Gwendolyn Pates
{{Short description|American actress (1891–1970)}}
{{Infobox person
| name = Gwendolyn Pates
| image = GwendolinePates1913.jpg
| alt = A young white woman, head tilted downward, looking up with brows slightly furrowed; she is wearing a lace collar and dark beads.
| caption = Gwendolyn Pates, from a 1913 publication
| birth_name =
| birth_date = April 4, 1891
| birth_place = Dallas, Texas
| death_date = November 1970
| death_place = New York
| nationality = American
| other_names = Gwendoline Pates, Gwendolen Pates, Gwendolyn Grew
| occupation = actress
| years_active =
| known_for =
| notable_works =
}}
Gwendolyn Pates (April 4, 1891 – November 1970), also billed as Gwendoline Pates, was an American actress in silent films and on stage.
Early life
Gwendoline Ivore Pates was born in Dallas, Texas,{{Cite journal|last=Donnell|first=Dorothy|date=March 1913|title=Gwendoline Pates of Pathé Frères|url=https://archive.org/details/motionpicturesto05moti/page/n303?q=%22Taku+Takagi%22|journal=The Motion Picture Story Magazine|volume=5|pages=116–117}} the daughter of Frederick B. Pates and Allie Beckwith Pates.{{Cite news|title=Frederick B. PatesS; Vice President and Manager in East of Modern Miller Dies|date=December 6, 1939|work=The New York Times|page=32|id={{ProQuest| }} }} Her father was a voice teacher. She and her sister attended the Boyd Theater School of Acting in Omaha. Her sister Vivian Pates was also an actress.{{Cite news|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/35096576/gwendoline_pates_1911/|title=Demanding Better Music|date=January 29, 1911|work=Omaha Daily Bee|access-date=August 20, 2019|page=37|via=Newspapers.com}} She lived some of her youth in Alton, Illinois.{{Cite news|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/35087127/gwendolyn_pates_1961/|title=October 13, 1911|date=October 13, 1961|work=Alton Evening Telegraph|access-date=August 19, 2019|page=4|via=Newspapers.com}}{{Cite news|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/4058246/fred_patesbro_of_katherine_pates/|title=Fred B. Pates Dies in New York|date=December 5, 1939|work=Alton Evening Telegraph|access-date=August 19, 2019|page=5|via=Newspapers.com}}
Career
As an actress, Pates[https://archive.org/details/motionpicturesto05moti/page/n11?q=%22Taku+Takagi%22 "Gwendoline Pates"] Motion Picture Story Magazine (February 1913): 2. via Internet Archive. was best known for "dainty, girlish" roles that focused on her "bewitching prettiness" and adventurous nature. She appeared in more than forty short silent films between 1911 and 1915. She was often in the title role, for example in His Date with Gwendoline (1913), The Blind Girl of Castle Guille (1913), and When Romance Came to Anne (1914). In 1912 she appeared with George W. Beatty in An Aeroplane Love Affair. Beatty was not an actor, but he was the chief test pilot and instructor at the United States Army Aviation School.Igoe, Kate. [http://www.nasm.si.edu/research/arch/findaids/pdf/BEATTY_Finding_Aid.pdf George W. Beatty Collection] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090420223257/http://www.nasm.si.edu/research/arch/findaids/pdf/BEATTY_Finding_Aid.pdf |date=2009-04-20 }}, National Air and Space Museum, 1997. Accessed September 6, 2009.
She explained about her work: "The necessary qualifications for a successful photoplayer are that you must photograph well, and be able to express facially the idea you want to convey to the audience."{{Cite book|url=https://archive.org/details/motionpictureac00schgoog|quote=Gwendoline Pates.|title=Motion Picture Acting: How to Prepare for Photoplaying, what Qualifications are Necessary, how to Secure an Engagement, Salaries Paid to Photoplayers|last1=Agnew|first1=Frances|last2=Scheuing|first2=Frances May|date=1913|publisher=Reliance Newspaper Syndicate|pages=[https://archive.org/details/motionpictureac00schgoog/page/n125 83]–84|language=en}}
File:Gwendolin Pates in 1912 photo from An Aeroplane Love affair.jpg in An Aeroplane Love Affair (1912)]]
In For Mayor – Bess Smith (1913), Pates played a woman running for political office, who instead accepts her opponent's marriage proposal.{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=-0pBDwAAQBAJ&q=Gwendolyn+Pates&pg=PT215|title=Specters of Slapstick and Silent Film Comediennes|last=Hennefeld|first=Maggie|year=2018|publisher=Columbia University Press|isbn=9780231547062|language=en}} For herself, she said she did not want the vote; "I'm truly so busy that I couldn't stop to vote," she told an interviewer in 1913.
