Age, Biography and Wiki
Who is it? | Actress, Writer, Miscellaneous Crew |
Birth Day | January 22, 1878 |
Birth Place | Windsor, Berkshire, England, United Kingdom |
Age | 141 YEARS OLD |
Died On | 25 April 1955(1955-04-25) (aged 77)\nManhattan, New York City, US |
Birth Sign | Aquarius |
Occupation | actress, screenwriter |
Years active | 1894 – 1949 |
Spouse(s) | Julian L'Estrange (1905–1918) (his death) |
Net worth: $100K - $1M
Biography/Timeline
In 1905, Collier married handsome English actor Julian Boyle (stage name Julian L'Estrange), a sort of Clark Gable before Clark Gable. They performed together for many years until his death in 1918 in New York from influenza. No children were born from the marriage.
Born Laura Constance Hardie in Windsor, Berkshire to Cheetham Agaste Hardie and Eliza Collier, Constance made her stage debut at the age of 3, when she played Fairy Peasblossom in A Midsummer's Night Dream. In 1893, at the age of 15, she joined the Gaiety Girls, the famous dance troupe based at the Gaiety Theatre in London. She was a very beautiful woman and soon became so tall that she towered over all the other Dancers. In addition, she had an enormous personality and considerable determination. On 27 December 1906, Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree's extravagant revival of Antony and Cleopatra opened at His Majesty's Theatre, with Tree as Mark Antony and Constance Collier as Cleopatra, a performance for which she received much critical praise.
Constance Collier was now established as a popular and distinguished Actress. In January 1908, she starred with Beerbohm Tree at His Majesty's Theatre in J. Comyn's new play The Mystery of Edwin Drood, based on Charles Dickens's unfinished novel of the same name. Later that year, she made the first of several tours of the United States. During the second, made with Beerbohm Tree in 1916, she made four silent films, including an uncredited appearance in D. W. Griffith's Intolerance (she can be seen being carried through the entrance to the city in the Babylonian part of the film) and as Lady Macbeth in Tree's first and disastrous film interpretation of Shakespeare's MacBeth.
In the late 1920s Collier relocated to Hollywood where she became a voice coach and Teacher in diction. This was during the tumultuous changeover from silent films to sound and many silent actors with no theatre training were scrambling for lessons.
In 1932 Collier starred as Carlotta Vance in the original production of George S. Kaufman and Edna Ferber's comedy Dinner at Eight. The role was played in the 1933 film version by Marie Dressler.
She appeared in the films Stage Door (1937), Mitchell Leisen's Kitty (1945, a comedic performance as Lady Susan, the drunken aunt of Ray Milland), Perils of Pauline with Betty Hutton, Alfred Hitchcock's Rope (1948) and Otto Preminger's Whirlpool (1949).
She died of natural causes in Manhattan on 25 April 1955 at the age of 77. The marriage to L'Estrange produced no children and she never remarried.
Her most famous pupil was arguably Colleen Moore. Film Historian Kevin Brownlow interviewed Moore for the series Hollywood (1980) about the silent film era. Moore recounted that upon taking voice lessons from a "very famous lady" the Teacher asked "is it true that you make 10,000 dollars a week?" Moore replied, "no ma'am, I make 12,500 a week". The Teacher Moore was referring to was Constance Collier. Collier nevertheless maintained ties to Broadway and would appear in several plays in the 1930s.