Elsie Janis

{{Infobox person

| name = Elsie Janis

| image =Elsie Janis 4.jpg

| caption =The Theatre Magazine (November 1915)

| birth_name = Elsie Bierbower

| birth_date = March 16, 1889

| birth_place = Marion, Ohio, U.S.

| death_date = {{death date and age|1956|02|26|1889|03|16}}

| death_place = Beverly Hills, California, U.S.

| restingplace =

| restingplacecoordinates =

| othername = Little Elsie

| occupation = {{hlist|Actress (stage and screen) |singer|songwriter|screenwriter|radio announcer}}

| years_active = 1894–1940

| spouse =Gilbert Wilson (m.1932)

| domesticpartner =

| children =

| parents =

| signature = File:Elsie Janis signature.svg

}}

Elsie Janis (born Elsie Bierbower, March 16, 1889 – February 26, 1956) was an American actress of stage and screen, singer, songwriter, screenwriter and radio announcer. Entertaining the troops during World War I immortalized her as "the sweetheart of the AEF" (American Expeditionary Force).

Early life

Elsie Bierbower was born in Marion, Ohio, the daughter of Josephine Janis and John Eleazer Bierbower. She had a brother, Percy John.{{Citation needed |date=January 2023}}

Stage

Bierbower debuted on stage in 1896 in a production of East Lynne at Columbus's Southern Theatre.{{Cite web |title=Elsie Janis, Stage Star {{!}} Elsie Janis |url=https://library.osu.edu/site/elsiejanis/stage-star/ |access-date=2023-11-29 |language=en-US}} By age 11, she was a headliner on the vaudeville circuit, performing under the name Little Elsie. As she matured, using the stage name Elsie Janis, she began perfecting her comedic skills.{{Citation needed |date=January 2023}}

Acclaimed by American and British critics,{{Citation needed |date=January 2023}} Janis was a headliner on Broadway and London. On Broadway, she starred in a number of successful shows, including The Vanderbilt Cup (1906), The Hoyden (1907), The Slim Princess (1911), and The Century Girl (1916).

Elsie performed at the grand opening of the Brown Theatre in Louisville, Kentucky on October 5, 1925.

Film, screenwriting and music

Janis also enjoyed a career as a Hollywood actress, screenwriter, production manager and composer. She was co-credited alongside Gene Markey for writing the original story for Close Harmony (1929) and as composer and production manager for Paramount on Parade (1930). She and director Edmund Goulding wrote the song "Love, Your Magic Spell Is Everywhere" for Gloria Swanson for her talkie debut film The Trespasser (1929). Janis's song "Oh, Give Me Time for Tenderness" was featured in the Bette Davis movie Dark Victory (1939), also directed by Goulding.

Life with Basil Hallam

Before he entered service for World War I, English actor-singer Basil Hallam fell in love with Janis, with whom he had starred in The Passing Show of 1915.Howard, William F. [http://www.archives.nysed.gov/apt/magazine/archivesmag_winter05.shtml "The Sweetheart of the A.E.F."] {{webarchive |url=http://webarchive.loc.gov/all/20110706064950/http://www.archives.nysed.gov/apt/magazine/archivesmag_winter05.shtml |date=6 July 2011 }}, New York Archives magazine, Winter 2005, Volume 4, Number 3, accessed 1 November 2012 They set up home in the city of Liverpool, England."Echoes of the Day", Liverpool Echo, 25 August 1916, p. 3 The couple never married; Hallam was killed in the Battle of the Somme in August 1916 while serving with the Royal Flying Corps.Pollard, A. C. The Royal Air Force London 1938 p.106{{Cite web |url=https://www.therebutnotthere.org.uk/today-remember-basil-hallam/ |title=Today we remember: Basil Hallam - Remembered |access-date=15 July 2019 |archive-date=15 July 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190715192654/https://www.therebutnotthere.org.uk/today-remember-basil-hallam/ |url-status=dead }}

World War I

File:Elsiejanis1.jpg

File:Elsie Janis by Manuel Rosenberg, 1926.jpg, 1926]]

Janis advocated for British and American soldiers fighting in World War I. She raised funds for Liberty Bonds. Accompanied by her mother, Janis also took her act on the road, entertaining troops stationed near the front lines – one of the first popular American artists to do so in a war fought on foreign soil. Ten days after the armistice, she recorded for His Master's Voiceseveral numbers from her revue Hullo, America, including "Give Me the Moonlight, Give Me the Girl".Rust, Brian, introduction to facsimile reprint of HMV catalogues 1914-18, David & Charles, Newton Abbot, {{ISBN|0-7153-6842-7}} She wrote about her wartime experiences in The Big Show: My Six Months with the American Expeditionary Forces (published in 1919), and recreated these in Behind the Lines, a 1926 Vitaphone musical short.

A musical about this period of her life called Elsie Janis and the Boys, written by Carol J. Crittenden and composer John T. Prestianni, premiered under the direction of Charles A. Wallace as part of the Rotunda Theatre Series in the Wortley-Peabody Theater in Dallas, Texas on August 15, 2014.

