Virginia Pearson

Virginia Pearson

Born: March 7, 1886
Died: June 6, 1958
in Anchorage, Kentucky, USA
From Wikipedia

Virginia Belle Pearson (March 7, 1886 - June 6, 1958) was an American stage and film actress. She made fifty-one films in a career which extended from 1910 until 1932.

Born in Anchorage, Kentucky, Pearson worked for a brief time as an assistant in the public library in Louisville, Kentucky after completing school. Pearson trained in the tradition of the stars of the American stage, and played in stock productions in Washington, D.C. and New York City. In New York she played the heroine in Hypocrisy, a story which laid bare "the shame of society." She was promoted by William Fox of Fox Film Corporation for the same kind of strong vamp parts as those played by Theda Bara. Among her movies is Blazing Love (1916), Wildness of Youth (1922), The Vital Question (1916), Sister Against Sister (1917), The Red Kimona (1925), Wizard of Oz (1925), and The Phantom of the Opera (1925).

In 1916 Pearson and her husband, movie actor Sheldon Lewis, severed their ties with the Virginia Pearson Producing Company. The couple affiliated themselves with the Independent Productions Company, capitalized at $1,000,000. In 1924 the couple were forced to declare bankruptcy. In 1928, Pearson was legally divorced from Lewis. At the time, it was considered bad box office for screen actresses to be married. However the two remained constant companions., and resided for many years at the old Hollywood Hotel. Later they lived at the Motion Picture Country Hom.

Virginia Pearson died of uremic poisoning in Hollywood on June 6, 1958 nearly a month to the day after Sheldon Lewis. She was 72. Funeral services were held at the Pierce Brothers Hollywood Chapel. She was buried with an unmarked grave in Valhalla Memorial Park Cemetery.

Movies for Virginia Pearson...

