Born (as Mary Lavinia Wells) in San Francisco, California, on April 21, 1862, the daughter of Samuel Adams Wells (1824–1864) and London-born Lavinia Howard née Oldfield,[4] she began her acting career at age 5 in her mother and stepfather's theatrical company. Her education did not advance beyond the sixth grade at elementary school.[5] Her mother appeared on stage with Edwin Booth, while her father, a Boston-born great-grandson of Massachusetts governor Samuel Adams, was one of the earliest Coast singers, entertaining in the saloons and music halls with the San Francisco Minstrels. He was particularly known for the vulgarity of his act[6] and for the songs "The Old Sexton" and "Simon the Cellarer". Excelling as a punster and end-man propounder of conundrums,[6] in 1854 he was a member of Charley Backus’s Original Minstrels in San Francisco.[7] In 1858 he joined with George H. Coes to form Coes and Wells' Minstrels,[8] but that partnership did not last, and Coes returned to performing in other companies.[9] In 1890, the veteran minstrel entertainer William R. "Billy Birch" Garrison recalled of her father:
"In those days we had another excellent man in our company by the name of Sam Wells. Probably very few theater-goers now remember Sam, but he was famous then, and a very valuable man in the minstrel show. He had a heavy bass voice, and his imitation of a clap of indignant thunder was about as good as the genuine article any day in the week. Sam used to sing 'Old Black Joe' and such songs where he could employ basso profundo with effect. During all the time he was associated with us he acted as interlocutor, and he was a good one. He could anticipate the point of a new gig or joke that one of us would perpetrate as quick as a flash, and so govern his own questions and replies. Poor Sam, a number of years ago, met his death in Nevada by being thrown from a horse and sinking his head against a boulder. He was not killed outright, but he died a few days later from his injuries."[10]
She married William M. Chapman, with whom she had two children: Lavinia W. Chapman (1891–1988) and William M. Chapman (1888 –1958). In 1940, the widowed Mai Wells Chapman was living with her son at 23 Glendale Boulevard in Los Angeles.[5]
Acting career
Early in her career, Mai toured Europe and appeared in such David Belasco productions as First Born. An accomplished singer and dancer, Wells made her first screen appearance in 1912, and worked for such studios as Keystone, Powers, Biograph, Reliance-Majestic, Eclair, Edison and The Oz Film Manufacturing Company, among others. An all-purpose character actress, Wells specialised in playing spinsters, busy-body neighbors, nagging mothers-in-law and country wives.[3]
