silent era

Early filmmakers gravitated in the direction of subjects that seemed to defy nature: convoluted acrobatic routines, superhuman displays of strength, magic acts, fairy tales and dream films.  The bold and often fantastical colors that flickered across the earliest film reels are frequently left out of our greater cinematic history.

Outside of cinema historians and movie aficionados, the name Florence Lawrence is not likely to ring a bell, although she was in over 300 films, was considered Hollywood’s first movie star, and was known as “the Girl of a Thousand Faces. ”Florence Annie Bridgwood was born in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada on January 2, 1886.