Alice Davenport
actress
- Birth name:
- Alice Shepard
- Born:
- 1864-02-29, New York City, New York, USA
- Died:
- 1936-06-24, Los Angeles, California, USA
- Professions:
- actress
Biography
Alice Davenport traded the footlights for flicker when comedy was still measured in hand-cranked frames. Between 1912 and 1916 she sprinted across Keystone sets, pie in one fist, dignity in the other, turning up in the very first shorts Charlie Chaplin ever faced a camera for. She shared slapstick battlefields with Mabel Normand, swapped pratfalls with a young Marie Dressler, and helped teach the movies how to laugh. Off-screen she married, then untied the knot with, Broadway stalwart Harry Davenport. Their daughter, Dorothy, grew up to wed Paramount’s bronze idol Wallace Reid, sealing the family’s place inside Hollywood’s founding bloodline.
