Alma Taylor (1895-1974)
Great Britain's first true screen star
One of Britain's first
true film stars, Alma was a principal actress in the
Hepworth Picture Players at the Walton Studios, she made over 150 films!
See the Alma Taylor
IMDB entry.
See her International Silent Film
Biography.
According to the 1911 Census Alma Taylor was born in Peckham, Camberwell, London in 1894 [although the 1901 census gives DOB of 1895]. She joined the Hepworth studios whilst a teenager and became a firm favourite (if not an obsession) of Cecil Hepworth, who promoted her throughout her career.
The photogenic brunette Alma Taylor gained her greatest popularity playing one of the two sprightly "Tilly Girls" in a series of brilliant comedies produced by Hepworth in 1910-1911, which can still raise a laugh from an audience even a century later.
Watch
"Tilly the
Tomboy Visits the Poor" to get an idea! As the article in the local
paper shows, Alma became extremely popular nationally.
|
Middlesex Chronicle
July 13th 1915 In the results of a voting competition, organised by a Cinematograph Newspaper to ascertain the views of its readers as to the greatest British born Picture Players, Miss Alma Taylor, of Sunbury Mansions, heads the list with 156,800 votes. Miss Taylor is well known in Sunbury, her family for many years having resided in the district, Miss Taylor has for several years been engaged by the Hepworth Picture Company, of Walton, and in their announcement they state: “This overwhelming proof of the well known supremacy of Alma Taylor in the hearts of British Playgoers is a triumph indeed. In the few years since her twelfth birthday, this sweet, simple English girl, from her Thames side home, has risen by her sincere, earnest study and playing, and by her unaffected personality, to the greatest position in British Filmland today,” Her first big part was Nancy in “Oliver Twist”, but she is best known for her part in the Tilly Girl series. Swimming and boating are her favourite pastimes, and in her leisure she writes picture plays, in some of which she has taken a prominent part. [Note: During the 18th and 19th centuries Sunbury was little more than a small riverside village, with large mansions and their parkland in the surrounding area. The location of "Sunbury Mansions" is not known. It was probably not Sunbury Court, because it was operating as a club at the time. A number of references suggest it could have been Sunbury Manor whose Sunbury Walled Garden you can enjoy today. But there was another house that which burnt down around 1900, which I'd like to learn more about.... The newspaper is probably being rather ambiguous and referring so somewhere much more humble. Local Census records may yet reveal Alma's address.] |
The other Tilly girl was Chrissie White and each in her own way would come to personify the typical British silent screen heroine: innocuous, well-mannered, and invariably dressed for comfort.
Chrissie White said in 1973 that Alma lived in Sunbury, just on the other side of the river from Walton Studios. Publicity material from 1915 and 1916 says she lived in a house where it is said Anne Boleyn lived. Sadly this great house was destroyed by fire.
Chrissie also said that in those days everyone helped out at the studios, both Alma and Chrissie helping in the processing rooms joining up lengths of film when the weather was so poor shooting was impossible.
By 1912 she had starred in at least 30 'shorts' and her face would have been very familiar to many of the passengers and crew who boarded the Titanic. In 1912 she played the female lead as Nancy in Oliver Twist, Britain's first feature-length film.
Alma acted in many films during the heyday of the Hepworth Studios over WW1 including "The Nature of the Beast". Taylor, who at one point was favourably compared to America's Mary Pickford, found her career waning after World War I and she was decidedly long in the tooth when producer/director Cecil M. Hepworth decided to remake the already then old-fashioned "Comin' Thro the Rye" (1923). This beautifully produced movie is described in some detail in Hepworth's autobiography - he even paid a local farmer to plant the field especially with rye well in advance of shooting!
Taylor played her usual heroine, suffering nobly and at great length after losing her man to another woman. One critic dismissed the film as poor melodrama, complaining that the starring role was not played by Taylor but by "a field in which the rye, as far as I remember, failed to function obediently."
By
1924 Alma was considered to be Britain's number one movie star.
In the talkie era which followed, Alma's star quickly faded but she continued to work in lesser roles and eventually in uncredited bit parts.
However, during this time she made something of a career in the theatre, for example in 1925 appearing with Russell Thorndike starring in 'Dr Syn' at Wyndham's Theatre, London.
Due to a slump in British film production during the Depression, Taylor disappeared until 1926, when Hepworth launched a comeback of sorts with "The House of Marney", and "Tansy" (1927). Tickner Edwardes (1865-1944) was known as "the bee-man of Burpham" and his novel Tansy, about a beautiful village girl who upsets farming traditions by becoming a shepherdess starred Alma Taylor and it was filmed in Burpham. After this, she made a couple of thrillers in Germany, including a version of "The Hound of the Baskervilles" (1929) with some of the major stars from all over Europe, a prestigious production indeed. No language problems in the silents! Long thought lost, a print of this film was allegedly discovered in Poland in 2009.
Once the darling of British movie audiences, she married Leonard Avery in 1936 (and not, some biographies state, the prolific film producer Walter West). However, this writer cannot but speculate about the relationship between Alma and Cecil - many of Cecil's writings are perhaps over-fulsome about his star - and his daughter Valerie said that at one point marriage was considered, but the family were against it for some reason.
Alma Taylor was reduced to minor bit parts in sound films until her retirement in the late '50s. A remarkable moment at this time was a supporting role in a film with a rather strong casting including the future James Bond, Errol Flynn and Anna Neagle - "Lilacs in the Spring" (1954).
She appeared in
"Lost" (1955) which featured just about every British supporting actor of the
time, and (uncredited) in Hitchcock's
"The Man Who Knew Too Much" (1956). One of the last appearances
was a Prince Bruno's mother in "Blue Murder at St. Trinian's" (1957).
Her final screen appearance seems to have been almost 50 years after her screen
debut, as an 'old lady' in, of all things, "A
Night to Remember" (1958) (uncredited).
Alma lived until 1974.
Here is a splendid Alma Taylor Filmography. This has no less than 151 credits! Here is another biography of Alma Taylor. Alma Cogan was also named after her because her mother had been a great fan of Alma Taylor.
Also, since Alma was such a great beauty, please take a look at our Photo Gallery - can you help with new images? Contact us.
The Alma Taylor Film Clip Arcade
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Tilly, the Tomboy, Visits the Poor (1910) |
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