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Pauline Frederick (August 12, 1883, Boston - September 19, 1938, Beverly Hills, California) was an actress best known for her Hollywood films.
Pauline Frederick was born as Pauline Beatrice Libby in 1883. “My birthday is – or rather was, for I have had my last – August 12,” she later stated in an interview published in Motion Picture Magazine. “On that date, according to records, I joined the other little beans in Boston. I had four nationalities from which to choose my temperament – first my good old United States; second my mother’s ancestors, who were Scotch; and third, my father’s who were French and English. Such a combination I realized beforehand would be essential to the making of a picture star and acted accordingly.” she was an established stage actor when she made her first film in 1915. She made her last film in 1937. The following year, she died of complications from asthma.
As a girl she was fascinated with show business, and determined early to place her goals in the direction of the theater. She reminisced in an interview in Motion Picture Magazine, “As a child there were several things besides some well-known young medicines that I disliked to take, and one of these was a dare. When one of my playmates, whose favorite pastime was running off to the theater whenever we could save money enough to buy tickets and reproducing what we had seen on an elaborate home scale, said: ‘Polly, I dare you to go on the real stage,’ of course I just had to go. I had been studying singing, and succeeded in persuading the manager of a vaudeville house in Boston to hear a couple of my songs.”
“I’ll put you on for a week,” the manager agreed, “and pay you fifty dollars.”
That was the first money she earned, and to Pauline, it seemed like a fortune. “My chums were there in full force that night waiting to see ‘Polly take her dare,’ and for their sakes I had to be brave about it, though I can remember to this day how I quaked inwardly when I stepped out on the stage and saw the hundreds of eyes turned toward me. I thought each eye was saying: ‘She never did this before,’ and in companion I was answering: ‘No, she never did.’ Well, I managed to get through my three songs some way or another, and after that it wasn’t so bad. That first week gave me the courage to go further and, of course, further meant New York.”
A well-known stage star, Frederick was already in her 30s when she began making films. She specialized in playing commanding and authoritative women throughout her film career. Her stunning beauty stayed with her as she aged into her best remembered roles--sacrificing mothers and 40-something women having a last fling at youth and romance. She was able to make a successful transition to 'talkies' in 1929, and in 1931 was cast as Joan Crawford's mother in This Modern Age.
Frederick generally played an angry matriarch. Frederick never shyed away from parts that often other actresses of the time feared, often due to the role being controversial or out of character.
Frederick has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 7000 Hollywood Boulevard.
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