I am trying to learn to edit so I can add information to the page about Maude Fealy, a silent film and theater actress who worked in the early to mid 20th century.
How I know About Maude Fealy
editI worked at the Denver Center Theater Company from 1986 to1999, in the Properties department. The DCTC is a division of the Denver Center for the Performing Arts, which owned a building in town that formerly housed the Lowenstein Theater (which was later called the Bonfils Memorial Theater and is now a local bookstore, The Tattered Cover.)
When the DCPA was preparing to sell the Lowenstein building, the prop crew spent some time cleaning out the old furniture and other props left in the building. Among the items was a water damaged trunk containing scripts, photographs, advertising materials, and personal papers and letters of Maude Fealy. Fascinating stuff. One of the prop artisans, Jeffrey Cook, spent a week or two sorting through the material and cleaning/preserving all that was salvageable. Some of the materials were filed in the prop “morgue,” a set of storage cabinets where potentially useful paper items are stored for use as props in or research for shows. A few items that had value were sold to a director working at the DCTC at that time, Randall Myler. Some items were unsalvageable and were discarded.
A few years after I left the DCTC, I became interesting in preserving the Maude papers in digital form. I brought the items home, scanned them, transcribed handwritten materials for ease of reading, and returned the physical objects to the theater. There things have stood ever since.
Some of the items I hope to include
editThe current Maude Fealy wikipedia page contains images and information I have, but there is a lot I have that does not appear there. A partial list includes
- image stills from the Tanhauser silent films
- a couple of ID cards for Maude and her mother
- programs from events where Maude appeared
- the newspaper article about a wheeled luggage device mentioned in the wiki article
- scripts written or edited by Maude
- handwritten lists, prayers and affirmations
- what might be handwritten poetry
- greeting cards from various people
- photos of Maude and her mother shopping at a department store in the late 19 century—possibly an advertising job?
I can only speculate, but Helen Bonfils was associated with the Elitch Theatre and the Lowenstein,[1] so perhaps that commonality is how Maude’s stuff ended up in a damp basement where I worked.
Reference section[edit]
editExternal links section[edit]
editExample external link