E
Edith Diestel
actress
- Birth name:
- Edith M. Simmons
- Born:
- 1877, New York City, New York, USA
- Died:
- 1947-11-08, Mount Vernon, New York, USA
- Professions:
- actress
Biography
Born beneath the electric glow of 1877 New York City, Edith Diestel stepped onto the boards when movies were still learning to talk. Between 1913 and 1916 she slipped into three very different skins: the brisk comedy of A Gentleman’s Gentleman, the apocalyptic melodrama of The Flaming Sword, and the storm-tossed monarchy of King Lear. Off-screen she collected two surnames—first Charles A. Bird, then Emil Diestel—before settling into a quieter third act upstate. She drew her final breath on 8 November 1947 in Mount Vernon, New York, closing the curtain on a life that had witnessed the world shift from gaslight to klieg lights.
