Maude Fealy

Bio: The daughter of veteran actress/teacher Margaret Fealy, American silent screen actress Maude Fealy (née Hawk) was at one point (1913-1914) positioned as a strong competitor to Mary Pickford. Highly publicized by the Thanhouser Company of New Rochelle, NY, the dark-haired, angelic Fealy fell short of the expectations in the end, however. Although some of her films… More Bio: The daughter of veteran actress/teacher Margaret Fealy, American silent screen actress Maude Fealy (née Hawk) was at one point (1913-1914) positioned as a strong competitor to Mary Pickford. Highly publicized by the Thanhouser Company of New Rochelle, NY, the dark-haired, angelic Fealy fell short of the expectations in the end, however. Although some of her films -- Moths (1913), The Runaway Princess (1914), Frou-Frou (1914) -- were popular enough, audiences simply failed to warm up to the actress' glacial beauty. Fealy and her husband James Durkin left Thanhouser in late 1914, and although she starred for other companies, often in her own screenplays, she was always more appreciated on the legitimate stage. Longtime friend Cecil B. DeMille, whose loyalty to former co-workers was legendary, employed Maude Fealy in most of his sound films, including his last, The Ten Commandments (1956). In her retirement, Fealy told an interviewer: "Actors never give up acting; it gives them up." She died of arteriosclerosis at the Motion Picture Country Hospital in Woodland Hills, CA. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, Rovi