EDNA MARIE FLUGRATH.
1893-1966.

Before becoming a screen actress, Brooklyn-born Flugrath had a number of stage roles and even worked as a ballet dancer with Anna Pavlova's company and the Chicago Opera (Doyle 1993). She joined the Edison company in 1912 and appeared in numerous one- and two-reelers, many directed by her future husband Harold Shaw. Edison films for which both Shaw and Flugrath are credited include The Dam Builder (1912) and a Western titled At Bear Track Gulch (1912). Following Shaw to England in 1913, Flugrath became one of the leading ladies of the London Film Company. In England's Menace (1914, dir. Harold Shaw), for example, her performance as Lady Betty attracted the praise of The Moving Picture World: "Miss Flugrath's wonderfully clever enactment of her difficult part, ? among other things, involves a flight on a motor cycle at top speed." (The Moving Picture World, 12 September 1914, 1519). She left with Shaw for South Africa in 1916 and starred in both De Voortrekkers (1916) and The Rose of Rhodesia (1918). Shaw and Flugrath finally married in Johannesburg on 5 January 1917 (see Appendix C).[2] After their return to England in 1919, she continued to act regularly in films by Shaw, including True Tilda (1920), The Land of Mystery (1920) (shot in Lithuania), and Kipps (1921). Moving to Hollywood in 1923, she joined her two younger sisters, Viola Dana and Shirley Mason, both of whom had become successful screen actresses. However, Flugrath never quite succeeded in establishing herself with the film studios, and reportedly opened a beauty parlour in Hollywood and, later in life, married an oil magnate named Halliburton Houghton (Lussier 1999).