Kathlyn Williams
American postcard in the Selig Players series. Photo: Selig Polyscope Co.
Kathlyn Williams (born Kathleen Mabel Williams, May 31, 1879 – September 23, 1960) was an American actress, known for her blonde beauty and daring antics, who performed on stage as well as in early silent film, in particular at the company Selig Polyscope in the early 1910s.
Williams began her career onstage in her hometown of Butte, Montana, where she was sponsored by local copper magnate William A. Clark to study acting in New York City. In 1908 Williams began her film career at the Selig Polyscope Company in Chicago, Illinois and made her first film under the direction of Francis Boggs: On Thanksgiving Day (1908) . By 1910, she was transferred to the company's Los Angeles film studio. A popular star at the Selig Polyscope Company in 1910 (she was at first publicized as "The Selig Girl"), she appeared in assorted jungle adventures for the studio as well as a number of westerns opposite cowboy star Tom Mix. She made history, however, with the very first serial adventure, The Adventures of Kathlyn (1913), which contained a number of wild animals, and it saved the faltering studio from bankruptcy.
The first chapter play with holdover action, Kathlyn's adventure serial was but one in a number of melodramas and jungle adventures teaming the actress with the Selig Polyscope Company's famous stable of wild animals (the nucleus for what would later become the Los Angeles Zoo). Williams proceeded to remain a popular item after being handed the lead in the Selig epic The Spoilers (1914), based upon Rex Beach's 1906 novel. Williams played her signature role of Cherry Marlotte, opposite William Farnum and Tom Santschi.
Once the Selig Studio folded, Kathlyn signed with Paramount Pictures following her marriage to Paramount executive Charles F. Eyton in 1916 (a former actor, he later became the studio's General Manager), and while there appeared as the star of several early dramas for both Cecil B. DeMille and his brother William C. de Mille, including The Whispering Chorus (1918), We Can't Have Everything (1918), The Tree of Knowledge (1920) and Conrad in Quest of His Youth (1920). Her numerous co-stars included veteran matinée idols (Thomas Meighan, Theodore Roberts, Tyrone Power Sr.), young established stars (Wallace Reid) and western heroes (Roy Stewart). Kathlyn's fair, spunky, coquettish looks grew suddenly grim and matronly by the early 1920s and she moved swiftly into stately dramatic efforts, backing up such celebrity femmes of the day as May McAvoy, Betty Compson, Anita Page, Greta Garbo and even Joan Crawford before the advent of sound. She retired from films in 1935 after only a handful of talkies and, though comebacks were bantered about from time to time in the gossip mill, nothing came of it. A tragic car accident in 1949 resulted in the loss of a leg, ending any chances whatsoever of revitalizing her career. She was confined to a wheelchair for the remainder of her life.
Married and divorced three times, her only child, Victor Hugo Kainer, from her first marriage to import/export businessman Otto Kainer, was born in 1905 but died a young teenager after developing influenza and succumbing to septic poisoning in 1922. After a brief marriage to actor Frank R. Allen, she married Charles Eyton. That marriage ended in 1931. Due to the loss of her leg, Kathlyn became a wheelchair-bound invalid in the last decade of her life. She succumbed to a massive heart attack in her Hollywood apartment on September 23, 1960, at age 81.
The Dutch Desmet Collection at EYE Filmmuseum holds Williams' adventure films Captain Kate (1911), The Rose of Old St. Augustine (1911), and Lost in the Jungle, all by Otis Turner. EYE also holds fragments of The Adventures of Kathlyn. The Desmet films can be found online now at EYE's Desmet Playlist: www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLQr5oaajRw8OvEX7Y5zN0RncTe...
Sources: IMDB (including biography by Gary Brumburgh), English Wikipedia.
Kathlyn Williams
American postcard in the Selig Players series. Photo: Selig Polyscope Co.
Kathlyn Williams (born Kathleen Mabel Williams, May 31, 1879 – September 23, 1960) was an American actress, known for her blonde beauty and daring antics, who performed on stage as well as in early silent film, in particular at the company Selig Polyscope in the early 1910s.
Williams began her career onstage in her hometown of Butte, Montana, where she was sponsored by local copper magnate William A. Clark to study acting in New York City. In 1908 Williams began her film career at the Selig Polyscope Company in Chicago, Illinois and made her first film under the direction of Francis Boggs: On Thanksgiving Day (1908) . By 1910, she was transferred to the company's Los Angeles film studio. A popular star at the Selig Polyscope Company in 1910 (she was at first publicized as "The Selig Girl"), she appeared in assorted jungle adventures for the studio as well as a number of westerns opposite cowboy star Tom Mix. She made history, however, with the very first serial adventure, The Adventures of Kathlyn (1913), which contained a number of wild animals, and it saved the faltering studio from bankruptcy.
The first chapter play with holdover action, Kathlyn's adventure serial was but one in a number of melodramas and jungle adventures teaming the actress with the Selig Polyscope Company's famous stable of wild animals (the nucleus for what would later become the Los Angeles Zoo). Williams proceeded to remain a popular item after being handed the lead in the Selig epic The Spoilers (1914), based upon Rex Beach's 1906 novel. Williams played her signature role of Cherry Marlotte, opposite William Farnum and Tom Santschi.
Once the Selig Studio folded, Kathlyn signed with Paramount Pictures following her marriage to Paramount executive Charles F. Eyton in 1916 (a former actor, he later became the studio's General Manager), and while there appeared as the star of several early dramas for both Cecil B. DeMille and his brother William C. de Mille, including The Whispering Chorus (1918), We Can't Have Everything (1918), The Tree of Knowledge (1920) and Conrad in Quest of His Youth (1920). Her numerous co-stars included veteran matinée idols (Thomas Meighan, Theodore Roberts, Tyrone Power Sr.), young established stars (Wallace Reid) and western heroes (Roy Stewart). Kathlyn's fair, spunky, coquettish looks grew suddenly grim and matronly by the early 1920s and she moved swiftly into stately dramatic efforts, backing up such celebrity femmes of the day as May McAvoy, Betty Compson, Anita Page, Greta Garbo and even Joan Crawford before the advent of sound. She retired from films in 1935 after only a handful of talkies and, though comebacks were bantered about from time to time in the gossip mill, nothing came of it. A tragic car accident in 1949 resulted in the loss of a leg, ending any chances whatsoever of revitalizing her career. She was confined to a wheelchair for the remainder of her life.
Married and divorced three times, her only child, Victor Hugo Kainer, from her first marriage to import/export businessman Otto Kainer, was born in 1905 but died a young teenager after developing influenza and succumbing to septic poisoning in 1922. After a brief marriage to actor Frank R. Allen, she married Charles Eyton. That marriage ended in 1931. Due to the loss of her leg, Kathlyn became a wheelchair-bound invalid in the last decade of her life. She succumbed to a massive heart attack in her Hollywood apartment on September 23, 1960, at age 81.
The Dutch Desmet Collection at EYE Filmmuseum holds Williams' adventure films Captain Kate (1911), The Rose of Old St. Augustine (1911), and Lost in the Jungle, all by Otis Turner. EYE also holds fragments of The Adventures of Kathlyn. The Desmet films can be found online now at EYE's Desmet Playlist: www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLQr5oaajRw8OvEX7Y5zN0RncTe...
Sources: IMDB (including biography by Gary Brumburgh), English Wikipedia.