Louise Closser Hale

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Louise Closser Hale

Louise Closser Hale (born October 13, 1872 in Chicago , Illinois , † July 26, 1933 in Los Angeles , California ) was an American theater and film actress, playwright and author.

life and career

Louise Closser Hale was born in Chicago as the daughter of the wealthy grain merchant Joseph A. Closser (1844-1897) and his wife Louise (1847-1932). Although her family didn't think much of her plans, she still studied acting at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts and Emerson College in Boston. Closser made her acting debut in 1894, and six years later she first appeared on Broadway . Even as a young woman, the not necessarily good-looking Closser played mostly women of advanced age: Her breakthrough came in 1903 with a character role as an old-school secretary in the Broadway production of George Bernhard Shaw's Candida . She became a character actress popular with both critics and audiences, and has taken on major roles in plays such as Eugene O'Neill's Beyond the Horizon (1920), Zona Gale's Miss Lulu Bett (1922), and as Effie Floud in the world premiere of Ruggles of Red Gap . In total, Closser Hale took on a little over thirty roles in various Broadway productions over a period of around thirty years.

In 1899 she married the actor Walter Hale and took his last name in addition to her own. Her husband died of cancer in 1917 at the age of 48; the marriage had remained childless. In addition to her stage appearances, Closser Hale was also a successful author of novels (such as The Actress of 1909), plays, travelogues and other books.

Closser Hale had made her film debut in 1919, but did not make any other films after that. But with the beginning of the talkies era in the late 1920s, when experienced theater actors with speaking experience were sought, the actress turned to Hollywood. In the film she played as a supporting actress mostly comedic characters like high society women, aristocrats or old maids. In addition to Marlene Dietrich , she starred in Josef von Sternberg's drama Shanghai-Express (1932) as a rich lady who wants to smuggle her dog on board a train; she also portrayed Billie Burke's down-to-earth and dry-humored cousin in Dinner at eight (1933) . A far more negative role was the dominant Miss Hallam in Another Language , who makes life hell for her daughter-in-law, played by Helen Hayes .

When the popular Marie Dressler was terminally ill in 1933 , MGM boss Louis B. Mayer was supposedly already hoping to build up the "Dressler-like" Louise Closser Hale as her successor. But 60-year-old Closser Hale died unexpectedly in the summer of 1933 of a heart attack that she had suffered after a circulatory collapse while shopping in Los Angeles. By the year she died, she had appeared in half a dozen films alone. She left behind what was then a sizable fortune of over $ 60,000.

Filmography (selection)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Mothers, Mammies and Old Maids: Twenty-Five Character Actresses of Golden Era of Hollywood by Axel Nissen
  2. ↑ Mothers, Mammies and Old Maids: Twenty-Five Character Actresses of Golden Era of Hollywood by Axel Nissen
  3. ↑ Louise Closser Hale on "A Portal to Bohemia"
  4. ↑ Louise Closser Hale Allmovie
  5. ↑ Mothers, Mammies and Old Maids: Twenty-Five Character Actresses of Golden Era of Hollywood by Axel Nissen
  6. ↑ Mothers, Mammies and Old Maids: Twenty-Five Character Actresses of Golden Era of Hollywood by Axel Nissen
personal data
SURNAME Hale, Louise Closser
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American theater and film actress, playwright and author
DATE OF BIRTH October 13, 1872
PLACE OF BIRTH Chicago , Illinois
DATE OF DEATH July 26, 1933
Place of death Los Angeles , California