Celebration today of silent star Vera Reynolds (1899-1962) — not to be confused with Vera Ralston!
Reports conflict about where Reynolds was originally from Nebraska or Richmond Virginia. Steve Massa’s Slapstick Divas reports that she graduated Polytecnic High in L.A. She seems to have gone directly into films in 1917, skipping the larval stage in live theatre that was more conventional back then, though she seems to have done some modeling and my have been one of Mack Sennett’s Bathing Beauties. Her first recorded credit is Luke’s Trolley Troubles, starring Harold Lloyd during his Lonesome Luke phase. For the next six years, Reynolds toiled in slapstick comedies for Mack Sennett, L-KO and other studios opposite comedians like Al St. John, Chester Conklin, Billy Bletcher, and Sammy Burns. In 1919 she married Joe Rock’s comedy partner Earl Montgomery, a union that lasted through 1928. From 1921 to 1922 she co-starred in a series of “Broadway Comedies” opposite Eddie Barry for the Arrow Film Corporation. She was also in The Pest (1922) with Stan Laurel. Having appeared opposite Raymond Griffith as early as 1917 she was also in his later features The Night Club (1925) and Wedding Bill$ (1927).
Meantime, Reynolds had graduated to major features on her account. She was second female lead to Gloria Swanson in Sam Wood’s Prodigal Daughters (1923). She starred in several of Cecil B. DeMille’s racy sex farces of the period. Sunny Side Up (1926) directed by Donald Crisp, may be her most notable film of the period. Around the same time she was named a WAMPAS Baby Star. During that busy year, Reynolds divorced Montgomery and married (she thought) actor/screenwriter/director Robert Ellis, although it later turned out the ceremony had been a sham. She sued Ellis for breach of promise in 1938; they settled the spat by making it legal that year.
In 1927 Reynolds was rushed to the hospital for what was inititially thought to have been a suicide attempt involving a bottle of poison. Doctors quickly discovered that the cause of her bellyache was either gastritis or ptomaine poisoning. The timing of the incident seems suggestive. There was a lot going on: a recent divorce, an impulsively undertaken new marriage, and the arrival of talkies, which caused an upheaval in the industry. Yet Reynolds’ career was going okay at the time, and would do so for at least a couple of more years. She starred in such things as Jazzland (1928) was in the ensemble of Tonight at Twelve (1929) with Madge Bellamy and Margaret Livingston.
In the ’30s, though Reynolds was relegated to B movies for small studios, including such things as The Lone Rider (1930) with Buck Jones, and The Monster Walks (1932) with Rex Lease and Mischa Auer. After the 1932 mystery Tangled Destinies she retired (at the young age of 33), though Ellis continued working as a bit player and screenwriter into the early 1950s.
For more on silent and slapstick film please check out my book: Chain of Fools: Silent Comedy and Its Legacies from Nickelodeons to Youtube — now also available on audiobook!