Louise Glaum (September 4, 1888 – November 25, 1970)California Death Index, Name: Louise G. Harris, Birth Date: 09-04-1901 [sic], Sex: Female, Birth Place: Maryland, Death Place: Los Angeles Co. (70), Death Date: 11-25-1970, SSN:571-01-5724, Age: 70 yrs. [sic].1900 Los Angeles Co., CA, U.S. Federal Census, Pasadena, Precinct 4, 108 W. Walnut St., June 4 & 5, Enumeration Dist. 116, Sheet 2 A, Page 302 A, with parents, Lines 40 & 41, John W. & Lena K. Glaum, Line 44, Louisa L. Glaum, Daughter, White, Female, month born: September, year born: 1888, age: 11, Single, MD, MD [sic], NY, At School, 9 mons., Y, Y, Y. was an American actress. Known for her roles as a vamp in silent era motion picture dramas, she was credited in her early career with giving one of the best characterizations in such parts.
Glaum began her acting career on the stage in Los Angeles, her hometown, in 1907. After a few years, she went on the road with a touring company and performed as an ingenue in the play Why Girls Leave Home. She stayed on in Chicago, where she appeared in a number of productions. After returning to Los Angeles in 1911 because of the death of her younger sister, Glaum found acting work at a movie studio. She appeared in over 110 movies from 1912 to 1925, her debut being in When the Heart Calls.
After starring in Greater Than Love (1921), she retired from the screen and moved to New York. In 1925, she sued for money owed her for movie work amounting to $103,000. The suit was ultimately dismissed by the court due to technicalities. Glaum made a final movie appearance in 1925. Under contract with Associated Exhibitors, she starred as the conniving other woman opposite Lionel Barrymore in a drama directed by Henri Diamant-Berger titled Fifty-Fifty.
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. Continuing to act on the stage, she opened and appeared in her own theatre in Los Angeles in the mid-1930s and became a drama instructor. Glaum was active in music clubs over the following decades. She served as president of the Matinee Musical Club for many years and was also state president of the California Federation of Music Clubs.
Early life and stage career Glaum was born near Baltimore, Maryland, the third of four daughters of John W. Glaum and Lena Katherine Kuhn. Her sisters were Hattie Helen "Phyllis" Glaum, Lena K. Glaum, and Margaret Olive Glaum.
Her father was born as Johannes Wilhelm Glaum in Germany, emigrated with his family to the U.S. in 1869, and lived in Indiana, then Prince George's County, Maryland, while her mother was born in New York City to German-born parents. John and Lena Glaum and family moved to Southern California in the late 1890s, and lived in Pasadena for several years before moving into Los Angeles. Louise attended Berendo School on South Berendo Street in Pico Heights.
Glaum began her acting career in stock stage productions. She was in the cast of Crucifixus, a Passion play, which opened on November 12, 1907, at the Gamut Auditorium, 1044 South Hope Street, in Los Angeles, before a good-sized audience."Music And The Stage." Los Angeles Times. Nov. 13, 1907. p. II 5. In early June 1908, she appeared in the Owen Davis play How Baxter Butted In, a melodramatic comedy, at the Los Angeles Theatre on Spring Street. The cast included Lulu Warrenton and a number of others."Music And The Stage." Los Angeles Times. June 1, 1908. p. 17. Glaum then toured as an ingenue with a road show in Why Girls Leave Home. She earned $25 a week and furnished her own gowns, which she made herself. After reaching Chicago,1910 Cook Co., IL, U.S. Federal Census, Chicago, Ward 21, Palace Hotel, 518 N. Clark St., May 2, Enumeration Dist. 927, Sheet. 2 B, Page 185 B, Line 78, Louise Glaum, Lodger, Female, White, 20 [sic], Single, CA [sic], United States, United States, Engl., Actress, Theatre, Wages, N, Y, Y. she played ingenues in the Imperial Stock Company there for a year and a half, appearing in The Lion and the Mouse and The Squaw Man, among other plays. While performing in a summer stock engagement in Toledo, she created the ingenue role in Officer 666. Its playwright, Augustin MacHugh, who was also her theatre director in Toledo, tried it out there before Broadway ever saw the successful farce."Louise Glaum." Los Angeles Herald. Nov. 13, 1919.
Upon the death of her younger sister, Margaret, in June 1911, Glaum resigned and returned home to Los Angeles. On July 29, the Los Angeles Times read, "Louise Glaum, ingenue, who made her professional start here a few years ago, is at home on a short visit. Of late she has been playing in Chicago.""Playgoers On Problem Rock." Los Angeles Times. Jul. 29, 1911. p. II 5.
Her mother wanted her to remain in Los Angeles, but the desire to return to the stage possessed her. She compromised, however; while acting as the ingenue in a local theatre company,"Louis Glaum, The ingenue of the Stoermer Company, at the Auditorium." Los Angeles Times. Sep. 6, 1911. p. III 4. she began making the rounds of the movie studios.
Motion picture career
Glaum made her movie debut playing the ingenue role as Mary Gordon, the rancher's daughter, in the Al Christie directed short western/comedy When the Heart Calls (1912) at Nestor Studios, the first studio actually located in Hollywood. She acted in straight comedy, never doing slapstick, from the start,"Who's Who In Reel Drama; Louise Glaum." Los Angeles Times. Feb. 25, 1913. p. III 4. and played leads exclusively. She starred in the title role of the Broncho Motion Picture Company's two-reel drama The Quakeress (1913) opposite Charles Ray and William Desmond Taylor. The year Glaum arrived, Nestor was merged with the Universal Film Company. A large number of episodes in the Universal Ike series of one-reel comedies are among her body of work in 1914.
