Fearless Florence La Badie

  

Canadian silent film star, Florence La Badie, was one of the biggest, one of the first, and had one of the most tragic early deaths. Isn't it also interesting how a lot of the first major stars on the screen were Canadian? Florence Lawrence, Mary Pickford, Sidney Olcott, May Irwin, and Miss La Badie too, of course. But what separates her the most from the others is that this woman was very keen on taking risks. Since she always insisted on doing her own stunts and had a flair for thrills, she was known as "Fearless Flo" on set. 

  

According to her census, she was born in New York and not Montreal, although she did grow up there. Her father passed away while she was only a tot, which led her mother to put her up for adoption since she could no longer take care of her. At the age of three, she was adopted by Joseph and Amanda La Badie. Florence was educated at the Convent School of Notre Dame and also attended schools in New York City. Flo modeled for a while and then began appearing on the stage in 1908. One day in 1909, her friend Mary Pickford took her to the Biograph Studio in Manhattan where she got her introduction to pictures. Flo signed shortly after and was on the road to success.   

 

"I went into this work just by accident. I was playing 'Light' in The Blue Bird, ad a preliminary trial for a road company, at the New Theatre, and one day I went down to see Mary Pickford, an intimate friend of mine, and met Mr. Griffith, the director of the Biograph Company. In a day or two I was on my way to California as a regular member of the Biograph forces. [I spent] one season with the American [Biograph]."  -- Florence in an interview with Photoplay, 1912.

 

The Fearless stunt woman

  

"I love excitement and adventure," she declared, her violet eyes, just below her mass of sepia hair, flashing and sparkling as she spoke. "I go out looking for it, and of course, one usually finds it pretty easily. And I love other things besides adventure too," she went on, "though I don't get much time now for it, and that is reading. I read anything and everything that comes to hand." This charming young motion picture actress is one of the most popular in the profession, her standing in the popularity contest attesting that, and it is not surprising when one looks at her, hears her talk and sees that she is a girl of beauty, refinement and culture, a member of one of the finest Canadian families." 

-- Photoplay, October 1912. 

 

She appeared in roughly 30 pictures for Biograph and later joined the Thanhouser Film Corporation, where she appeared in dozens of films from 1911 until her death. Since she was one of the screen's most popular attractions, she was often the subject of many articles and magazines. Here is a famous example from The Toronto Sunday World, May 29, 1914:

To know Florence La Badie is to love her, and still her many photoplay friends all over the world love her just because of the winning smile and sweet personality which greet them from the motion picture screen. To my idea of a charming, beautiful, vivacious, personality that goes to make a make a popular photoplay actress, I truly think that Miss La Badie is beyond parallel. She is a French Canadian by birth, having been born in Montreal, Can., and educated in the Convent of Notre Dame at Montreal. She speaks both French and German fluently, as well as being an excellent English scholar. She is a daring horsewoman, a great swimmer, and an expert rower. I think that when you take all of her wonderful accomplishments into account there are few in the motion picture world that can compare with her.  

I had been invited to lunch at the beautiful La Badie home on Riverside Drive, and felt at home immediately through the warm reception tendered me by Florence's mother. It is a home to be proud of and worthy by the occupant, who is an only child and not a bit spoiled. We chatted and Flo played on the piano and sang. You think that you were in the presence of a great professional singer when you hear her sing. Flo has never taken vocal lessons, because she would rather dance. Florence is a great exponent of the Boston, the tango, and the one step. But her one hobby is her dogs, three white curly poodles. 

 

In answer to my query as to her favorite kind of work, she replied that she likes all outdoor work. She loves to swim and ride better than to do interior scenes and society pictures.  

 "They are more real and you get more out of them," she said. "Just think of riding horseback all day or taking long jaunts in the woods and all those perfectly enjoyable stunts, and yet you are working. While the camera is recording the various scenes, you have had a delightful outing. Isn't this in itself enough to make a person enjoy moving picture work and just feel glad they are alive and able to do it?" 

"Have you ever had any narrow escapes from death in your work?" I asked. 

Flo smiled a very devilish smile and said: "Indeed, yes." 

 

Then she told me that while working in a picture one day she was seated on her horse, waiting to ride in the scene when the signal was given to start. The horse ridden by one of the extra men reared in the air and as his front feet came down he struck her in the face, breaking three of her teeth and giving her a swollen lip and bruised jaw as well. 

 

"I think that is the closest I have ever been to being killed," she said. "Had I been half a foot nearer I would have been."  

 

Flo in Beauty in the Seashell (1913)

Florence never married but was engaged twice. While driving in an automobile near Ossining, New York, with her fiance, Val Hush, a Car Salesman, her breaks failed and the car quickly plunged down the hill. Her fiance escaped with a broken hip and Flo was hospitalized for more than six weeks. Although she seemed to be recovering, she suddenly died from sepsis on October 13, 1917. At the time of her death it was stated in the papers that she was 23 years old, but her real age was 29.   

 

She was interred to rest at Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn. For many years her grave was unmarked, but on her 126th birthday on April 27, 2014, she finally received the headstone she deserved.