Kate Bruce

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Kate Bruce, 1921
Kate Bruce and Richard Barthelmess in Far East , 1920
Kate Bruce and Richard Barthelmess in Far in the East , colored lobby card, 1920
Kate Bruce and Thomas Meighan in The City of Silent Men , 1921

Kate “Brucie” Bruce , pseudonym Phyllis Forde (born February 17, 1860 in Columbus , Indiana ; died April 2, 1946 in New York , New York ), was an American actress of the silent film era . She starred in almost 300 films between 1908 and 1931.

Career

Little is known about Kate Bruce's pre-film life. According to Lillian Gish , she should have worked as a nurse in a lunatic asylum . She is also certified as a member of a traveling cast that has performed throughout the eastern United States. The only proven for Bruce theater commitment is to the May 4, 1903 a role in April 13 The Starbucks of Opie Read that during this period 24 times in Daly's Theater on Broadway was performed. At times, but not in the film business, Bruce used the pseudonym Phyllis Forde . It was not until 1908, at the age of 48, that she began her film career with the Biograph Company and its director David Wark Griffith .

Kate Bruce's first film roles were Griffith's The Fight for Freedom in July 1908 and The Greaser's Gauntlet the following month . This was followed by almost 300 silent film roles, almost always in the role of mother and until 1913 almost exclusively under the director Griffith.

In a compilation of the biographies of 100 actors and actresses of the (American) silent film , the film historian Anthony Slide calls Kate Bruce the mother of all mothers . The Victorian world of emotions and morals of David Wark Griffith were marked by a high esteem for the mother role, and in most of his films only Kate Bruce could meet his standards.

The American film magazine Photoplay characterized Kate Bruce as an actress, in whose portrayal of mother roles everyone can find some trait of their own mother. In principle, she is the forgiving, generous, patient and trusting mother who, under the burdens and worries of a stressful life, has turned gray before time. Whatever happens, she remains unwavering in her faith, she is good-natured, generous and exudes a tender kindness that only a loving mother possesses. A mother like Kate Bruce is not sentimental, but neither is it malicious or selfish. She is never aggressive, but she is superior nonetheless - through her simple, direct and sometimes tragic demeanor. In the role of a mother in Far East , Kate Bruce was perfect.

Bruce's last film was Der Kampf ( The Struggle ) in 1931 , her only sound film and also for Griffith the farewell to the film business.

Private life

Blanche Sweet remembered Bruce as a lovely person, very quiet, very calm , and rather shy and silent. It is believed that Bruce was never married and had no children. British film historian Anthony Slide thinks it likely that she was a lesbian and refers to Linda Arvidson's memories When the Movies Were Young , which he describes as a silent film version of Kenneth Anger's Hollywood Babylon . Arvidson made a variety of suggestions about the sexual behavior of the Biograph Company actors. She wrote about Sainty Brucie that she had all the female heads of sufficient importance alternately in her lap or on her shoulders ( pillowed in her lap or on her shoulder by turns, all the feminine heads of sufficient importance ).

Kate Bruce was a close friend of Lillian Gish and her sister Dorothy Gish . After Bruce's retirement from the movie business, they both looked after her and also paid for her small hotel room on Madison Avenue in Manhattan , New York City . Lillian's housemaid came by once a week to check on things, and two or three times a week Bruce came to see Lillian and her mother Mary Gish for dinner, after which Kate and Mary did puzzles . Bruce died in April 1946 while Lillian Gish was in Europe. Dorothy organized the funeral but was unable to identify any relatives. When the sisters looked through the Bruce estate, they found nothing of value. She had kept all the gifts from the Gishs, however, even a black evening dress that they had given her a quarter of a century earlier for the premiere of Far in the East was moth-eaten in a suitcase.

Filmography (selection)

Web links

Commons : Kate Bruce  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d Anthony Slide : Silent Players. A Biographical and Autobiographical Study of 100 Silent film Actors and Actresses . University Press of Kentucky, Lexington 2002, ISBN 0-8131-2249-X , pp. 54-56.
  2. ↑ Denise Lowe: An Encyclopedic Dictionary of Women in Early American Films: 1895-1930 . Routledge, New York and Oxon 2013, ISBN 978-1-315-78592-9 , Lemma “Bruce, Kate”.
  3. ↑ Kate Bruce in the Internet Broadway Database , accessed January 16, 2019.
  4. ↑ Kate Bruce in the Internet Movie Database , accessed January 16, 2019.
  5. ↑ Mother O 'Mine . In: Photoplay , December 1921, Volume XXI, No. 1, p. 20, digitizedhttp: //vorlage_digitalisat.test/1%3D~GB%3D~IA%3Dphodec21chic~MDZ%3D%0A~SZ%3D622~ double-sided%3D~LT%3D~PUR%3D .
personal data
SURNAME Bruce, Kate
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Brucie (nickname); Forde, Phyllis (pseudonym)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American actress of the silent film era
DATE OF BIRTH February 17, 1860
PLACE OF BIRTH Columbus , Indiana
DATE OF DEATH April 2, 1946
Place of death New York , New York