Signing with Thomas Ince, her first role as a vamp, and first starring role in the new five-reel features, was as Mademoiselle Poppea in The Toast of Death (1915) opposite Harry Keenan and Herschel Mayall. It was directed by Thomas Ince at his Inceville Studio in Topanga Canyon. That same year, she appeared in the role as cabaret star Kitty Molloy in The Iron Strain, the first American film adaptation of Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew, a modern version in which she starred opposite Dustin Farnum, Enid Markey, and Charles K. French.
Glaum played Milady de Winter in The Three Musketeers (1916). She appeared in six westerns opposite William S. Hart, including her roles as Dolly in Hell's Hinges (1916), Trixie in The Aryan (1916) and Poppy in The Return of Draw Egan (1916). She played Leila Aradella in The Wolf Woman (1916); and Marie Chaumontel in the war drama Somewhere in France (1916) opposite Howard C. Hickman.
On February 27, 1915, she and director Harry J. Edwards were married.https://www.ancestry.com/imageviewer/collections/61460/images/47732_B354126-00157?pid=1183613&backurl=https://search.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/sse.dll?dbid%3D61460%26h%3D1183613%26indiv%3Dtry%26o_vc%3DRecord:OtherRecord%26rhSource%3D60525&treeid=&personid=&hintid=&usePUB=true&usePUBJs=true They were divorced on March 17, 1919."Louise Glaum's Now Free." Los Angeles Times. Mar. 18, 1919. p. II 6.
She played the role of Lola Montrose in the drama A Strange Transgressor (1917). She then starred in the title role as a gun-slinging heroine, the female equivalent to Bill Hart, in the Triangle Company's western Golden Rule Kate (1917).
She played Mary Thorne in the drama The Goddess of Lost Lake (1918), which she also co-produced through her own production company, the Louise Glaum Organization. It is the story of a young woman who is a quarter Native American and decides to pretend she is a full-blooded Indian princess when she visits her father's rustic cabin after completing college in the East.
Glaum then began working with J. Parker Read Jr. Productions, which she later described as J. Parker Read, Jr.'s unit as a subsidiary producing company for Thomas Ince. She signed a four-year contract, with a salary starting at $2,000 a week and increasing to $4,000, and some of the features she starred in for that company were as Mignon in Sahara (1919), a big financial success that was written especially for the star by C. Gardner Sullivan, with the production supervised by Allan Dwan; and the dual roles as Princess Sonia and as her daughter, Sonia, in the crime/thriller The Lone Wolf's Daughter (1919).
She played the roles as Adrienne Renault in the provocatively titled Sex (1920), the story of a New York cabaret star who uses her sex appeal to end a marriage then leaves her lover for a wealthier prospect only to have her selfish way of life come back to haunt her; and the title role in The Leopard Woman (1920), a secret agent adventure set in Africa. She then played the role as Natalie Storm in a romance/drama titled Love (1920).
Glaum was maintaining her own household in Los Angeles, when the 1920 census was enumerated, with a married couple, housekeeper and caretaker, and a gardener.1920 Los Angeles Co., CA, U.S. Federal Census, Cahuenga Township - Arnaz Precinct, Hughes Rd., Jan. 26, Enumeration Dist. 33, Sheet 13 B, Page 223 B, Line 60, Louise Glaum, Head, Rented, Female, White, 26 [sic], Div., Y, Y, MD, England [sic] (Native language) Engl. [sic], NY, Y, Actress, Moving Pictures, Wages. Albert M. Fell, Caretaker; Emma M. Fell, Housekeeper; Suigi Imizie, Gardner. After starring in the role as Grace Merrill in the drama Greater Than Love (1921), directed by Fred Niblo, she retired from the screen and moved to New York.
On March 16, 1925, she filed suit in the Supreme Court of New York against producer J. Parker Read, Jr., for $103,000 and asked for an attachment against money owed him by various film distributors in New York City. The complaint stated she starred in several pictures under Read's direction, and on December 23, 1921, he made a promissory note to her for the money, payable in four installments. Nothing was paid, however, and in the fall of 1923, according to Glaum, he went to Paris without paying her. According to her attorney, Read's departure took the form of a flight and he had disguised himself as a stoker on a ship."Actress Sues For $103,000; Louise Glaum Says Producer Fled to Paris Without Paying Note." New York Times. Mar. 17, 1925. p. 13.
She then sued the estate of Thomas H. Ince, Read's partner, stating that Read was insolvent and asking for the $103,000 plus $290,000 for breach of contract. The Appellate Division, however, decided that she could not prosecute a suit in the state against the executors under the will of Ince on the grounds that the New York courts had no jurisdiction over the executors, who were appointed in California, in which state Ince was a resident at the time he died in November 1924."Louise Glaum Loses Plea." New York Times. Apr. 10, 1926. p. 14. She then filed suit in California, but a copy of the contract was not attached. By the time that arrived, the time had elapsed in which she was legally entitled to make a claim against the Ince estate and the court dismissed the suit on technicalities."Glaum Suit Thrown Out; Actress' Claim Against Ince Estate for $405,000 Dismissed on Technicalities." Los Angeles Times. May 13, 1926. p. A 1.
She made one screen comeback. Signing a contract with Associated Exhibitors, she played the role as Nina Olmstead, the conniving other woman, in the Henri Diamant-Berger directed drama Fifty-Fifty (1925) opposite Hope Hampton and Lionel Barrymore.
Vaudeville and the stage