Cecil Spooner

Biography

January 29, 1875, delivered Cecil Spooner to the clamor of New York City, and by her teenage years she had already traded schoolbooks for greasepaint. Between 1909 and 1914 she shaped three early film classics—Hansel and Gretel, The Prince and the Pauper, and Nell of the Circus—both directing and stepping in front of the camera, a rarity when the industry itself was still learning to walk. Off-screen, she shared her life with playwright-producer Charles E. Blaney. On May 13, 1953, she drew her final breath in Sherman Oaks, California, closing a career that had helped coax a young art form into maturity.