Elsie Ferguson | WatchedThis
Elsie Ferguson
Acting
Biography
From Wikipedia Elsie Louise Ferguson (August 19, 1883 – November 15, 1961) was an American stage and film actress. At the peak of her popularity, several film studios offered her a contract but she declined them all until widely respected New York-based French director, Maurice Tourneur, proposed she appear in the lead role as a sophisticated patrician in his 1917 silent film, Barbary Sheep. She also may have consented to films because she no longer had the protection of her beloved Broadway employers Henry B. Harris, who died on the Titanic in 1912, and Charles Frohman, who perished on the Lusitania in 1915. Producer and director Adolph Zukor then signed her to an 18-film, three-year contract. In 1921, she accepted another contract offer from Paramount Pictures to star in four films to be spread over a two-year period. One of these was the 1921 film entitled Forever in which she starred opposite the leading heartthrob of the day, Wallace Reid. In 1925, she made only one film before returning to the Broadway stage. In 1930 she made her first talkie that would also be her final film, titled Scarlet Pages, which is now preserved in the Library of Congress. Although her voice came across well enough, at age 47, she was well past her prime for fans who wanted to see her as the great youthful beauty she had once been. Elsie Ferguson died in Lawrence Memorial Hospital in New London, Connecticut in 1961.
Filmography Movies
Acting
Scarlet Pages
Nora Mason becomes entangled in a family mix-up of murder and scandal that threatens to ruin her career and entire future; Unless the mother she does not know can find a way to save her.
Barbary Sheep
Arriving with her husband in Arabia, Katherine Wyvrne is ready for romantic times in the exotic Middle East, but her aristocratic husband prefers to be out hunting "Barbara sheep" than fulfilling his wife's desires. She soon meets up with the dashing Arab chief Benchaalai and falls for his charms, but he has a much more sinister goal in mind for her than romance.
Under the Greenwood Tree
Acting on her love of nature and loathing of titled fortune hunters, heiress Mary Hamilton leaves home with her secretary, Peggy Ingledew, to join a band of roving gypsies. One of Mary's suitors, Sir Kenneth Graham, follows the two young women into the woods, dressed in gypsy garb, but when Jack Hutton decides to rid his forested land of gypsies, Sir Kenneth is thrown into jail.
The Spirit That Wins
Elsie gets a letter from her soldier boyfriend that convinces her to sign up as a Red Cross nurse.
The Danger Mark
Scott Seagrave and his sister Geraldine are left the family estate when their wealthy alcoholic father dies. Unfortunately, they've also inherited his problems with alcohol, so they stay at the estate in seclusion. When Geraldine reaches "coming-out" age, Scott throws her a coming-out party. However, one of the men after her hand in marriage, Jack Dysart, tricks her into taking a drink, and she winds up embarrassing and humiliating herself in front of an old family friend, Duane Mallett, whose daughter Sylvia is in love with Jack, even though he's treated her shabbily.
The Lie
Elinor Shale's happiness at being engaged to Gerald Forster is interrupted by the arrival of her sister Lucy, who confesses that she will soon give birth to an illegitimate child. Elinor goes into seclusion with her sister until the baby is born and then tries to find a foster mother. Seeking to estrange Gerald from Elinor so that she may marry him herself, Lucy convinces him that Elinor is the child's mother. After Lucy and Gerald's marriage, Elinor learns of her sister's perfidy and resolves to tell Gerald the truth, but at the sight of their happiness, she relents and returns home.
The Rise of Jenny Cushing
A resourceful young girl struggles to free herself from slum life.
Heart of the Wilds
In the Canadian Northwest, Jen Galbraith lives in a tavern with her brother Val and her father Peter, a bootlegger who sells whiskey to the Indians. Val's friend Pierre resolves to win Jen, even though she is in love with Sergeant Tom Gellatly of the Mounted Police. When Val tries to retrieve some liquor sold illegally by the elder Galbraith to an Indian named Grey Cloud, the Indian insults Jen and Val shoots him. Tom is assigned to track down the murderer, but after he arrives at the tavern, Galbraith and Pierre drug him. Jen delivers the papers he is carrying to police headquarters, but when she discovers that they contain orders to arrest her brother, she shoots Tom to prevent him from going after Val.
The Marriage Price
A tough fellow from out West falls for young woman who is being pursued by a smarmy high-society type.
His Parisian Wife
A beautiful young French girl falls in love with a handsome New Englander, but when they marry and return to his family home, she finds that she does not fit in at all.
Gallery
