Mace Greenleaf

Mace Greanleaf
Born December 8, 1872
Dixfield, Maine, USA
Died March 23, 1912 (aged 39)
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA
Occupation Stage and Screen Actor

Mace Greenleaf (December 8, 1872 – March 23, 1912) was an American stage and silent film actor.

Early life

Mace Greenleaf was born at Dixfield, Maine the only child of Charles Ward and Mary (née Eustis) Greenleaf. Charles Greenleaf was a native of Massachusetts and supported his family employed as a surveyor.[1][2]

Career

Greenleaf’s first important role came in the late 1890s playing Herbert, the King’s Forrester in stock productions of The Prisoner of Zenda and its companion piece, Rupert of Hentzau [3][4] In 1898 he played Mr. Hunston in Sir Arthur Wing Pinero’s play Trelawny of the "Wells" that opened at the Lyceum Theatre in New York on November 22, 1898. His next Broadway performance was in The Pride of Jennico with James K. Hackett and Bertha Galland staged at the Criterion Theatre in 1900.[5] Later that year he played Myrtle May’s lover in a road production of The Parish Priest with Daniel Sully.[6] Mace Greenleaf over the first decade of the new century played leading roles in stock companies on both coasts and Middle America. He returned to Broadway in 1905 to play the Prince of Wales in the romantic musical, Edmond Burke.[7] In 1911 he joined the fledgling motion picture industry where he would appear in at least eighteen films over the last year or so of his life.[8]

Marriage

In September, 1906 Greenleaf married Lucy (aka Lucie) Banning in Santa Ana, California. Banning came from a very wealthy family, they owned Catalina Island,[9] and was remembered at the time for an affair she had while married to her first husband that ended with the suicide of her lover.[10][11] Lucy Banning was known as something of a free spirit and often scandalized “polite society” with the number of men in her life. She left Greenleaf in 1910 for the son of a prominent judge.[12][13]

Death

Mace Greenleaf died on March 23, 1912, aged 39, while in Philadelphia after a brief battle with pneumonia.[14]

Sources

  1. ↑ The Players by Players (Organization) 1912 pg. 83
  2. ↑ 1900 US Census Records
  3. ↑ Bangor Daily Whig & Courier, (Bangor, ME) Tuesday, December 27, 1898; pg. 6
  4. ↑ Plays of the present By John Bouvé Clapp, Edwin Francis Edgett 1900 pg. 235
  5. ↑ Mace Greenleaf IBDb.com
  6. ↑ The Theatrical World - Portsmouth Herald (Portsmouth, New Hampshire), October 23, 1900 | Pg. 3
  7. ↑ Mace Greenleaf IBDb.com
  8. ↑ Mace Greenleaf IMDb.com
  9. ↑ Divorce Suit is Stopped by Death – The Oakland Tribune – March 26, 1912 pg. 8
  10. ↑ She Has Wed Once Again - The Oakland Tribune – September 21, 1906 pg. 10
  11. ↑ Rich Woman Marries Actor Writes Play in Which to Appear - The Oakland Tribune - July 1, 1907 pg. 3
  12. ↑ Wife Refuses to Return Home – The Oakland Tribune November 1, 1910 pg. 14
  13. ↑ Lucy Banning Tells of Love For Japanese – The Oakland Tribune – April 7, 1928 pg. 1
  14. ↑ Divorce Suit is Stopped by Death – The Oakland Tribune – March 26, 1912 pg. 8