Laura La Plante

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Birth Name: Laura La Plant

Born: 1 November 1904 Died: 14 October 1996

Country of origin: United States

Height: 5' 3"

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62 votes

Actresses Forgotten (377 items)
list by irishblue

Published 9 years, 1 month ago

4 comments

62 votes

The Beauty of Silence (500 items)
list by Onion Jack

Published 10 years, 8 months ago

1 comment

43 votes

Silent Actresses (507 items)
list by The Silent Era

Published 12 years, 5 months ago

3 comments

30 votes

200 Legendary Actresses (200 items)
list by Meganfan

Published 10 years, 4 months ago

2 comments

27 votes

Best Female Performances (1900-1929) (18 items)
list by Stehako

Published 14 years, 5 months ago

4 comments

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Description: Laura La Plante (November 1, 1904 – October 14, 1996) was an American actress, best known for her silent film roles. Born as Laura LaPlant, La Plante made her acting debut at the age of 15, and in 1923 was named as one of the years WAMPAS Baby Stars. During the 1920s she appeared in more than sixty films. Among her early film appearances were Big Town Round-Up (1921), with cowboy star Tom Mix, and the serials Perils of the Yukon (1922) and Around the World in Eighteen Days (1923). The majority of her films (i.e. from 1921 to 1930) were made for Universal Pictures. During this period she was the studio's most popular star Laura La Plante (November 1, 1904 – October 14, 1996) was an American actress, best known for her silent film roles.

Born as Laura LaPlant, La Plante made her acting debut at the age of 15, and in 1923 was named as one of the years WAMPAS Baby Stars. During the 1920s she appeared in more than sixty films. Among her early film appearances were Big Town Round-Up (1921), with cowboy star Tom Mix, and the serials Perils of the Yukon (1922) and Around the World in Eighteen Days (1923).

The majority of her films (i.e. from 1921 to 1930) were made for Universal Pictures. During this period she was the studio's most popular star, "an accomplishment duplicated only by Deanna Durbin years later." One of her earliest surviving films is Smouldering Fires (1925) directed by Clarence Brown and costarring Pauline Frederick. Her best remembered film is arguably the silent classic The Cat and the Canary (1927), although she also achieved acclaim for Skinner's Dress Suit (1926), with Reginald Denny, the part-talkie The Love Trap (1929), directed by William Wyler, and the 1929 part-talkie film version of Show Boat (1929), adapted from the novel of the same name by Edna Ferber.

Although this last film was an adaptation of the novel, and not of the famous musical play that the novel was based on, some songs from the play were tossed into the film as box-office insurance. She did not actually sing in the movie; her singing was dubbed by Eva Olivetti, one of the first instances in which this was done in a motion picture. A scene of La Plante in Show Boat was broadcast on early British television.

The advent of 'talkies' effectively shortened her career. In her mid-twenties she was a natural and appealing presence in early talkies but the huge wave of new stars in those years overshadowed her. She made her last appearances for Universal in the Technicolor musical extravaganza King of Jazz (1930). For a while she free-lanced, appearing in God's Gift to Women (Warner Bros., 1931), directed by Michael Curtiz and co-starring Frank Fay, and Arizona (Columbia, 1931), co-starring a young John Wayne.

La Plante subsequently went to England where she appeared in several "quota quickies", including Man of the Moment (1935), with Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. La Plante was briefly considered to replace Myrna Loy in the Thin Man series when Loy thought about leaving, but Loy stayed as "Nora Charles" and her career never rebounded. She retired from the screen in 1935, making only two later films, 1957's Spring Reunion being her last. Her younger sister, actress Violet, never achieved Laura's level of fame; both sisters were "WAMPAS Baby Stars".

In 1954, La Plante made a guest appearance (as herself, Mrs. Laura Asher) on Groucho Marx's quiz show, You Bet Your Life. She talked about her husband, Irving Asher, who had just lost 25 lbs. and completed the film Elephant Walk with Elizabeth Taylor. Mrs. Asher asked that her winnings, if any, go to the Motion Picture Relief Fund. They got three out of four questions correct to win $215. In the mid-1980s, a wheelchair bound La Plante was brought on stage to wave to the crowd at the "Night of a 100 Stars" event.

Laura La Plante died in Woodland Hills, California from Alzheimer's disease, at the age of 91. ... (more)