Leatrice Joy

Leatrice Joy (November 7, 1893 – May 13, 1985) was an American actress most prolific during the silent film era.

Early life

Leatrice Johanna Zeidler was born in New Orleans, Louisiana to dentist Edward Joseph Zeidler, who was of Austrian and French descent, and Mary Joy Crimens Zeidler, who was of German and Irish descent. She had a brother, Billy, who later worked at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.

She attended New Orleans Convent of the Sacred Heart but left when her father was diagnosed with tuberculosis and forced to give up his dental practice. She tried out for the New Orleans-based Nola Film Company in 1915 and was hired as an actress. Her mother disapproved of her becoming an actress, but the family needed the money, so her mother accompanied her to California where she began working in plays and films.

Career

Joy began her acting career in stock theater companies and soon made her film debut; between April 1916 and November 1917 she was the star of about 20 one-reel Black Diamond Comedies produced by the United States Motion Picture Corporation in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, and released nationally by Paramount Pictures. In many of these, she starred as "Susie," an irrepressibly enthusiastic, impulsive young woman who gets into humorous scrapes.