Gail Kane was a stage and silent movie

Silent Movie

Silent Movie is a 1976 satirical comedy film co-written, directed by, and starring Mel Brooks, and released by 20th Century Fox on June 17, 1976...

 actress born as Abigail Kane in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Philadelphia is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the county seat of Philadelphia County, with which it is coterminous. The city is located in the Northeastern United States along the Delaware and Schuylkill rivers. It is the fifth-most-populous city in the United States,...

.

She stood 5'7" tall, weighed 142 pounds, and had dark brown hair and eyes. She attended a private school in Newburgh, New York, but eschewed additional education to become an actress. She became a dedicated student of the art of pantomime

Pantomime

Pantomime — not to be confused with a mime artist, a theatrical performer of mime—is a musical-comedy theatrical production traditionally found in the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Jamaica, South Africa, India, Ireland, Gibraltar and Malta, and is mostly performed during the...

.

Theatrical actress

Kane performed at the Lyceum Theatre in Heap Game Watch in January 1914. She had a significant role in Seven Keys To Baldpate Astor, which was staged at the Gaiety Theatre, London

Gaiety Theatre, London

The Gaiety Theatre, London was a West End theatre in London, located on Aldwych at the eastern end of the Strand. The theatre was established as the Strand Musick Hall , in 1864 on the former site of the Lyceum Theatre. It was rebuilt several times, but closed from the beginning of World War II...

, in May 1914. The comedy was brought to the stage by George M. Cohan

George M. Cohan

George Michael Cohan , known professionally as George M. Cohan, was a major American entertainer, playwright, composer, lyricist, actor, singer, dancer, and producer....

. She paired with George Nash in The Miracle Man at the Astor Theatre

Astor Theatre

The Astor Theatre was a New York City Broadway theatre from 1906 to 1925 in the United States of America. It was located at 1537 Broadway, at W. 45th Street. It was first managed by Wagenhals and Kemper, then by George M. Cohan and Sam Harris, and later by the Shuberts. From 1925 to 1972 it was a...

. The play was produced on Broadway in the fall of 1914.
Kane acted in a presentation of The Hyphen Knickerbocker

Knickerbocker

Knickerbocker, also spelled Knikkerbakker, Knickerbakker, Knickerbacker, is a surname that dates back to the early Dutch colonists in New York. In 1809, Washington Irving published his satirical A History of New York under the pseudonym "Diedrich Knickerbocker", and since that time "Knickerbocker"...

in April 1915. She returned to the stage at the Broadhurst Theatre

Broadhurst Theatre

The Broadhurst Theatre is a legitimate Broadway theatre located at 235 West 44th Street in midtown Manhattan.It was designed by architect Herbert J. Krapp, a well-known theatre designer who had been working directly with the Shubert brothers; the Broadhurst opened 27 September 1917...

 in July 1920. She was paired with Earle Fox, another actor who
had been spending much of his time in movies. They appeared in the comedy Come Seven. The production was an adaptation by Octavus Roy Cohen

Octavus Roy Cohen

Octavus Roy Cohen was an American author, born in South Carolina where he received his secondary education at the Porter Military Academy, now the exclusive Porter-Gaud School. He went on to receive a college education at the Clemson University...

 of stories he had contributed to The Saturday Evening Post

The Saturday Evening Post

The Saturday Evening Post is a bimonthly American magazine. It was published weekly under this title from 1897 until 1969, and quarterly and then bimonthly from 1971.-History:...

. The play was the first ever featuring an entirely caucasian

Caucasian race

The term Caucasian race has been used to denote the general physical type of some or all of the populations of Europe, North Africa, the Horn of Africa, Western Asia , Central Asia and South Asia...

 cast in black face

Black Face

Black Face is the south wall of an east-west ridge in Arena Valley, south of East Beacon, in the Quartermain Mountains, Victoria Land. The feature is a prominent landmark and is formed by a dolerite dike which rises over above the floor of the valley...

.

Lawful Larceny (1922) was a comedy adapted from the writing of Samuel Shipman. It was presented at the Republic Theater, built by Oscar Hammerstein

Oscar Hammerstein I

Oscar Hammerstein I was a businessman, theater impresario and composer in New York City. His passion for opera led him to open several opera houses, and he rekindled opera's popularity in America...

 in 1900, at 42nd Street (Manhattan)

42nd Street (Manhattan)

42nd Street is a major crosstown street in the New York City borough of Manhattan, known for its theaters, especially near the intersection with Broadway at Times Square. It is also the name of the region of the theater district near that intersection...

