June 9 was the birthday of stage and screen actress Bessie Barriscale (Elizabeth Barry Scale, 1884-1965).
Barriscale was the older cousin of Mabel and Edith Taliaferro; of the three, Mabel Taliaferro was the biggest wheel. Barriscale was the daughter of Irish immigrants and grew up in Hoboken. She was only five when commenced her professional career in a production of James A. Herne. Barriscale alternated her time between vaudeville and legit stage and screen roles. She was a member of the Proctor Stock Company at the Fifth Avenue Theatre in New York, and the Belasco Stock Company in Los Angeles. Her performance in David Belasco’s Rose of the Rancho led to her getting the role in the 1914 screen version, one of her first movie appearances. The early years of movie career were spent at Kay-Bee, Triangle, Famous Players-Lasky, and other studios where she worked with Thomas Ince, Louise Glaum, et al. By 1917 her success that she formed her own production company. Her husband and sometime co-star Howard C. Hickman, whom she’d married in 1907, became her producer. One of the more interesting of the films from this period The Woman Michael Married, was loosely inspired by the career of Annette Kellerman, and required Barriscale to study swimming and diving.
By 1921 Barrsicale had starred in over 50 features. At this stage she and Hickman, who now had a small child left Hollywood for a time. Barriscale starred in a short-lived Broadway play called The Skirt. They sold their Hollywood mansion to Jackie Coogan’s parents, traveled for a time, and settled down to a period of domesticity. In 1928, once sound had come in, they both returned to the screen as supporting players. Barriscale was sixth billed in Show Folks (1928) behind Eddie Quillan, Lina Basquette, Carole Lombard, Robert Armstrong, and Crauford Kent. After another five years she returned in an even smaller part in Secrets (1933), starring Mary Pickford. Her last role was in The Man Who Reclaimed His Head (1934) with Claude Rains. For his part, Hickman became a hardworking bit player, appearing in dozens of films every year, many of them major (e.g. Gone With the Wind), through Bowery to Broadway in 1944.
For more on vaudeville, 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.