Gladys Brockwell

Biography

Gladys Brockwell inherited footlights in her blood: her mother, Billie Brockwell, was already a known player when three-year-old Gladys toddled onstage. By 1913 the Lubin Company in Philadelphia aimed a camera at the teen and launched her shadow life; a stint with D.W. Griffith polished the raw spark, and a contract at Fox kept her working at a pace that left rivals breathless. Talkies arrived and she shifted gear without stalling, still in demand while others faded. Romance trailed two surnames: first came director Robert Broadwell, then a fleeting match with Harry Edwards—once married to vamp Louise Glaum—before she settled into life with advertising man Thomas Stanley Brennan. On 27 June 1929 the pair were climbing a curve near Calabasas when dust and cinders whipped into Brennan’s eyes; the automobile vaulted a 75-foot embankment and overturned. Brennan survived multiple injuries; Brockwell was pinned beneath the chassis, her jaw shattered, skull fractured, body broken. Four blood transfusions could not stop the peritonitis that stalked her hospital room, and she slipped away. A coroner’s jury cleared Brennan, blaming the wind-blown grit that had stolen the wheel from his hands.