Margaret Mayo
actress, writer
- Birth name:
- Lillian Elizabeth Slatten
- Born:
- 1882-11-19, Brownsville, Illinois, USA
- Died:
- 1951-02-25, Ossining, New York, USA
- Professions:
- actress, writer
Biography
A Brownsville, Illinois winter welcomed Margaret Mayo on 19 November 1882, and from that small river town she sprinted toward footlights and ink-stained pages. By her mid-thirties she had conquered Broadway and the silent screen, penning the fizzy farce Baby Mine and the big-top romance Polly of the Circus—both released in 1917—before adapting Mary Cholmondeley’s novel into the 1921 hit The Marriage of William Ashe. Between plot twists she stepped onstage herself, trading lines with the era’s sharpest actors and, in 1911, marrying playwright-producer Edgar Selwyn, her collaborator in mischief and melodrama. Nearly three decades after her last curtain call, she drew a final breath on 25 February 1951 in Ossining, New York, leaving behind stories that still crackle with energy.
