Rita Stanwood

Biography

Salem, Massachusetts, greeted Rita Stanwood with winter’s chill on 15 January 1888, and the stage lights soon replaced candle glow in her life. She slipped into flickering silence as the terrified heroine of The Ghost Breaker (1914), galloped across desert plains in The Deserter (1916), and traded fire for grit a generation later in Mary Burns, Fugitive (1935). Off-camera, she shared her days—and headlines—with fellow player H.B. Warner. The final curtain fell on 15 November 1961 in Hollywood, California, but the celluloid keeps her pulse alive.