Teddy Sampson
actress
- Birth name:
- Nora Sampson
- Born:
- 1898-08-08, New York City, New York, USA
- Died:
- 1970-11-24, Woodland Hills, Los Angeles, California, USA
- Professions:
- actress
Biography
A Bronx girl who beat the odds on the day the 19th century was gasping its last—8 August 1898—Theodora “Teddy” Sampson vaulted from Manhattan sidewalks into klieg-light immortality. Before talkies stole the spotlight, she flickered across the country’s screens: first as the wide-eyed mountain girl in Hickory Hiram (1918), then as the spirited bride in Her American Husband (same year), and finally holding her own opposite the barrel-chested villainy of The Bad Man (1923). Off-camera she swapped vows with silent-era scene-stealer Ford Sterling, trading slapstick for stolen Sunday mornings. Half a century later, on 24 November 1970, the California sun set on her at Woodland Hills, closing the curtain on a life that had leapt from nickelodeon smoke to Hollywood legend without ever raising its voice.
