Stage actress Bertha Galland (1876-1932) enjoyed a decade at the top during the first 10% of the 20th century, often spoken of in such terms as “the next Modjeska“. She left acting in her mid-thirties, never having committed any performance to film, and thus has today become obscure even among the obscurities, in spite of her one-time significance.
I suspect that Galland retired simply because she COULD. She was a creature of privilege. She was the niece, by marriage, of the Lieutenant Governor of Pennsylvania. Her German-born father was a manufacturer of fancy lace underthings. Born and raised in Wilkes-Barre, Bertha receive proper training in the dramatic arts as a girl, and went on the stage largely with the backing of family money. In the mid-90s she toured in her own stock companies, playing Shakespearean roles. In 1900 she starred in Charles Frohman’s production of The Pride of Jennico (1900) the first of her many Broadway vehicles. After two Daniel Frohman produced plays The Forest Lovers and The Love Match in 1901, she toured through the next year with an adaptation of The Hunchback of Notre Dame in the role of Esmerelda. She returned to Broadway in 1903 as the title character in Dorothy Vernon of Haddon Hall, her greatest success, which she played in through 1904. (She performed the show on tour at the Smith Opera House in Geneva, NY, which is how I learned about her). She then starred in Belasco’s Sweet Kitty Belairs, and finally capped off her career with The Return of Eve (1909-10).
After this, though Galland continued to socialize in theatrical circles, she no longer played roles herself. She turned her hand to verse. She wrote poetry and song lyrics, and the libretto for an unproduced operetta called The Coral Girl. She hoped her song “America Beloved Land” would become the national anthem, presenting it to Herbert Hoover with that intention in 1929. She often read her poetry at public events, thus satisfying her cravings for the limelight.
Meantime, though, she would have seen several of her vehicles turned into films. Patsy Ruth Miller was Esmerelda in The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1923). Mary Pickford starred in the screen version of Dorothy Vernon of Haddon Hall (1924). Claudia Dell starred in Sweet Kitty Bellairs (1930). It must have been bittersweet. Meanwhile her niece Dorothy Galland performed in vaudeville as a singer, comedian and quick-change artist thoughout the 1920s.
Bertha Galland was to make headlines one last time for the worst of reasons in 1932 when the car she was riding in collided with another in White Plains, New York. The other vehicle had run a stoplight. Galland’s vehicle flipped over. She died on the way to the hospital at age 56.
For more on show business history, consult No Applause, Just Throw Money: The Book That Made Vaudeville Famous, for more on silent movies please check out my book: Chain of Fools: Silent Comedy and Its Legacies from Nickelodeons to Youtube.