After her time in films, Pates performed in vaudeville.{{Cite news|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/35086990/gwendolyn_pates_1916/|title=Chat of the Theatres|date=July 15, 1916|work=The Chat|access-date=August 19, 2019|page=18|via=Newspapers.com}}{{Cite news|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/35087028/loews_metropolitan_1922/|title=Loew's Metropolitan|date=March 11, 1922|work=The Chat|access-date=August 19, 2019|page=93|via=Newspapers.com}} She and her husband had a stock company, the Grew-Pates Players, performing The Gates of America,{{Cite news|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/35094949/gwendoline_pates_1915/|title='Gates of America' at Grand Opera House|date=November 30, 1915|work=The Boston Globe|access-date=August 20, 2019|page=11|via=Newspapers.com}} Electrocuted at 5 A. M.,{{Cite news|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/35094778/grewpates_company_1915/|title=Melodrama at the Grand Opera House|date=November 9, 1915|work=The Boston Globe|access-date=August 20, 2019|page=2|via=Newspapers.com}} Tess of the Storm Country, The Lure of the City, The End of the Trail, After Five, The Prince Chap, and a stage version of The Perils of Pauline,{{Cite news|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/35094402/grewpates_players_1914/|title=Empire Theatre|date=September 4, 1914|work=The Post-Star|access-date=August 20, 2019|page=10|via=Newspapers.com}} in Boston and elsewhere, in 1914 and 1915.{{Cite news|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/35094090/gwendoline_pates_1914/|title=Miss Gwendoline Bates|date=September 14, 1914|work=The Brattleboro Daily Reformer|access-date=August 20, 2019|page=5|via=Newspapers.com}}{{Cite news|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/35093995/gwendoline_pates_1915/|title='The Lure of the City' at the Grand Opera House|date=November 14, 1915|work=The Boston Globe|access-date=August 20, 2019|page=50|via=Newspapers.com}} In 1917, she headlined The Heart of Wetona in New York and on tour.{{Cite news|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/24506588/gwendoline_pates_heart_of_wetona_1917/|title=Advertisement, The Heart of Wetona|date=December 22, 1917|work=Janesville Daily Gazette|access-date=August 19, 2019|page=6|via=Newspapers.com}} The Grew-Pates Players were based in Canada in 1918{{Cite news|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/35094539/william_grew_and_gwendoline_pates_1918/|title=Plans to Produce Movie of Canada's Part in Big War|date=February 15, 1918|work=The Winnipeg Tribune|access-date=August 20, 2019|page=11|via=Newspapers.com}} and 1920.{{Cite news|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/35094470/grewpates_players_1920/|title=Chatter of the Stage and of the Screen Stars|date=November 13, 1920|work=Fitchburg Sentinel|access-date=August 20, 2019|page=10|via=Newspapers.com}} In 1927, she appeared on Broadway in the original cast of The Mating Season, a farce; her husband wrote the show, and was also in the cast.{{Cite web|url=http://www.playbill.com/production/the-mating-season-selwyn-theatre-vault-0000010421|title=The Mating Season, Selwyn Theatre, 1927|website=Playbill|language=en|access-date=2019-08-19}}{{Cite news|title=Three New Shows Coming; 'The Mating Season' is Among Next Week's Openings|date=July 13, 1927|work=The New York Times|page=20|id={{ProQuest| }} }}
Personal life
Gwendolyn Pates married actor and playwright William A. Grew by 1914. They divorced after 1927. She died in 1970, aged 79 years, in New York.
References
{{reflist}}
External links
- {{IMDb name|id=0665538}}
- {{IBDB name|id=55656}}
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Pates, Gwendolyn}}
Category:American silent film actresses
Category:American stage actresses
Category:People from Alton, Illinois
Category:Actresses from Illinois