Vera McCord (born 1872 — March 3, 1949) was an American stage actress. She also wrote, directed and produced a silent film, The Good-Bad Wife (1921).
Early life Vera McCord was born in Marshalltown, Iowa (the date varies in sources), the daughter of George Brown McCord and Clara Sophrona Smalley McCord."Miss Vera McCord" New York Times (March 4, 1949): 21. "Former Local Girl Now Heads Large Film Corporation" Evening Times-Republican (October 22, 1920): 8. via Newspapers.com Her father was a veteran of the American Civil War, and her mother was said to be a niece of American president Andrew Jackson."Oakland Girl to be Local Star" San Francisco Examiner (October 9, 1913): 6. via Newspapers.com She moved to Oakland, California"Local Actress is Home from East to Visit Parents" San Francisco Chronicle (June 30, 1912): 28. via Newspapers.com with her family as a girl, and attended Snell's Women's Seminary in Berkeley, California.Christina Lane, "Vera McCord" in Jane Gaines, Radha Vatsal, and Monica Dall'Asta, eds. Women Film Pioneers Project, Center for Digital Research and Scholarship, Columbia University Libraries, 2013.
Career Stage McCord began acting during an extended visit to London."Oakland Girl Wins Laurels in England" San Francisco Examiner (July 19, 1903): 25. via Newspapers.com She performed in The President (1902)Brief news item, Town Talk (May 24, 1902): 26. and When We Were Twenty-One (1903), and gave dramatic recitations there."Miss Vera McCord" Baily's Magazine of Sports & Pastimes (January 1903): 72. She appeared in three plays on Broadway: Via Wireless (1908-1909) with Edwin Arden,"Edwin Arden and Vera McCord in 'Via Wireless'" Everybody's Magazine (January 1909): 97. The Flag Lieutenant (1909),"Criterion: The Flag Lieutenant" Theatre Magazine (October 1909): 103. and The Zebra (1911)."Garrick: The Zebra" Theatre Magazine (March 1911): x. Of her 1908 Broadway debut, the New York Star critic wrote that "Miss Vera McCord is a new leading woman with such naturalness and utter absence of the theatric in her method that she scarcely seems to act at all, so realistically does she seem to live the part.""The Editor Sits in Front" New York Star (November 7, 1908): 168.
Film In 1913 she appeared in a silent film, Broncho Billy's Mistake (1913). In 1914, she was in a play in Salt Lake City, Just Like a Woman."Orpheum" Goodwin's Weekly (February 28, 1914): 10-11. In 1916 she made films with dancer and artist Lolita Perine, Mona, the Spirit of the Heights and The Lure of Venus, which included scenes of female nudity, "Venus, clothed only in the crystal atmosphere of Marin County," as one San Francisco newspaper explained. The scenes were cut and the films went unfinished in the legal entanglements that followed."Venus Scene Cut from Film" San Francisco Chronicle (September 19, 1916): 11. via Newspapers.com"Film Actresses Clad in Smiles" Los Angeles Daily Times (September 16, 1916): 4. via Newspapers.com
She formed her own production company in 1917,"Combination Experiment" Los Angeles Times (February 18, 1917): 45. via Newspapers.com and directed and produced one silent film, The Good-Bad Wife (1921), based on "The Wild Fawn", a story by Mary Imlay Taylor."Vera McCord Will Manage Her Own Film Company" Akron Beacon Journal (November 24, 1919): 12. via Newspapers.com The film was considered controversial for its focus on a woman who wears dresses, smokes, and attempts suicide, but still finds a happy resolution in a respectable second marriage. The film's cast also includes two African-American comedians (Pauline Dempsey and J. Wesley Jenkins) and a Chinese actress (Moe Lee).American Film Institute, The American Film Institute Catalog of Motion Pictures Produced in the United States, Part 1 (University of California Press 1997): 307.
Later activities She was founder and president of the National Club for Better Movies."Club Outlines Better-Movie Aims" New York Times (February 28, 1928): 23. Later in life, she taught speech and acting. She bought the rights to the dramatic adaptation of Booth Tarkington's The Man on Horseback in 1940,Catalog of Copyright Entries (Library of Congress Copyright Office 1946): 191."News and Gossip of the Times Square Area" New York Times (September 29, 1940): 119. a show she had performed in San Francisco in 1912."California Girl Hackett Star; Vera McCord in New Play Here" San Francisco Examiner (August 4, 1912): 8. via Newspapers.com
Personal life In 1929 McCord sued a wealthy Chicago banker, Maurice Rothschild, for breach of promise, contending that he promised to marry her and then did not."Actress Sues Rothschild" New York Times (June 15, 1929): 10. "Vera McCord on Stand" New York Times (October 20, 1931): 2. She lost the suit in 1931, after her brother testified for the defense that "his sister was inclined to drink to excess"."Vera McCord Loses Suit" New York Times (October 24, 1931): 20. She denied his claim that she drank too much, saying "I have my brother to blame for everything. I have never been drunk in my life.""Brother Opposes Vera McCord to Aid Defense in Balm Suit" Daily News (October 22, 1931): 505. via Newspapers.com McCord died at New York's Bellevue Hospital in 1949, "after a long illness", according to her New York Times obituary.
References
External links