Eugenia Gilbert

Eugenia Gilbert
Gilbert in 1924
BornNovember 18, 1902
DiedDecember 9, 1978 (aged 76)
Santa Monica, California
Other nameEugenie Gilbert
OccupationActress
Years active1920–1929 (film)

Eugenia Gilbert (born Genevieve May Knapp, November 18, 1902 – December 9, 1978) was an American film actress of the 1920s. She appeared as a leading lady in a number of western features.[1], serials, and short comedies. In at least three films, she was billed as Eugenie Gilbert.[2]

Biography

Gilbert was the daughter of William B. Knapp and Nellie Eugenia (Gilbert) Knapp.[3] She attended schools in South Orange, New Jersey, and New York City[2] and the Marlborough School in Los Angeles.[4] She won 14 beauty contests, one of which was a national contest sponsored by Rudolph Valentino, which led him to consider her "the most beautiful girl in America."[5]

She adopted the professional name of Eugenia Gilbert, taking her mother's middle and maiden names. In 1924, Gilbert had her first role as leading lady in a film, after having smaller parts in westerns and comedies.[2] In 1925, she signed a contract with Mack Sennett to act exclusively in his comedy films "for the next several years",[6] but her stay was short. She signed with rival comedy producer Hal Roach and worked opposite comedy star Charley Chase off and on through 1929.

Eugenia Gilbert became the leading lady to cowboy stars, appearing in several features starring Leo Maloney or Hoot Gibson. The low-budget Weiss Bros. studio co-starred her in two adventure serials, Perils of the Jungle (1927) opposite Frank Merrill, and The Mysterious Airman (1928) opposite Walter Miller.

The arrival of talking pictures slowed the production of action and western subjects, with new emphasis on spoken dialogue. Gilbert's only talking picture was Universal's Courtin' Trouble (1929), starring Hoot Gibson and featuring Eugenia Gilbert as "Calamity June".[7] In November 1930 she was still listed among the clients of agents Harry Gould and Mannie Price,[8] and for many years Film Daily published her name every November in its "Birthday Greetings" section, but Eugenia Gilbert had already quit the movies. She was last seen on the screen in 1945, when her old boss Louis Weiss and director Harry Fraser incorporated footage from her 1927 serial Perils of the Jungle into a new jungle thriller, The White Gorilla.[9]

Filmography

References

  1. ↑ Rainey p. 150.
  2. 1 2 3 Katchmer, George A. (2009). A Biographical Dictionary of Silent Film Western Actors and Actresses. McFarland. p. 132. ISBN 9781476609058. Retrieved October 23, 2018.
  3. ↑ New Jersey, U.S., Birth Index, 1848-1878, 1901-1929
  4. ↑ "Beauty Is Little Aid to Actress". The Los Angeles Times. California, Los Angeles. June 17, 1924. p. 29. Retrieved October 23, 2018 – via Newspapers.com. Open access icon
  5. ↑ "Filmograms". The Cincinnati Enquirer. Ohio, Cincinnati. July 13, 1924. p. 58. Retrieved October 23, 2018 – via Newspapers.com. Open access icon
  6. ↑ "Eugenia Gilbert Signs". The Los Angeles Times. California, Los Angeles. April 16, 1925. p. 25. Retrieved October 23, 2018 – via Newspapers.com. Open access icon
  7. ↑ Photoplay, March 1930, p. 138.
  8. ↑ General Directory of Artists-Writers-Directors, November 1930, p. 344.
  9. ↑ Harry L. Fraser, I Went That-a-Way, Scarecrow Press, 1990, pp. 129-131. ISBN 978-0-8108-2340-2

Bibliography

  • Buck Rainey. Sweethearts of the Sage: Biographies and Filmographies of 258 Actresses Appearing in Western Movies. McFarland & Company, 1992.
Wikimedia Commons logo
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Eugenia Gilbert.
This page is issued from Wikipedia. The text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 unless otherwise noted. Additional terms may apply for the media files.