Born 1883 in Boston, American actress Pauline Frederick made her stage debut at the age of 17 as a chorus girl in the farce The Rogers Brothers at Harvard, but was fired shortly thereafter. She won other small roles on the stage before being discovered by illustrator Harrison Fisher who called her “the purest American beauty.”
With Fisher’s help, Frederick landed more substantial stage roles. Nicknamed “The Girl with the Topaz Eyes”, she was cast in the lead roles in the touring productions of The Little Gray Lady and The Girl in White in 1906. She briefly retired from acting after her first marriage in 1909, but returned to the stage in January 1913 in Joseph and His Brethren.
A well-known stage star, Frederick was already in her 30s when she made her film debut in 1915 as Donna Roma in The Eternal City. She was able to make a successful transition to “talkies” in 1929, and was cast as Joan Crawford’s mother in This Modern Age (1931).
Frederick did not like acting in sound films and returned to Broadway in 1932 in When the Bough Breaks. She would continue the remainder of her career appearing in films and also touring in stage productions in the United States, Europe and Australia.
Frederick died in 1938 from an asthma attack at her aunt’s home in Beverly Hills, aged 55. For her contribution to the motion picture industry, Pauline Frederick has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 7000 Hollywood Boulevard. Take a look at these gorgeous photos to see portraits of young Pauline Frederick in the early 20th century.
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