Back Street
Title: Back Street
Character: Minor Role (uncredited)
Released: August 4, 1932
Type: Movie
A woman's love for and devotion to a married man results in her being relegated to the "back streets" of his life.
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The Primrose Path
Title: The Primrose Path
Character: Marie Randeau
Released: January 25, 1931
Type: Movie
A naive high school girl falls for the school's star football player. Her ignorance in the matters of sex leads to pregnancy and heartbreak.
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Smilin' Guns
Title: Smilin' Guns
Character: Mrs. van Smythe
Released: March 31, 1929
Type: Movie
After "Dirty Neck" Jack Purvin sees a newspaper photograph of Eastern socialite Helen Van Smythe, soon to arrive at the nearby dude ranch, he hightails it to San Francisco in order to learn how to become a gentleman. Returning to the ranch, the new but not necessarily improved Jack shreds his dandified image in order to save Helen from a lecherous but decidedly fake count and her mother from a jewel thief.
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The Power of Silence
Title: The Power of Silence
Character: Mrs. Wright
Released: October 20, 1928
Type: Movie
Would An Innocent Woman Keep Silent? Would the fear of a murderer's death shake her from the Sphinx-like silence that shielded- who?
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The Actress
Title: The Actress
Character: Mrs. Telfer
Released: April 27, 1928
Type: Movie
A theatrical troupe from the west end of London loses its leading lady when she goes off to marry a rich young man from the other side of town. The rest of the play deals with the budding romance and trials and tribulations of their love, as well as the changing face of late-19th-century theatre.
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What Price Beauty?
Title: What Price Beauty?
Character: Mary
Released: January 22, 1928
Type: Movie
Wholesome country girl Mary works at the House of Magic beauty salon and pines for the owner Clay. Unfortunately Clay has also been targeted by experienced vamp Rita.
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Driven from Home
Title: Driven from Home
Released: January 15, 1927
Type: Movie
A father throws his daughter out of the house when she marries a man he doesn't approve of. In addition, she also finds herself being lusted after by the sinister owner of an opium den.
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Lucky Fool
Title: Lucky Fool
Released: January 1, 1927
Type: Movie
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Mum's the Word
Title: Mum's the Word
Character: The Wife (uncredited)
Released: May 9, 1926
Type: Movie
A widow has married rich, but didn't tell her husband about her son. And he's coming for a surprise visit. To hide his identity he is introduced as the husband's new valet, but still the husband has some doubts about a few strange scenes. And during the night, when the son tries to visit his mother, the husband always starts interfering, but the new maid also behaves strangely, trying to sneak into the husband's room...
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Silence
Title: Silence
Character: Millie Burke
Released: April 25, 1926
Type: Movie
Jim Warren, a crook, is married to Norma, but there was a flaw in their marriage papers and he must marry her again to protect their unborn child. He returns home and gives her some money but it has been stolen and she is sent to jail as an accomplice. To get her out, he is forced to marry another woman and Norma, thinking Jim has deserted her marries Phil Powers, and gives birth to Jim's daughter. Years later, Jim meets his daughter in the midst of a blackmail scheme against Norma over her earlier imprisonment. The daughter shoots the blackmailer, and Jim takes the blame.
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Lightning Hutch
Title: Lightning Hutch
Character: Janet Thornwall
Released: April 18, 1926
Type: Movie
A scientist invents a poison gas; the villain and his gang will do anything to get the formula; our hero, "Lightning Hutch", is sent to save the scientist, the scientist's beautiful daughter, and the formula.
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The Red Kimona
Title: The Red Kimona
Character: Mrs. Beverly Fontaine
Released: November 16, 1925
Type: Movie
A woman is abandoned by her lover and prostitution is the only way she has to survive.
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The Phantom of the Opera
Title: The Phantom of the Opera
Character: Carlotta
Released: September 22, 1925
Type: Movie
The deformed Phantom who haunts the Paris Opera House causes murder and mayhem in an attempt to make the woman he loves a star.
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The Wizard of Oz
Title: The Wizard of Oz
Character: Lady Vishuss
Released: February 12, 1925
Type: Movie
A farm girl learns she is a princess and is swept away by a tornado to the land of Oz.
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Impossible Catherine
Title: Impossible Catherine
Character: Catherine Kimberly
Released: October 5, 1919
Type: Movie
The head of the Kimberly household rules it with an iron fist. Unfortunately the head of the Kimberly household isn't Grant (J.H. Gilmore), the father and wealthy Wall Street magnate -- it's his spoiled, headstrong daughter Catherine (Virginia Pearson). She is so willful that she has earned the name "Impossible Catherine," and her whole focus in life is to prove women's superiority over the masculine gender.
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Buchanan's Wife
Title: Buchanan's Wife
Character: Beatrix Buchanan
Released: December 1, 1918
Type: Movie
Beatrix marries Herbert Buchanan while under his hypnotic trance, although she really loves Harry Faring. When Herbert learns of his wife's love for Harry, he disappears with Kansas, a tramp. Soon after, Beatrix falsely identifies a body at the morgue as her husband's and marries Harry, but when Herbert, still alive though ill and demented, appears at her door with Kansas, she confesses her lie to her new husband. Kansas' plans to blackmail Beatrix are ruined when Harry visits the two tramps, and Herbert, now dying of tuberculosis, pleads with Kansas to leave the couple in peace. Kansas agrees, and after Herbert's death, Beatrix and Harry return to a normal life. - From AFI
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Her Price
Title: Her Price
Character: Marcia Calhoun
Released: July 14, 1918
Type: Movie
Marcia Calhoun, a talented but penniless singer, leaves her Southern home hoping to study opera in New York. Her instructor, Professor Didot, promises her a contract on the condition that she receive formal training in Italy for one year. Didot introduces Marcia to millionaire Philip Bradley, who offers to pay for her studies if she will accompany him to Italy as his mistress. Desperate for money, she agrees, but several months later, Philip abandons her.
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A Daughter of France
Title: A Daughter of France
Character: Louise de Ciron
Released: March 24, 1918
Type: Movie
During World War I, Louise, a French girl, refuses to leave her château after the invading Germans take it over for use as their headquarters. A German officer, Col. von Knorr, makes repeated advances on her, but she rebuffs him.
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A Royal Romance
Title: A Royal Romance
Character: The Princess Sylvia
Released: April 30, 1917
Type: Movie
Princess Sylvia refuses to marry the Emperor Maximilian of Rhaetia because his proposal has been offered for diplomatic rather than romantic reasons. Learning that Maximilian is traveling to a hunting lodge in a small village, Sylvia follows him, disguised as an untitled English girl, and the emperor immediately falls in love with her.
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Daredevil Kate
Title: Daredevil Kate
Character: Kate
Released: August 21, 1916
Type: Movie
Orphaned sisters Kate and Irene are separated as children, but each keeps half of their mother's wedding ring. Years later Irene marries John West, the head of a munitions camp. Kate, as fate would have it, happens to run the saloon in the camp and she and Irene become friends, but neither has any idea that the other is her long-lost sister. Matters take a turn for the worse, however, when Kate starts a romance with Cliff, Irene's adopted brother--a relationship that Irene strongly disapproves of. Complications ensue.
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Writing on the Wall
Title: Writing on the Wall
Character: Barbara Lawrence
Released: February 14, 1916
Type: Movie
Irving Lawrence owns some of the most decrepit tenements in town and is an all-around bad guy. He won't cooperate with the efforts of his wife, Barbara, to help the poor and sees other women behind her back. Muriel, one of his cast-offs, meets and marries Barbara's brother, Payne. Lawrence makes trouble for Muriel and fabricates a scandal involving his kindly brother Schuyler and Barbara.
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The Kiss of a Vampire
Title: The Kiss of a Vampire
Released: January 1, 1916
Type: Movie
American horror movie from 1916.
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The Stain
Title: The Stain
Character: Stevens' Daughter
Released: July 17, 1914
Type: Movie
An ambitious bank teller (Edward Jose) steals a large deposit and starts life over under an assumed name. While he is becoming a lawyer and making his way up the ladder of success with the help of a political boss, the wife he left behind (Eleanor Woodruff) remains destitute and is forced to give up her child to an orphanage. The girl is adopted and grows up (played as an adult by Virginia Pearson) to become the secretary to an honest young lawyer. But the girl has the same quirk that her father had, and it causes her to steal a bracelet at a department store. She is arrested and finds herself before her father, who is now a judge.