Olive Ann Alcorn

Olive Ann was born in Stillwater, Minnesota. She graduated from the Denishawn School of Dancing and Related Arts, and was a member of the Denishawn Players which toured across the nation putting on performances in theaters and auditoriums.

She appeared in her first film Sunnyside in 1919, a film short that starred Charlie Chaplin. She then appeared the same year in the two silent films The Long Arm of Mannister, which starred Henry B. Walthall and Helene Chadwick, and For a Woman's Honor.

In 1923 she appeared in "The Illustrators Show", a collection of one-act plays. She modeled, mostly nude, between 1919 and 1925 for Chatiau Art Studios, and she later appeared uncredited in two more films in 1925. Those productions were The Phantom of the Opera and Up the Ladder. Most of her nude modeling was utilized in the illustration Alta Art Studies Volume I, published by Alta Studios in San Francisco, California and photographed by Xan (Alexander) J. Stark of Alta Studios San Francisco.

Alcorn in the 1920s.

After 1928 little is known about Olive Ann Alcorn, though it is believed she continued her involvement in dance. She married twice, her first husband being Louis H. Scherer (divorced 1925) and her second husband being Harry Singer (married May 22, 1928). She died in Los Angeles, California in 1975 after being diagnosed with anal cancer.

• Olive Ann Alcorn at silentera.com
• Silent Film Star: Olive Ann Alcorn at Noir and Chick Flicks
• The Phantom of the Opera 1925

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Olive Ann Alcorn.

• Alta Art Studies, San Francisco: Alta Studios at the Historical Ziegfeld Group (photographs)