April 6 was the birthday of stage and screen actress Victory Bateman (1865-1926). She was named after the triumph of the Grand Army of the Republic over the Confederacy; Lee’s surrender was three days after her birth. This association would be somewhat adulterated in her young adulthood; her first husband was Wilfred Clarke, nephew of John Wilkes Booth. Both of Bateman’s parents, Thomas and Lizzie Creese, were also actors.
Bateman played with stock companies from her native Philadelphia to San Francisco. In the latter city, in 1892 she played with Dion Boucicault’s son Aubrey in The Favorite. Not long after, she was named as co-respondent in the younger Boucicault’s divorce from his wife, actress Amy Busby. “Favorite”, indeed! This fact ought to be amusing to the tiny handful familiar with her work. She was a large and homely woman in the Marie Dressler mold, hardly the “other woman” type. The event resulted in scandal and a short time away from the spotlight. She married her third and final husband George Cleveland (best remembered as Gramps from Lassie) while touring in vaudeville in 1910.
Bateman’s first film was Thanhouser’s 1912 screen adaptation of Nicholas Nickleby. She had likely worked with Edwin Thanhouser during his stage days. She worked at the studio intermittently through 1915. She was a supporting player in about three dozen films. Tess of the D’urbervilles (1924) with Blanche Sweet and Conrad Nagel, her penultimate one, seems particularly notable. Her last was Universal’s adaptation of Booth Tarkington’s The Turmoil, that same year.
For more on vaudeville history, consult No Applause, Just Throw Money: The Book That Made Vaudeville Famous, for more on silent film please check out my book: Chain of Fools: Silent Comedy and Its Legacies from Nickelodeons to Youtube.