Volume III: Biographies

FROST, Leila *

Actress (1917)

Thanhouser Career Synopsis: Leila Frost appeared in the 1917 Thanhouser release of The Heart of Ezra Greer.

Biographical Notes: Leila Frost made her stage debut at the age of six with Eleanor Robson (who later became Mrs. August Belmont, of society fame) in Mary Johnstons Audrey. Later, she played a childs part with Millie James in The Little Princess, after which she was seen with Andrew Mack, Charles Hawtrey, and other luminaries. Her talents were widely acclaimed and furnished the subject for numerous newspaper articles. When she was 15 she was on tour in the United States and Canada, playing Ophelia to Robert Mantells Hamlet, in one of her many Shakespearean roles. In 1911, at the age of 18, she toured as Emma Jane Perkins in Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm, a role she maintained, among others, for the next several years. In early 1914 she was on the road in Stop Thief.

Leila Frost and her sister, Lorraine, who also played on the stage, were orphans and were usually cared for by older actresses in the companies in which they played. Leila was a brunette, short in stature, while her sister, a dark-eyed blonde, was taller. In 1915 she was cast for a part in Me and Grant, a play written by James Montgomery. The producer considered her surname, Frost, to be a bad omen, so she was listed in credits as Leila Tyler. Apparently this didnt help, for the play opened in Newark on a Monday and closed the following Saturday!

Miss Frost decided to go into films and was engaged by Thomas Dixon for the ingenue role of Zonia in his epic film, The Fall of a Nation, released in 1916 by the National Drama Corporation. For a short time in 1917 she was at the Thanhouser studio in New Rochelle, where she had a part in The Heart of Ezra Greer. In the same year she was on stage in the road company of What Happened to Jones, followed in 1918 by a tour in She Walked in Her Sleep. In early 1920 Leila Frost was on stage in Long Island in The Ruined Lady.

Thanhouser Filmography:

1917: The Heart of Ezra Greer (10-7-1917)

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