St. Croix Valley Press: Stillwater native Olive Ann Alcorn appeared with Chaplin, Lon Chaney in silent movies
Bruce Calvert
Stillwater native Olive Ann Alcorn appeared with Chaplin, Lon Chaney
in silent movies
Published:
Thursday, February 5, 2009 12:00 PM CST
STILLWATER — In Stillwater, the performing arts have always been
important. Halls have hosted plays, operas and concerts since this
community was founded. When the motion picture was invented and movies
distributed throughout the nation, Stillwater had not one, not two,
but at least three different theaters playing throughout the
community.
With all the theaters in town, it isn’t a wonder that a young
Stillwater-born girl would try her luck in Los Angeles and become a
movie star.
The father of Olive Ann Alcorn, Harry L. Alcorn, was the son of John
and Emily (Lyman) Alcorn. He was born in Stillwater on July 12, 1872.
He went through school until he went to work in the woods working in
the lumber industry. He married Ella M. Phelps, daughter of Roland
Phelps, and together they had a daughter named Olive Ann on Oct. 2,
1900.
Harry would move out west as a representative of the Weyerhaeuser
interests. His first stop was in Spokane, Wash. and then he moved to
the St. Joe Valley in Idaho as a timber buyer. The family would move
there and later have a son named Rex. Harry would later go to
pharmaceutical school and start the Alcorn Drug Company of St. Maries,
Idaho in 1920.
In the meantime, Olive Ann went through the local schools in St.
Maries and graduated from the Denishawn School of Aesthetic Dancing.
The Denishawn School was started by Ruth St. Denis and her husband Ted
Shawn in 1915. Olive Ann became such an outstanding student that she
was also a part of the Denishawn Players that toured across the United
States putting on performances in major auditoriums and theaters of
the day.
Olive’s dancing skills must have caught the attention of some motion
picture people, for she was hired to perform in her first movie called
“Sunnyside” starring Charlie Chaplin. She portrayed a nymph, along
with several other women, and appeared in Chaplin dream scenes. The
movie was released in theaters in June 1919. She appeared in two other
movies that year, “For a Woman’s Honor” and “The Long Arm of
Mannister” in which she played Lucy Mannister.
By the early 1920s, Alcorn had taken her talents to New York City and
Broadway. In May1923 she performed in “The Illustrators Show,” a
collection of small one-act plays. She performed in the “playet”
called “Murder.” A review of that a month later in the Bulletin of the
Art Center published in New York stated that “the little drama was
acted with fine spirit and dignity, and the oriental dance by Olive
Ann Alcorn which was introduced delighted the audience with its grace
and the beauty of the performer.”
It is not clear if that was the springboard for Alcorn on Broadway,
but just a month later she was in the cast of a play titled “The
Passing Show of 1923” which played at the Winter Garden Theatre on
Broadway from June through September of 1923.
In the 1920s, Alcorn became a model at the Chatiau Art Studios. She
appeared in many poses which were turned into postcards, some of which
depicted her partially or completely nude. She also posed for photos
contained in the nude art instruction book "Alta Art Studies Volume I"
published by the Alta Studios of San Francisco, Calif., with
photography by Xan Smith.
In 1925 she again found her way into the movies. She played a dancer
in the movie “Up the Ladder” released in May 1925. She was in her last
and most famous movie that same year with the legendary actor Lon
Chaney in the classic silent movie “The Phantom of the Opera” which
was released in November.
After 1925, Olive Ann Alcorn disappeared from the archives. There is
no mention of her appearing in any other movies or on the stage in New
York. It is not clear if she married and settled down, or moved back
to Idaho or Minnesota.
What is clear is that a native from Stillwater ventured out to Los
Angeles and found a spot as a pioneer in the motion picture business,
and performed with some of the finest actors of the day.
Brent Peterson can be reached at 651-439-5956.
--
Bruce Calvert
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