Beatriz Michelena

Biography

Born in Manhattan on a winter’s Tuesday in 1890, Beatriz Michelena stepped onto the stage before she could read a contract. By 1914 she had traded Broadway gaslights for California sunlight, slipping into the title role of Salomy Jane and becoming the first Latina to headline a U.S. feature film. Two years later she co-founded the California Motion Picture Company with her husband, producer George E. Middleton, producing and starring in Salvation Nell and, in 1919, the frontier drama Just Squaw. After the cameras cooled, she sang grand opera across the West and coached a generation of young performers. Michelena’s final curtain fell in San Francisco on 10 October 1942, leaving behind a legacy that flickers every time the lights go down and her image re-appears on the screen.