions to early Hollywood can be found through Wikipedia and other biographical archives dedicated to silent era cinema.
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