HHCE Collection

At the last Haversat  and Ewing Auction (#40), I was elated to be the only bidder on Lot# 70 [Price w/BP $47.20]:

Movie stills from Houdini’s 1919 [1923] film Haldane of the Secret Service. The movie co-starred Gladys Leslie, Jane Jennings, and Charles Fang. Original studio 8×10’s.

I believe this lot was overlooked, since the stills did not include Houdini and one may have even questioned whether these images were from Haldane, unless you compared the outfits the actor’s were wearing in the stills with the movie itself or other stills:

FWIW: Almost all of the production stills for Houdini’s movie, The Grim Game, contain Houdini, unlike Haldane and his other movies. Years ago, I won an original Lila Lee Terror Island production still on eBay that did not include Houdini, nor was it obvious it was from the movie Terror Island unless you were in the know.

Thought it would be fun to do a post on each of the three co-stars depicted in the stills:

• GLADYS LESLIE
• Jane Jennings
• Charles Fang

Today we look at Gladys Leslie via wikipedia:

Though less-remembered than superstars like Mary Pickford, she had a number of starring roles from 1917 to the early 1920s and was one of the young female stars of her day. Leslie began her movie career around 1915, acting in short films produced by the Edison Company. By 1917, she was making films with the Thanhouser Company in New Rochelle, New York, including The Vicar of Wakefield (1917).

The New York Herald”s review of that film dubbed her the “Girl With A Million Dollar Smile,” and caused studio head Edwin Thanhouser to decide she was ready for leading roles.

Soon she was starring in the lead role in 1917″s An Amateur Orphan, but was quickly wooed over to Vitagraph Studios and starred in a number of Vitagraph releases in 1918 and 1919. Leslie and another young female Vitagraph star, Bessie Love, starred in numerous films in young girl-type roles that were popular at the time.

Leslie”s similar appearance to Mary Pickford was also often noted. Leslie”s association with Vitagraph ended by 1920 and she continued to make films with a number of different studios.

Her first non-Vitagraph picture in 1920 was A Child for Sale, directed by Ivan Abramson, where she played a starring role.

And in 1923, she had the lead female role in Haldane of the Secret Service featuring Harry Houdini. Nevertheless, her share of starring roles started to decline, and her last appearance was in 1925. She had always claimed, however, that she would stop making films when her bank account “has mounted high enough.” Leslie was born in New York City on March 5, 1899, and she died (as Gladys Leslie Moore) in Boynton Beach, Florida on October 2, 1976 at age 77.

Along with the new trend of actors doing product endorsements in the early 1920s, Leslie appeared in ads for Tokio Beauty Cream, which was claimed to have given her “magnetic personality.”.

Note: The stills above depict Gladys Leslie as Adele Ormsby wearing a wedding dress in Haldane of the Secret Service. The story opens with Haldane’s (Houdini’s) rescue of Adele from a forced marriage.