Cunard, Grace (c. 1891–1967)

views updated

Cunard, Grace (c. 1891–1967)

American actress, writer, and filmmaker. Born Harriet Mildred Jeffries in Columbus, Ohio, on April 8, 1891 (some sources cite 1893); died on January 19, 1967, in the Motion Picture Home in Woodland Hills, California; sister of Myna Seymour (Cunard), an actress; married actor Joe Moore (d. 1926, divorced); married Jack Shannon, real name Tyler (an actor/stuntman), in 1925; no children.

Filmography:

The Duke's Plan (1910); Dante's Inferno (1912); The She Wolf (1913); The Madonna of Slums (1913); Bride of Mystery (1914); Lady Raffles (1914); Lucille Love (1914); (serial) Girl of Mystery (1914); The Mysterious Leopard Lady (1914); The Mysterious Rose (1914); (serial) The Broken Coin (1915); The Campbells Are Coming (1915); The Doorway of Destruction (1915); The Hidden City (1915); Nabbed (1915); One Kind of Friend (1915); The Bandit's Wager (1916); Behind the Mask (1916); Brennon O'the Moor (1916); Born of the People (1916); The Elusive Enemy (1916); Her Better Self (1916); Her Sister's Sin (1916); Heroine of San Juan (1916); His Majesty Dick Turpin (1916); Lady Raffles Returns (1916); The Madcap Queen of Crona (1916); Phantom Island (1916); (serial) Peg O'the Ring (1916); The Powder Trail (1916); The Princely Bandit (1916); (serial) The Purple Mask (1916); The Sham Reality (1916); The Strong Arm Squad (1916); Circus Sarah (1917); Her Western Adventure (1917); In Treason's Grasp (1917); The Puzzle Woman (1917); Society's Driftwood (1917); True to Their Colors (1917); Unmasked (1917); The Spawn (1918); The Daughter of Law (1920); The Man Hater (1920); The Woman of Mystery (1920); The Girl in the Taxi (1921); Her Western Adventure (1921); (serial) A Dangerous Adventure (1922); The Kiss Barrier (1925); Outwitted (1925); Exclusive Rights (1926); (serial) Fighting with Buffalo Bill (1926); (serial) The Winking Idol (1926); (serial) Blake of Scotland Yard (1927); The Denver Dude (1927); (serial) The Return of the Riddle Rider (1927); The Rest Cure (1927); (serial) The Haunted Island (1928); The Masked Angel (1928); The Price of Fear (1928); The Ace of Scotland Yard (1929); A Lady Surrenders (1930); Ex-Bad Boy (1931); Resurrection (1931); The Bride of Frankenstein (1935).

When Harriet Jeffries was a child, traveling by ship was the only way to see the world. She must have had the wanderlust at an early age, because after her stage debut at 13 she took the stage name "Grace Cunard," naming herself after the two most glamorous ocean-liners of the day—the "Grace" and the "Cunard." Accompanied by her mother, she hired on with a traveling stock company and toured the United States.

By 1910, the 17-year-old Cunard found herself unemployed. Desperate to continue her budding acting career, she accepted a job in "moving pictures," a choice "legitimate" actresses would never consider. Her first job was for the infamous D.W. Griffith in a movie called The Duke's Plan (1910). Though Cunard was an immediate success, she did not like working for the mercurial Griffith. Whether or not she had already started formulating her own ideas about filmmaking is unclear, but by 1915 she had formed a production company with actor-director Francis Ford, brother of the famed director, John Ford. On their earliest efforts, Cunard is credited as writer and actress; Ford is credited as director and actor. Soon, Cunard took a co-director credit and finally a director credit as well.

Cunard and Ford were best known for their action-adventure serials that were popular from 1915–1925. Similar to what is known to modern-day audiences as "episodic" television, different episodes of serials were shown each week at the local movie house. The most popular storylines of that period were female action-adventure dramas nicknamed "cliff-hangers." Each week as heroine, Cunard had to outwit a nefarious villain in order to save a hapless victim from imminent peril. Just 5′4″ with auburn hair and green eyes, she was athletic and fearless, and insisted on doing her own stunts though it occasionally landed her in the hospital.

In the movies that Cunard directed and starred, women were never the stereotypical victims seen most often in silent films directed by men. In Lady Raffles, she appears as a seductive jewel thief with a cavalier attitude, who eludes capture by fleeing on an elephant. In The Purple Mask, as a Robin Hood type, she successfully outmaneuvers the detective who is determined to end her career. One of her most interesting roles came in a 1929 science-fiction film, The Last Man on Earth. Cunard portrays a gangster who kidnaps the last male on the planet and holds him for ransom from an all-woman government.

Cunard's films made clear early on that women were credible in action-adventure roles and, like her contemporaries Lois Weber, Ida May Park , and Jeanie MacPherson , Grace Cunard proved women could be as successful behind the camera as in front of it.