Laura La Plante

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Laura La Plante

Laura La Plante
Born Laura La Plant
November 1, 1904(1904-11-01)
St. Louis, Missouri, U.S.
Died October 14, 1996 (aged 91)
Woodland Hills, California, U.S.
Years active 1921 - 1934
Spouse(s) William A. Seiter (1926 - 1934)
Irving Asher (1934 - 1985)

Laura La Plante (born Laura La Plant on November 1, 1904 in St. Louis, Missouri; died October 14, 1996 in Woodland Hills, California) was an American film actress who achieved her greatest success in silent movies.

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[edit] Early acting career

La Plante made her acting debut at the age of 15, and in 1923 was named as one of the years WAMPAS Baby Stars. During the 1920s she appeared in more than sixty films. Among her early film appearances were Big Town Round-Up (1921), with cowboy star Tom Mix, and the serials Perils of the Yukon (1922) and Around the World in Eighteen Days (1923).

The majority of her films (i.e. from 1921 to 1930) were made for Universal Pictures. During this period she was the studio's most popular star, "an accomplishment duplicated only by Deanna Durbin years later." [1] Her best remembered film is arguably the silent classic The Cat and the Canary (1927), although she also achieved acclaim for Skinner's Dress Suit (1926), with Reginald Denny, the part-talkie The Love Trap (1929), directed by William Wyler, and the 1929 part-talkie film version of Show Boat (1929), adapted from the novel of the same name by Edna Ferber.

Although this last film was an adaptation of the novel, and not of the famous musical play that the novel was based on, some songs from the play were tossed into the film as box-office insurance. La Plante, however, did not actually sing in the movie; her singing was dubbed by Eva Olivetti, one of the first instances in which this was done in a motion picture. Quite unusual for its day, a scene of La Plante in Show Boat was broadcast on early British television.[2].

[edit] Transition to "talking films"

The advent of 'talkies' effectively shortened her career. Only in her mid-twenties, La Plante proved to be a quite natural and appealing presence in early talkies but the huge wave of new stars in those years overshadowed her. She made her last appearances for Universal in the Technicolor musical extravaganza King of Jazz (1930). For a while she free-lanced, appearing in God's Gift to Women (Warner Bros., 1931), directed by Michael Curtiz and co-starring Frank Fay, and Arizona (Columbia,1931), co-starring a young John Wayne.

[edit] Later career

La Plante subsequently went to England where she appeared in several "quota quickies", including Man of the Moment (1935), with Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. La Plante was briefly considered to replace Myrna Loy in the Thin Man series when Loy thought about leaving, but Loy stayed as "Nora Charles"[citation needed], and La Plante's career never rebounded.

She retired from the screen in 1935, making only two later films, 1957's Spring Reunion being her last. Her younger sister, actress Violet La Plante, never achieved her sister Laura's level of fame, but, like Laura, was herself named as a "WAMPAS Baby Star", with her "WAMPAS" title coming in 1925. In the mid-1950s, Laura La Plante made a guest appearance (as herself) on Groucho Marx's quiz show You Bet Your Life. She died in Woodland Hills, California from Alzheimer's disease at the age of 91.

[edit] Partial filmography

[edit] Footnotes

  1. ^ Drew, William. Speaking of Silents. Vestal, NJ. Vestal Press, 1989, p. 89. ISBN 0911572813
  2. ^ Kreuger, Miles. Show Boat — The Story of a Classic American Musical. New York, NY. Oxford University Press, 1977, p. 97.

[edit] External links

Persondata
NAME Plante, Laura La
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Plant, Laura La
SHORT DESCRIPTION Actor
DATE OF BIRTH 1904-11-1
PLACE OF BIRTH St. Louis, Missouri, U.S.
DATE OF DEATH 1996-10-14
PLACE OF DEATH Woodland Hills, California, U.S.