. The players included Kane, Margaret Lawrence, Ida Waterman, and Lowell Sherman

Lowell Sherman

Lowell Sherman was an American actor and film director....

.

The Breaking Point by Mary Roberts Rinehart

Mary Roberts Rinehart

Mary Roberts Rinehart was an American writer, often called the American Agatha Christie. She is considered the source of the phrase "The butler did it", although she did not actually use the phrase. She is considered to have invented the "Had-I-But-Known" school of mystery writing...

 was staged at the
Klaw Theater, West 45th Street, New York City

New York City

New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

, in August 1923.
The plot concerned amnesia

Amnesia

Amnesia is a condition in which one's memory is lost. The causes of amnesia have traditionally been divided into categories. Memory appears to be stored in several parts of the limbic system of the brain, and any condition that interferes with the function of this system can cause amnesia...

 with the setting (fiction)

Setting (fiction)

In fiction, setting includes the time, location, and everything in which a story takes place, and initiates the main backdrop and mood for a story. Setting has been referred to as story world or milieu to include a context beyond the immediate surroundings of the story. Elements of setting may...

 moving from New York to Wyoming

Wyoming

Wyoming is a state in the mountain region of the Western United States. The western two thirds of the state is covered mostly with the mountain ranges and rangelands in the foothills of the Eastern Rocky Mountains, while the eastern third of the state is high elevation prairie known as the High...

 and back. Kane, Regina Wallace, Reginald Barlow

Reginald Barlow

Reginald Harry Barlow was a veteran stage and screen character actor, author, and film director. He was a busy performer in Hollywood films of the 1930s.-Early life:...

, and McKay Morris were the principal actors in the drama.

The Booth Theatre

Booth Theatre

The Booth Theatre is a Broadway theatre located at 222 West 45th Street in midtown-Manhattan, New York City.Architect Henry B. Herts designed the Booth and its companion Shubert Theatre as a back-to-back pair sharing a Venetian Renaissance-style façade...

 produced Paid, written by Sam Forrest, in November 1925. Kane portrayed Mrs John Ramsey in a play which endured for twenty-one performances.

Arrest

Kane was arrested following a performance of The Captive at the Empire Theater on Broadway (Manhattan) in February 1927. The production was considered indecent and a violation of
Section 1140A of the New York City Criminal Code, although the play had been tried and acquitted of immorality a short time earlier by a citizen's play jury. It was in its fifth month of production.

Forty-one arrests were made in total. Two other productions were raided on the same night. They were Sex, playing at Daly's 63rd St. Theater, and The Virgin Man, which was being performed before an audience at the Princess Theater. Among the actors taken to Night Court were Basil Rathbone

Basil Rathbone

Sir Basil Rathbone, KBE, MC, Kt was an English actor. He rose to prominence in England as a Shakespearean stage actor and went on to appear in over 70 films, primarily costume dramas, swashbucklers, and, occasionally, horror films...

, Helen Menken

Helen Menken

Helen Menken was an American actress, born Helen Meinken to a German-French father, Frederick Meinken, and an Irish-born mother, Mary Madden....

, Ann Trevor, Winifred Fraser, John Miltern, and Arthur Lewis. Menken was comforted by Kane as she made her exit after becoming agitated by the glares and explosions of cameras snapping as she stepped out on the sidewalk. "Please make them stop", Menken reportedly exclaimed. Also arrested was Mae West

Mae West

Mae West was an American actress, playwright, screenwriter and sex symbol whose entertainment career spanned seven decades....

, the star of Sex, and twenty others among a cast of fifty. Authorities promised to repeat the arrests if the plays were not withdrawn or modified to comply with the criminal code.

Movie career

Kane's movie career spanned much of the silent era, beginning with a role as Bonita Canby, in Arizona (1913). In the western she had the third lead, portraying the unfaithful wife of a U.S. Cavalry officer. She co-starred in the film adaptation of Upton Sinclair's The Jungle (1914). She starred in Via Wireless (1915) which was adapted from a play by Winchell Smith and Paul Armstrong. The story describes the competition between two men in the invention of a new naval gun. A wealthy man becomes the rival of one of the inventors for the affection of the daughter of an ironmaster

Ironmaster

An ironmaster is the manager – and usually owner – of a forge or blast furnace for the processing of iron. It is a term mainly associated with the period of the Industrial Revolution, especially in Great Britain....

