Edna Tichenor

Biography

Edna's parents were newspaper man Ira C. Tichenor and his wife Hattie L. Craig, who were married in Illinois in 1882. The Tichenors moved that year to St. Paul, Minnesota, where Ira was the wire editor at a newspaper. Their first child died sometime before 1901. Their second child Edna was born in St. Paul on April 1, 1901. The Tichenors moved to Los Angeles by 1904, where Ira was on the staff of the Los Angeles Times, and served a number of years as real estate editor of the Los Angeles Examiner, and later as financial editor of the Salt Lake City Telegram, before returning to Los Angeles. Edna graduated from Long Beach Polytechnic High School, and married auto mechanic Robert J. Springer circa 1919. Her earliest movie credit is from 1923. Seven of her ten pictures were made at M-G-M, and four of those were for director Tod Browning. She is best remembered today as the dark-eyed companion of Lon Chaney's vampire in London After Midnight (1927), although she was also striking as a carnival sideshow performer posing as a giant spider with a woman's head in The Show (1927). Edna and Robert were divorced by 1930, and she was back living with her parents that year. Her movie acting career did not survive the silent era, and her last known work was as a stand-in for actress Dorothy Burgess in 1934.