Radio announcer

In 1934, Janis became the first female announcer on the NBC radio network.{{cite news|title=Elsie Janis Is First NBC Woman Announcer|url=http://www.americanradiohistory.com/hd2/Archive-Radio-World-IDX/IDX/34/Radio-World-1934-12-29-OCR-Page-0022.pdf|access-date=20 August 2016|work=Radio World|date=December 29, 1934|page=22}}

Children

Janis wanted to have children of her own.{{cite news |last1=Janis |first1=Elsie |title=After 'Time Out For Love' Elsie Janis Resumes Career |publisher=The Hartford Courant |date=Nov 24, 1935|id={{ProQuest|558649486}} }}{{cite news |title=Elsie janis, 42, secretly marries; husband is 26 |publisher=Chicago Daily Tribune |date=14 Jan 1932|id={{ProQuest|181285016}} }} She became a foster mother to a 14-year-old Italian war veteran and orphan, Michael Cardi, in 1919.{{cite news |title=ELSIE JANIS ADOPTS BOY |publisher=Indianapolis Star |date=Jul 13, 1919|id={{ProQuest|613034786}} }}{{cite news |title=Youthful hero of war adopted by elsie janis |publisher=Detroit Free Press |date=3 July 1919|id={{ProQuest|566424021}} }}

Later life

Janis maintained her private home “ElJan” on the east side of High Street in Columbus, Ohio. The home was across the street from what was Ohio State University's Ohio Field, the precursor to Ohio Stadium. Janis sold the house following her mother's death.

In 1932, Janis married Gilbert Wilson, who was 16 years her junior, which caused some scandal.{{cite news |last1=Janis |first1=Elsie |title=Tale of altar gamble told by elsie janis |work=Los Angeles Times |date=December 1, 1935|id={{ProQuest|164532004}} }} There is some evidence it might have been a bearded relationship.{{cite journal |last1=Beard |first1=Deanna |title=A doughgirl with the doughboys: Elsie janis, "the regular girl," and the performance of gender in world war I entertainment |journal=Theatre History Studies |volume=33 |pages=56–70 |id={{ProQuest|1636350677}} |doi=10.1353/ths.2014.0012 |year=2014 |s2cid=190736702 }}{{cite book |editor1-last=Harbin |editor1-first=Billy |title=The Gay and Lesbian Theatrical Legacy: A Biographical Dictionary of Major Figures in American Stage History in the Pre-Stonewall Era |date=2007 |publisher=Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press}} The couple lived in the Phillipse Manor section of Sleepy Hollow, New York, formerly named North Tarrytown, until Janis moved to the Los Angeles area of California where she lived until her death. Her final film was the 1940 Women in War.

Elsie Janis died in 1956 at her home in Beverly Hills, California, aged 66, and was interred in the Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Glendale, California.

Legacy

For her contribution to the motion picture industry, Elsie Janis has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6776 Hollywood Blvd.

File:elsiejanis.jpg

Partial filmography

The Caprices of Kitty (1915)
Betty in Search of a Thrill (1915)
Nearly a Lady (1915)
'Twas Ever Thus (1915)
The Imp (1919)
A Regular Girl (1919)
Bobbed Hair (1925)
Elsie Janis in a Vaudeville Act, “Behind the Lines,” Assisted by Men’s Chorus of the 107th Regiment (1926)
Close Harmony (1929) (screenplay)
Paramount on Parade (1930) (production supervisor)
Madam Satan (1930) (music)
The Squaw Man (1931) (screenplay)
Women in War (1940)

References

External links

{{Gutenberg author | id=36601| name=Elsie Janis}}
{{Internet Archive author |sname=Elsie Janis}}
{{IMDb name|0417646}}
{{IBDB name}}
{{Find a Grave|10334}}
[https://web.archive.org/web/20080509123343/http://library.osu.edu/sites/exhibits/Janis/ Extensive biographical site] at Ohio State University
[https://library.ohio-state.edu/record=b6272946~S7 Elsie Janis collection:] SPEC.TRI.EJ Thompson Library Jerome Lawrence & Robert E. Lee Theatre Research Institute
[https://archives.nypl.org/the/21665 Elsie Janis diaries, 1920-1928], held by the Billy Rose Theatre Division, New York Public Library for the Performing Arts
[https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/search/index?utf8=%E2%9C%93&keywords=elsie+janis Elsie Janis], images held by the Billy Rose Theatre Division, New York Public Library for the Performing Arts
[https://archive.org/details/ElsieJanis selected recordings by Elsie Janis at Internetarchive.org]
[http://www.moviecard.com/zamerican/theatre/favorite/fav-janis.jpg portrait of Elsie Janis from a play or early silent movie](moviecard)
[http://broadway.cas.sc.edu/content/elsie-janis Elsie Janis: Broadway Photographs](Univ. of South Carolina)
[https://www.flickr.com/photos/charmainezoe/6478382385/ Elsie Janis] with Willys Overland motorcar 1917