Lucille La Verne was a renowned stage actress and character player in early films. Despite her illustrious career, she faded into obscurity as the years went by.
Born on November 7, 1872, in Nashville, Tennessee, Lucille La Verne began her stage debut at the local summer stock theater in 1876. She quickly proved herself to be a talented actress and was given better parts as she grew older.
La Verne made her Broadway debut in 1888 with a supporting role in "La Tosca". She went on to perform with various stock companies and toured as Ethel in "Judge Not". Her breakthrough performance was in the 1894 Broadway revival of "As You Like It" with an all-female cast, where she won acclaim for her performance as "Corin".
In the 1894-95 season, La Verne played Patsy in Frank Mayo's Broadway production of Mark Twain's "Pudd'nhead Wilson". She also scored great success by playing the female lead roles in three different acclaimed touring productions over the next three years: "Notre Dame" (1895-96),"Uncle Tom's Cabin" (1897-98),and "Lady Windermere's Fan" (1897-98).
In 1898, La Verne was made manager and director of the newly built Empire Theater in Richmond, VA. She staged five shows every season and received mostly rave reviews. She played everything from leading roles in "Hedda Gabbler" and "Antigone" to character parts such as "Ma Frochard" in "The Two Orphans". She also wrote an adaptation of Charles Dickens' "A Christmas Carol", which she first staged in 1900, and her version was used by several other theaters in the early 1900s.
La Verne stepped down from the Empire Theater at the end of the 1903-04 season to make her London debut in a comic supporting role in the play "Clarice". She again received acclaim and repeated her success in the Broadway production three months later. She remained a staple of the Broadway stage for the next several years, specializing in character parts. She also returned on occasion to stock theaters to act and direct.
La Verne made her film debut in 1914 in "Butterflies and Orange Blossoms". From then on, she would divide her time between film and the stage. She was used in film frequently by D.W. Griffith for various character parts. While she was a versatile actress, her most memorable parts in film were always those of vengeful women.
Her greatest stage triumph was the creation of the Widow Caggle role in the original Broadway production of "Sun Up". After the Broadway engagement, she directed and continued to perform in the US and European tours of the play. She also recreated her role for the film version (Sun-Up, 1925).
In 1927, Broadway's Princess Theater was renamed the Lucille La Verne Theater in her honor, and she was named manager and director. For her first outing as a Broadway producer and director, she chose an original play called "Hot Water", giving herself the role of Jessica Dale. The play received mixed reviews and closed quickly. Later that same season, she launched a revival of "Sun Up", repeating her Widow Caggle role, but it also closed quickly.
Upset, La Verne moved to California for the time being to make more movies. By 1928, she had already established herself as a good character actress in silent films and made the transition easily to talkies. As with her stage career, however, she tended to get typecast as unlikable women, despite her acclaim on Broadway for being able to play almost any character type.
La Verne did not abandon the stage entirely, however, and appeared frequently in regional productions in Los Angeles and San Francisco. In 1936, she returned to Broadway in the lead role of the thriller "Black Widow". Despite the rave reviews she received, the play itself got mixed reviews and closed after just a few performances. It would be her last stage production.
La Verne quickly returned to Hollywood to take on her most famous role. She voiced both the Wicked Queen and her alter ego, the Old Hag in Walt Disney's first animated feature film, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937). She also worked as a live-action model for the artists.
After working on "Snow White", Lucille La Verne retired from acting and became co-owner of a successful nightclub. She died at age 72 of cancer on March 4, 1945, in Culver City, CA.
