Florence LaBadie and Adoption

Publicity photograph of Florence La Badie.
Source: Wikipedia.org.

Biography

1888-1917

Actress

LaBadie was born Florence Russ in New York (sources differ about the date). She was adopted by a prominent Canadian(?) attorney and his European wife, and raised in Canada and the USA.

She began acting in 1908 on the stage, but in 1909 she started in films, with In the Window Recess. She acted for Biograph and Edwin Thanhouser. Other films included Cinderella, Crossed Wires, Petticoat Camp, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and The Star of Bethlehem.

During World War I she became an active campaigner for peace, traveling the country with a stereopticon slide show of photographs of the front taken by a young soldier. She was also an accomplished musician, artist, dancer, poet and athlete. She died of septicemia, following a car accident in which her pelvis was fractured.

References

Macmillan International Film Encyclopedia. New edition, edited by Ephraim Katz. (London: Macmillan, 1994) Bowers, Q. David. "La Badie, Florence." [Includes portrait]. Available at: www.teleport.com/~tco/people/labadief.htm