Alice Washburn’s Brief Window

I cannot tell a lie, all the good intel on Alice Washburn (1860-1929) comes from Steve Massa’s indispensable tome Slapstick Divas. I’ll give you broad strokes; there are lots more specifics in his book. The comical biddy’s time in silent comedies was ever so brief, about five years (1911-1916) with a premature retirement in the middle of that period lasting several months. This means that Washburn was in her early 50s when she began be in pictures, although back then 51 tended to read more like 68 does to us today. Prior to that the Oshkosh, Wisconsin native had been an elocutionist, lecturer, and actress with amateur groups and traveling stock companies.

According to Massa, Washburn was originally with Powers Picture Plays (which later merged with IMP, which then folded into Universal) and then Kalem, before becoming part of the Edison Company, where she spent most of her screen career. At Edison, you could see her in such things as Mr. Bumptious, Detective (1911) with John R. Cumpson, and Hogan’s Alley (1912). The photo above is from the early Edison sound experiment Jack’s Joke (1913).

After appearing in dozens of films for Edison Washburb returned to her old life in Wisconsin in mid-1914, where she remained for nearly two years before being persuaded to return to the screen at Vitagraph, There, she co-starred with Frank Daniels in two comedy series, Mr. Jack, and Kernel Nutt. The last of her nearly 100 films was the 1916 version of Snow White with Marguerite Clark, Dorothy Cumming,Creighton Hale, and Richard Barthelmess. It was this version that inspired Walt Disney to do his own two decades later. In the silent version, Washburn portrayed the Witch.

For more on silent film comedy read Chain of Fools: Silent Comedy and Its Legacies from Nickelodeons to Youtube.