. As Frances Durant, Kane is finally given a part worthy of her skill as an actress. One critic described her as a diamond set in brass in her previous films.

Kane was employed by the Mutual Film Corporation of Santa Barbara, California

Santa Barbara, California

Santa Barbara is the county seat of Santa Barbara County, California, United States. Situated on an east-west trending section of coastline, the longest such section on the West Coast of the United States, the city lies between the steeply-rising Santa Ynez Mountains and the Pacific Ocean...

 when she made The Upper Crust (1917). Produced by Mutual-American, Edward Pell is cast as Kane's leading man

Leading man

Leading man or leading gentleman is an informal term for the actor who plays a love interest to the leading actress in a film or play. A leading man is usually an all rounder; capable of singing, dancing, and acting at a professional level, but never outshining his female co-star...

 in a comedy replete with humor. Kane is a young Irish

Irish people

The Irish people are an ethnic group who originate in Ireland, an island in northwestern Europe. Ireland has been populated for around 9,000 years , with the Irish people's earliest ancestors recorded having legends of being descended from groups such as the Nemedians, Fomorians, Fir Bolg, Tuatha...

 woman named Molly O'Toole. She impersonates a wealthy dowager

Dowager

A dowager is a widow who holds a title or property, or dower, derived from her deceased husband. As an adjective, "Dowager" usually appears in association with monarchical and aristocratic titles....

 and succeeds in her ruse

Deception

Deception, beguilement, deceit, bluff, mystification, bad faith, and subterfuge are acts to propagate beliefs that are not true, or not the whole truth . Deception can involve dissimulation, propaganda, and sleight of hand. It can employ distraction, camouflage or concealment...

 long enough to enjoy herself and eventually marry the dowager's son.

In July 1917 Kane joined an effort organized by William A. Brady, President of the National Association of the Motion Picture Industry, and D.W. Griffith. Their task was to utilize film as a tool of information regarding the plans and purposes of the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 in World War I

World War I

World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

. Brady was appointed by President Woodrow Wilson

Woodrow Wilson

Thomas Woodrow Wilson was the 28th President of the United States, from 1913 to 1921. A leader of the Progressive Movement, he served as President of Princeton University from 1902 to 1910, and then as the Governor of New Jersey from 1911 to 1913...

 to mobilize the motion-picture industry. Kane was assigned to the Food Commission. In addition to Mutual she was associated with Metro Pictures

Metro Pictures

Metro Pictures Corporation was an American motion picture production company founded in late 1915 by Richard A. Rowland . Louis B. Mayer who worked for Metro Pictures Corporation early on. It is not to be confused with MGM which is a much later franchise concerning itself, Goldwyn and Louis B....

, Pathé

Pathé

Pathé or Pathé Frères is the name of various French businesses founded and originally run by the Pathé Brothers of France.-History:...

, and World. Kane filed a suit against Mutual in 1918, asking $33,500 for alleged breach of contract

Breach of contract

Breach of contract is a legal cause of action in which a binding agreement or bargained-for exchange is not honored by one or more of the parties to the contract by non-performance or interference with the other party's performance....

.

The Scarlet Oath (1917) was a challenging movie for Kane who played the dual role of two women. A Game of Wits (1917) is a five-reel comedy with Kane portraying Jeannette Browning in a unique love story.

She continued to act in motion pictures for another decade. Among her later movies are Love's Law (1918), The Daredevil (1918), Someone Must Pay (1919), Romeo's Dad (1919), Empty Arms (1920), Idle Hands (1921), The White Sister

The White Sister (1923 film)

The White Sister is a 1923 drama film starring Lillian Gish, directed by Henry King, and released by Metro Pictures about nine months before its merger into Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. It was based on the 1909 novel by F. Marion Crawford...

(1923), and Convoy (1927).

Marriage

Kane's husband, Henry Iden Ottman, died in January 1939. Ottman was born in New York City in 1880, the son of William Ottman and Christine Iden. Ottman moved to Augusta, Maine

Augusta, Maine

Augusta is the capital of the US state of Maine, county seat of Kennebec County, and center of population for Maine. The city's population was 19,136 at the 2010 census, making it the third-smallest state capital after Montpelier, Vermont and Pierre, South Dakota...

 in 1921. Kane and Ottman had a son, William Kane Ottman.

