Florence La Badie

Biography

Florence La Badie (April 27, 1888 – October 13, 1917) was an American actress in the early days of the silent film era. Though little known today, she was a major star between 1911 and 1917. Her career was at its height when she died at age 29 from injuries sustained in an automobile accident.

In 1911, her career took a leap when she was hired by Edwin Thanhouser of the Thanhouser Film Corporation in New Rochelle, New York. With her sophistication and beauty, Florence La Badie soon became Thanhouser's most prominent actress, appearing in dozens of films over the next two years. Her most remembered films of that period were The Tempest (1911), Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1912), a film adaptation of the Robert Louis Stevenson story, and the first film of Shakespeare's Cymbeline (1914). Her most well-known work was in the 1914 - 1915 serial, The Million Dollar Mystery.

Athletic and daring, in these films she performed all her own stunts. In 1915, she was featured in the magazine Reel Life, which described her as "the Beautiful and talented Florence La Badie, of the Thanhouser Studios, conceded one of the foremost of American screen players". Over a course of six years La Badie's career had taken her to top-billing as a film actress.