Martha Mansfield – Silent Stars: Where Are They Now … 1932 Edition

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This is part of a series showing what the silent stars featured in the 1917 Kromo Gravure Trading Card set were up to at the precise moment in time covered in a 1932 Motion Picture Magazine article, Stars Who Have Vanished by Jack Grant.

I’ve been using the IMDb, Wikipedia, my physical bookshelf, and especially the NewspaperArchive.com database to search out the rest of the story for each of these old time stars in attempts to see what became of them from 1932 until their deaths.

Martha Mansfield

Stars Who Have Vanished, 1932: This pretty young actress was on her way to great fame when, on a location trip, her costume caught fire and she was burned to death. The date was November 30, 1923.

What I Dug Up: Was just 24 at the time of her death.

We seem to much more easily recall those scandal prone stars, rolling off names of overdoses and suicides, poor Mansfield fell victim to a match tossed aside which sparked her dress and immediately engulfed her in flames.

While working at the time on The Warrens of Virginia, expected to be her breakout film, co-star Wilfrid Lytell tossed his coat over her to extinguish the flames.

Mansfield survived overnight at the hospital, but succumbed the next morning with the cause listed as “burns of all extremities, general toxemia and suppression of urine” [Ankerich 243].

The beautiful actress had begun on the stage, posed often for famed photographer Alfred Cheyney Johnson and illustrator Harrison Fisher before entering movies as Martha Early in some Max Linder comedy shorts.

Performing in the Ziegfeld Follies of 1918 and ’19, Mansfield also appeared in her first feature length films before being chosen by the star, John Barrymore to appear in the picture she’s best remembered for today, 1920’s Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

Continue Reading the Where Are They Now, 1932 Series:

Previous Entry: Douglas MacLean

Next Entry: Vivian Martin

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Source:

Ankerich, Michael G. Dangerous Curves atop Hollywood Heels: The Lives, Careers, and Misfortunes of 14 Hard-Luck Girls of the Silent Screen. BearManor Media: 2010.