Private life

She owned a collection of scarab beetles considered to be one of the finest in America in 1917. The most valuable of the Scarabaeus sacer

Scarabaeus sacer

Scarabaeus sacer is a species of dung beetle, found in coastal dunes and marshes around the Mediterranean Basin. It collects balls of dung which it rolls to an underground chamber to feed its offspring. This behaviour inspired the Ancient Egyptians to compare it to the sun god Khepri, and they...

 is said to have been removed from the tomb of an Egyptian

Ptolemaic Egypt

Ptolemaic Egypt began when Ptolemy I Soter invaded Egypt and declared himself Pharaoh of Egypt in 305 BC and ended with the death of queen Cleopatra VII of Egypt and the Roman conquest in 30 BC. The Ptolemaic Kingdom was a powerful Hellenistic state, extending from southern Syria in the east, to...

 princess of the 2nd Ptolemaic dynasty

Ptolemaic dynasty

The Ptolemaic dynasty, was a Macedonian Greek royal family which ruled the Ptolemaic Empire in Egypt during the Hellenistic period. Their rule lasted for 275 years, from 305 BC to 30 BC...

. Archaeologists believe it to be one of a number issued to illustrate the doctrine of the resurrection. Kane was given her first scarab by Howard Estabrook

Howard Estabrook

Howard Estabrook was an American actor, film director and producer, and screenwriter.-Biography:Born Howard Bolles in Detroit, Michigan, Estabrook began his career in 1904 as a stage actor in New York. He made his film debut in 1914 during the silent era, and would go on to appear in several...

, who played Adhemar de Gratignan in Divorcons (1913). Presented at the New York Playhouse, Kane portrayed Mme. de Brionne in the play written by the French

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

 dramatist Victorien Sardou

Victorien Sardou

Victorien Sardou was a French dramatist. He is best remembered today for his development, along with Eugène Scribe, of the well-made play...

. Estabrook purchased the scarab in India

India

India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...

 while he was touring.

She collected bathing suits. Kane possessed one of the most attractive collections of one-piece, two-piece, and fluffy ruffles seashore outfits in Chicago, Illinois by 1917. Each bathing suit was also designed by her.

filmography

• Arizona (1913)
• The Great Diamond Robbery (1914)
• The Jungle (1914)
• Dan (1914)
• The Pit (1914)
• Her Great Match (1915)
• Via Wireless (1915)
• The Labyrinth (1915)
• Paying the Price (1916)
• The Velvet Paw (1916)
• The Scarlet Oath (1916)
• The Heart of a Hero (1916)
• The Men She Married (1916)
• On Dangerous Ground (1917)
• The Red Woman (1917)
• As Man Made Her (1917)
• Whose Wife? (1917)
• The Serpent's Tooth
  The Serpent's Tooth (1917 film)
  The Serpent's Tooth is a 1917 silent film drama starring Gail Kane from the stage and released through the Mutual Film company. A lost film. -Cast:*Gail Kane - Faith Channing*William Conklin - James Winthrop*Edward Peil, Sr. - Jack Stilling...
  
  (1917)
• The False Friend (1917)
• The Upper Crust (1917)
• Souls in Pawn
  Souls in Pawn
  Souls in Pawn is a 1917 silent film spy-drama directed by Henry King and starring Gail Kane. It was based on a story by Jules Furthman and released by Mutual Film. -Cast:*Gail Kane - Liane Dore*Douglas MacLean - Karl, Prince von Kondermarck...
  
  (1917)
• The Bride's Silence (1917)
• Southern Pride (1917)
• A Game of Wits (1917)
• When Men Betray (1918)
• Love's Law (1918)
• The Daredevil (1918)
• Someone Must Pay (1919)
• Romeo's Dad (1919) (*short)
• Empty Arms (1920)
• Idle Hands (1921)
• Wise Husbands (1921)
• The White Sister
  The White Sister (1923 film)
  The White Sister is a 1923 drama film starring Lillian Gish, directed by Henry King, and released by Metro Pictures about nine months before its merger into Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. It was based on the 1909 novel by F. Marion Crawford...
  
  (1923)
• Convoy
  Convoy (1927 film)
  Convoy is a 1927 silent film World War 1 drama starring Lowell Sherman and Dorothy Mackaill and released thru First National Pictures. The film is an early producing credit for the Halperin Brothers, Victor and Edward, later of White Zombie fame. It's the final screen appearance of Broadway star...
  
  (1927)

External links

• Gail Kane photo gallery NYP Library
• Gail Kane on the front cover of The Theater magazine in 1913
• Gail Kane 1911 portrait still Univ of Washington J. Willis Sayre collection
• Gail Kane in 1917 by the sea shore Univ. of Washington, Sayre collection