Florence Auer (March 3, 1880 – May 14, 1962)[3] was an American theater and motion picture actress whose career spanned more than five decades.[1]
Life and career
Born in Albany, New York, Auer began her career on East Coast stages at the turn of the 20th century. Her earliest known Broadway theatre performance was in a September 1907 production of The Ranger, produced by Charles Frohman at Wallack's Theatre.[4] Auer was among Frohman's stock theatre company of fourteen actors who would be brought into Vitagraph Studios as their first stable of prominent film actors around 1907.[5][6] She began appearing in films shortly thereafter; her first film appearance was in the 1908 Wallace McCutcheon Sr. directed comedy short The Sculptor's Nightmare opposite director D.W. Griffith. One of the original "Biograph Girls" (along with actresses Marion Leonard and Florence Lawrence),[6] Auer would appear alongside such notable future directors as Griffith, Thomas H. Ince, Robert G. Vignola, Harry Solter and Mack Sennett in their early careers as actors. These early associations would help ensure Auer's longevity in films when the former actors became notable directors and often cast Auer in their later films.
Auer would appear in motion pictures until the 1950s, then transitioning to television before retiring. One of her last film appearances was in the 1951 comedy Love Nest, which starred a young Marilyn Monroe. Aside from acting, she also was a screenwriter for three early silent films: 1916's Edwin Carewe directed drama Her Great Price starring Mabel Taliaferro, 1917's John G. Adolfi directed drama A Modern Cinderella starring June Caprice and 1921's Her Mad Bargain, directed by Edwin Carewe and starring Anita Stewart and Arthur Edmund Carewe.[6]
^Vazzana, Eugene Michael (1995). Silent Film Necrology: Births and Deaths of Over 9000 Performers, Directors, Producers, and Other Filmmakers of the Silent Era, Through 1993. McFarland Publishing. p. 12. ISBN978-0786401321.
