Ollie Kirby

Biography

Ollie Kirby arrived in the world on 26 September 1886, in the gas-lit bustle of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. By her late twenties she had traded cobblestones for klieg lights, stepping before the camera just as Hollywood was learning to talk in pictures. Over the next decade she sailed through serials and one-reelers, most memorably dodging danger in The Social Pirates (1916), unraveling midnight intrigues in Midnight Secrets (1924), and trading punches in the baseball comedy Getting 'Em Right (1925). Off-screen she teamed up with fellow daredevil George Larkin; the two swapped vows between shoots. After the final curtain call she settled in sun-washed Glendale, California, where she died on 7 October 1964, leaving behind a flickering legacy of pearl-toned nitrate and swift-footed adventure.