FLORENCE TURNER

Florence Turner was an actress from the 1880s to the 1920s. She started on stage at the age of 3 in 1888, and she appeared in stage productions throughout her youth, but in 1906, she signed with Vitagraph Studios, one of the very first film studios, and she was in her first movie "Cast Up by the Sea" in 1907. At that time, there was no such thing as a "star", with the exception of the few very famous stage stars who appeared in a single movie. All other actors were not billed in any way (there were no credits on the movies, and their names were not on the posters). But that began to change when moviegoers began asking if theaters had movies with the "Vitagraph Girl", which was how Turner was referred to, and in 1907, she had her salary raised to $22 a week, as recognition of her value to the studio (but she had to also help sew costumes)! But by 1910, her popularity could not be denied, and she began to receive billing on some of her movies (as Florence Lawrence was receiving at Biograph, where she was known as the "Biograph Girl"). She made movies with Wallace Reid and others, but by 1913, she was not as major a star as she had been (she was 28), and she went to London where she began performing in music halls, and also wrote and directed English movies. She entertained the Allied troops during World War I, and in 1918, she returned to the United States, but could not find much work, so she returned to England in 1920, but she found little work there as well, and she returned to Hollywood in 1924. Louis B. Mayer put her on the payroll of MGM in the 1930s, but she only had bit parts. Over her career, she appeared in 160 movies, and she passed away in 1946 at the age of 61, completely forgotten. But in her day, she was one of the great pioneers of the early cinema!