Alice Calhoun

Biography

Alice Calhoun, of Cleveland, OH, was one of those rare actresses who didn't get into the film industry through the usual procedure at the time--the stage. In fact, performing on stage held no interest whatsoever for her, but films did. She traveled to New York in the late 1910s to break into the movies, because at that time the East Coast was the center of the motion picture business. Pathe Pictures expressed an interest in the pretty young Cleveland girl, but because she had no acting experience at all, the studio gave her some dramatic training by putting her into several Broadway plays, among them 1917's "How Could You, Caroline?" She was eventually given film roles, and after smaller parts in several pictures, she was given her own starring vehicle, Princess Jones (1921), which was a big success. She appeared in almost 50 films altogether over her career, but only her last, Now I'll Tell (1934), was a talkie. She retired after that one. She died of cancer in Los Angeles in 1966.