Florence Roberts (stage actress)

Florence Roberts
Born February 14, 1871
New York City, New York, U.S.
Died July 17, 1927(1927-07-17) (aged 56)
Los Angeles, California, U.S.
Occupation actress
Years active 1889–1925
Spouse(s) Lewis Morrison
Frederick Vogeding
Relatives Theodore Roberts (cousin)

Florence Roberts (February 14, 1871 – July 17, 1927) was an early-twentieth-century American stage actress. She was born in New York but raised in California and had early success in the San Francisco area beginning in 1889. She performed at the Baldwin Theatre and the Alcazar Theatre often playing Shakespearean parts.[1] In 1905 she toured a play called Ana La Mont under the management of John Cort.[2]

She toured plays in the Western United States but seldom to New York. After WW1 she toured South Africa in Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch before returning to the United States where she appeared in a few silent films then retired.[3][4] She died in Los Angeles 1927 after emergency surgery.[5][6]

Personal life

She was the second wife of actor Lewis Morrison, the father of actress Adrienne Morrison, and grandfather of Joan Bennett, Constance Bennett and Barbara Bennett, thus making Roberts step-mother to Adrienne Morrison. Roberts was a cousin to character actor Theodore Roberts with whom she had appeared on the stage. Roberts' greatest stage success was in The Strength of the Weak, performed on Broadway in 1906. That same year Lewis Morrison died and she later remarried, to an actor named Frederick Vogeding.

Later years

In 1912 she was one of the first famous stage stars to appear in a film version of a famous play, in this case an independent production of Sapho which had made actress Olga Nethersole famous in the early 1900s.[7] Roberts appeared in four more silent pictures up to 1925 before dying in 1927.[8]

Other noted actress with the same name

This Florence Roberts is too often confused with another stage and screen actress of the same name who did not start her screen career until 1930 with Mack Sennett.

References

  1. ↑ Bordman, Gerald. The Oxford Companion to American Theatre 2nd Edition, p. 582, ca. 1992.
  2. ↑ Who Was Who in the Theatre:1912-1976 pp. 2040–2041 originally published annually by John Parker; 1976 editions by Gale Research Co.
  3. ↑ Motion Picture World,"Back in Pictures", December 17, 1921, p. 793
  4. ↑ Who Was Who in the Theatre...John Parker
  5. ↑ Motion Picture World, "Obituary" July 30, 1927, p. 317.
  6. ↑ Silent Film Necrology 2nd Edition, p. 448 c.2001 by Eugene Michael Vazzana
  7. ↑ Pictorial History of the Silent Screen by Daniel Blum c. 1953, p. 34.
  8. ↑ Silent Film Necrology by Eugene M. Vazzana 2nd Edition c. 2001, p. 448
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