Margaret Landis

Margaret Landis
Born(1891-08-31)August 31, 1891
Nashville, Tennessee, U.S.
DiedApril 8, 1981(1981-04-08) (aged 89)
Oakland, California, U.S.
OccupationActress
Spouse(s)Bertram Bracken m. 1919, div. 1924
James Hamilton Couper m. 1930
RelativesCullen Landis (brother)

Margaret Cullen Landis Bracken Couper (August 31, 1890 – April 8, 1981) was an American silent screen actress who appeared in at least 41 films between 1915 and 1931.

Early life and education

Margaret Cullen Landis was born in Nashville, Tennessee, the daughter of Lulan and Margaret (née Cullen) Landis. Her father was a stockbroker[1] and her younger brother, Cullen Landis was a successful silent film director and actor.[2] She attended Ward-Belmont Seminary in Tennessee.[2]

Career

Landis began her film career at Balboa Studios as a dancer in the 1915 film Who Pays. "I've found dancing before the camera entirely different from so-called stage dancing," she told a magazine in 1916. "The space in which one has to work is so much smaller. You have to adapt your steps and go much slower."[3] She took some time off to study art, eventually returning to film work around 1921.[4] She was considered versatile,[5] and was cast in melodramas, comedies, and Westerns.[6] Both Margaret and her brother Cullen left Hollywood soon after the arrival of sound; she had a Tennessee accent,[2] which may have been a factor. Margaret Landis’ last film was the talkie Sheer Luck (1931).[7]

Landis also acted on the stage[8]; on Broadway she appeared in One of the Family in 1926. She had a role in Lombardi, Ltd., when it was produced in California in 1928,[9] and in Australia in 1929.[10]

The Martinache Marriage (1917)

Personal life

Landis married film director Bertram Bracken on April 5, 1919, and they divorced in 1924.[11][12] She married James Hamilton Couper, a World War I veteran who came from a prominent Georgia Coast family, in 1930.[6] Landis had a stroke in 1969,[6] and died in 1981, at the age of 89, in Alameda, California.[13] Her grave is with her second husband's, at the Fort Rosecrans National Cemetery.[14]

Selected filmography

References

  1. ↑ 1900 United States census, via Ancestry.
  2. 1 2 3 "Sister Margaret Makes Progress". Oakland Tribune. 1922-06-18. p. 44. Retrieved 2026-05-05 – via Newspapers.com.
  3. ↑ "Fortune Plays Part in Making Film Star; Margaret Landis Had Never Appeared in Public Before Making Screen Debut". Omaha World-Herald. 1916-03-26. p. 38. Retrieved 2026-05-05 – via Newspapers.com.
  4. 1 2 "Margaret Landis First of Family to Become Actress". Omaha Daily Bee. 1922-08-20. p. 26. Retrieved 2026-05-05 – via Newspapers.com.
  5. ↑ "Margaret Landis Earns New Name; Balboa Film Beauty is Called 'Ever Ready Girl'--Is Always on the Job". The Omaha Daily News. 1917-01-07. p. 29. Retrieved 2026-05-05 – via Newspapers.com.
  6. 1 2 3 Katchmer, George A. (2015). A Biographical Dictionary of Silent Film Western Actors and Actresses. McFarland. pp. 197–198. ISBN 978-1-4766-0905-8. Retrieved 2020-08-23.
  7. 1 2 "Mitchell Completing 'Sheer Luck'". The Film Mercury. 11 (18): 3. 1930-11-28.
  8. ↑ "Margaret Landis in Norma Shearer Film". The Kalamazoo Gazette. 1927-11-27. p. 15. Retrieved 2026-05-05 – via Newspapers.com.
  9. ↑ Schallert, Edwin (1928-08-04). "Carrillo Returns in Famed Role". The Los Angeles Times. p. 21. Retrieved 2026-05-05 – via Newspapers.com.
  10. ↑ "Margaret Cullen-Landis". The Sunday Times. 1929-09-22. p. 26. Retrieved 2026-05-05 – via Newspapers.com.
  11. ↑ "Actress will sue director". The Los Angeles Times. 1923-05-11. p. 17. Retrieved 2020-08-23 – via Newspapers.com.
  12. ↑ "Film Actress Given Divorce from Director". The Los Angeles Times. 1924-12-30. p. 26. Retrieved 2026-05-05 – via Newspapers.com.
  13. ↑ California Death Index listing for Margaret Landis Couper, via Ancestry.
  14. ↑ U.S. Veterans Gravesites, listing for Margaret Landis Couper, via Ancestry.
  15. ↑ "Knickerbocker Features". The Moving Picture World: 1352. 1916-05-20.
  16. ↑ "Margaret Landis and Sis Hopkins at the Colonial". The Fort Wayne Journal Gazette. 1916-04-01. p. 10. Retrieved 2026-05-05 – via Newspapers.com.
  17. ↑ "Current Feature Photoplays Passed in Review: 'The Best Man'". The Dramatic Mirror: 18. 1917-11-03.
  18. ↑ "'The Best Man' at Royal; Margaret Landis, Star". Atlantic City Gazette-Review. 1917-10-18. p. 6. Retrieved 2026-05-05 – via Newspapers.com.
  19. ↑ Jura, Jean-Jacques; Bardin, Rodney Norman II (2015-08-13). Balboa Films: A History and Filmography of the Silent Film Studio. McFarland. p. 233. ISBN 978-1-4766-0901-0.
  20. ↑ Amarilly of Clothes-Line Alley, 1918, retrieved 2026-05-05 – via Internet Archive
  21. ↑ "The Expert Touch". The Sunday Times. 1920-09-19. p. 22. Retrieved 2026-05-05 – via Newspapers.com.
  22. ↑ "Margaret Landis Has the Heroine's Part". The Tennessean. 1923-06-17. p. 23. Retrieved 2026-05-05 – via Newspapers.com.
  23. ↑ "Under the Magnifying Glass". Close-Up: 10. 1922-02-20 – via Internet Archive.
  24. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Screen Opinions (1923-1924). Media History Digital Library. Chicago: James T. Igoe Company. 1923. pp. 5, 35, 48, 58, 90, 109, 140 – via Internet Archive.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: others (link)
  25. ↑ Lorimer Johnston (1923), Cricket on the Hearth (1923), retrieved 2026-05-05, via Internet Archive.
  26. ↑ "Reviews of New Productions". The Film Renter & Moving Picture News: 34, 39. 1924-10-04.
  27. ↑ Pardy, George T. (1924-12-13). "'Trigger Finger' is True to its Title". Exhibitors Daily Review: 56.
  28. ↑ "Round About the Studios". Canadian Moving Picture Digest. 19 (40): 15. 1928-02-04 – via Internet Archive.
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