Anna Luther
Encyclopedia
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
silent film
Silent film
A silent film is a film with no synchronized recorded sound, especially with no spoken dialogue. In silent films for entertainment the dialogue is transmitted through muted gestures, pantomime and title cards...
actress. Newspapers described her hair as having an orange hue. She was the daughter of a New York sewing machine peddler.
Silent films
She starred with William GarwoodWilliam Garwood
William Garwood was an American stage and film actor and director of the early silent era in the 1910s....
in films such as Her Moment
Her Moment
Her Moment is a 1918 American silent drama directed by Frank Beal and starring William Garwood and Anne Luther.-Cast:*Anna Luther .... Katinka Veche*William Garwood .... Jan Drakachu*Alida B. Jones .... Minka...
in 1918. Among her other film credits include roles in The Lurking Peril (1919), The Fatal Plunge (1924), Sinners In Silk (1924),
and Soul and Body (1921). Her film career concluded with uncredited performances in Easy To Love (1953) and The Wayward Bus (1957).
Court litigation
Luther named Peggy Hopkins JoycePeggy Hopkins Joyce
Peggy Hopkins Joyce was an American actress and celebrity, famed as much for her several marriages to wealthy men, colorful divorces, scandalous affairs, her diamonds and generally lavish lifestyle as for her work on stage or screen.-Brief Biography:Born Marguerite Upton in Berkley, Virginia, she...
as a friend and Los Angeles, California
Los Angeles, California
Los Angeles , with a population at the 2010 United States Census of 3,792,621, is the most populous city in California, USA and the second most populous in the United States, after New York City. It has an area of , and is located in Southern California...
mine operator and millionaire, Jack White, as a lover. White accompanied Luther to California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
as a theatrical producer. In June 1924
the actress brought a $100,000 breach of contract suit against White for allegedly promising to star her in four motion pictures. In a countersuit White demanded a $10,000 refund spent on the Luther film and charged Luther with having a bad reputation. White contended that he did not violate the Mann Act
Mann Act
The White-Slave Traffic Act, better known as the Mann Act, is a United States law, passed June 25, 1910 . It is named after Congressman James Robert Mann, and in its original form prohibited white slavery and the interstate transport of females for “immoral purposes”...
merely by sharing the same drawing room with Luther on their journey west.
Some of the witnesses anticipated for the trial were Charlie Chaplin
Charlie Chaplin
Sir Charles Spencer "Charlie" Chaplin, KBE was an English comic actor, film director and composer best known for his work during the silent film era. He became the most famous film star in the world before the end of World War I...
, Evelyn Nesbit
Evelyn Nesbit
Evelyn Nesbit was an American artists' model and chorus girl, noted for her entanglement in the murder of her ex-lover, architect Stanford White, by her first husband, Harry Kendall Thaw.-Early life:...
, Pearl White
Pearl White
Pearl Fay White was an American film actress, the so-called "Stunt Queen" of silent films, most notably in The Perils of Pauline.-Early life:...
, and Mabel Normand
Mabel Normand
Mabel Normand was an American silent film comedienne and actress. She was a popular star of Mack Sennett's Keystone Studios and is noted as one of the film industry's first female screenwriters, producers and directors...
. White's attorneys brought up the death of murdered silent film director William Desmond Taylor
William Desmond Taylor
William Desmond Taylor was an Irish-born American actor, successful film director of silent movies and a popular figure in the growing Hollywood film colony of the 1910s and early 1920s...
. They claimed Luther told White to pay or watch out for what happened to Taylor.
During court proceedings Luther admitted paying $2,500 in rent for her place in Great Neck, although she possessed a bank balance of only $141 at the time. White admitted having a contract with Luther but his lawyers succeeded in getting Luther to make a number of admissions which hurt her case. The presiding judge dropped Luther's suit because of her failure to prove a legal contract between herself and White. After the trial's conclusion Luther filed notice of motion for a new trial.
Marriage and scandal
Luther was married to Edward GallagherEdward Gallagher
Edward Gallagher was a vaudeville actor and half of the act Gallagher and Shean. Their story was told in an animated movie Mr. Gallagher and Mr. Shean by Max Fleischer and Dave Fleischer who also created Koko the Clown and Betty Boop...
of the Gallagher and Shean
Gallagher and Shean
Gallagher & Shean was a highly successful double act on vaudeville and Broadway in the 1910s and 1920s, consisting of Edward Gallagher and Al Shean .-Career:...
vaudeville comedy team. She and Gallagher separated in February 1924, with her husband continuing to play on the road and Luther returning to making motion pictures. In March 1925 she was named as co-respondent in a lawsuit brought by actress Dagmar Godowsky
Dagmar Godowsky
Dagmar Godowsky was an American silent film actress born to Polish Jewish parents in Vilna, Lithuania. She was the daughter of the notable pianist and composer Leopold Godowsky.-Silent film actress:...
. Godowsky began divorce proceedings after claiming to have discovered Luther with her husband, actor Frank Mayo
Frank Mayo (actor)
Frank Mayo was an American actor. He appeared in 310 films between 1911 and 1949.He was born in New York, New York and died in Laguna Beach, California from a heart attack...
, in Mayo's apartment.