Marie Hubert Frohman

Biography

Born in the humming heart of Philadelphia on 19 August 1858, Marie Hubert grew up amid gaslight and playbills, a city thrumming with footlights and ambition. She learned to spin stories before she could vote, and by 1915 she had commandeered the director’s chair for The Fairy and the Waif, shaping one of early cinema’s most delicate fantasies. Off-set she shared her life with fellow theatre maven Gustave Frohman, their union a private duet played against the clang of Broadway’s brass. Her final curtain fell on 4 July 1939 in the quiet suburb of Bronxville, New York, but the flicker she kindled on-screen still dances frame by frame.