Laura La Plante

Laura La Plante was 15 years old when she entered films as a Christie Comedy Bathing Beauty. By 1921, she had played a number of roles including a Tom Mix Western called The Big Town Round-Up (1921) for Fox and The Old Swimmin' Hole (1921) for First National. Laura, now 17, next signed with Universal, where she appeared in shorts, serials and many supporting roles. Over the next few years, she would become one of the leading stars at Universal and acted in in dramas, mysteries and comedies.

Some of her more important films were the adventure Crooked Alley (1923), the comedy Sporting Youth (1924), the drama Smouldering Fires (1925) and the mystery The Cat and the Canary (1927).

One of her successful comedies, Skinner's Dress Suit (1926), was directed by her husband, William A. Seiter. When sound came to Universal, she was one of the silent film stars who made the transition.

She played a leading role in the sound film Show Boat (1929) and made her first all-talking picture with Hold Your Man (1929).

By 1930, she decided that she had enough and left Universal, which terminated her contract. She went to England, where she would appear in a few more films over the years.

She was offered the role of Nora Charles in The Thin Man (1934) but turned it down, feeling the role would be too mundane. The part later went to Myrna Loy, who became a popular leading lady of the 1930s.

In 1954 she appeared as a contestant on You Bet Your Life (1950) under the name Laura Asher. Groucho Marx was told he might recognize her; he realized she was Laura La Plante within minutes of being introduced.

Is buried at El Camino Memorial Park in San Diego, California. When David Gill and his crew arrived at her Rancho Mirage home in 1977 to interview her husband Irving Asher for his documentary series, she hid in her kitchen pleading not to be interviewed.

Profiled in "Speaking of Silents: First Ladies of the Screen" by William Drew, 1997.