Louella Maxam


Louella Maxam was an American actress who performed in over 50 silent films from 1913 until 1921. She was often cast in comedies and Westerns, most notably being identified in 1915 as a "leading lady" in a series of shorts starring Tom Mix, who during the silent and early sound eras was promoted as the "Cowboy King of Hollywood". Later, she was a female lead in other films for various studios, including several productions featuring another early cowboy star, Franklyn Farnum. Following her departure from acting, Maxam worked in county and municipal government in California, including service with the Burbank police department, where in 1943 she was hired as that city's first "police woman".

Early life

Born in Florida in 1891, Louella Marguerite Maxam was the elder child of Sue E. Maxam, a native of Illinois. Little is known about Louella's father. According to government records, he was a native of Rhode Island and died prior to April 1910, when the federal census identifies Sue as a widow. Louella later attended public schools in St. Louis, Missouri before moving with her mother and brother Lauren to California. The federal census of 1910 shows that in Los Angeles Sue earned income for her family by renting rooms in their house to several boarders, and that Louella—just shy of 19 years old at the time—was employed as a bookkeeper in a nearby grocery store. Within a few years, however, young "Lula" found work in Hollywood's rapidly growing film industry, initially performing in serials and in stand-alone shorts as an extra and in other small uncredited parts.

Film career

By the latter half of 1913 Maxam was cast as a supporting character in The Adventures of Kathlyn, Hollywood's "first cliffhanger serial". The absence of any 1914 releases in Maxam's known filmography suggests that more substantial roles continued to elude her until the following year, when she began to find steady, credited work in Westerns. In that genre she soon became closely associated on screen with cowboy star Tom Mix, and in 1915 she was recognized as a "leading lady" in his popular productions.

Tom Mix shorts at Selig

Maxam performed in at least 13 of Tom Mix's films. In one of those Westerns, A Child of the Prairie, Maxam's own three-and-a-half-year-old daughter Norma is featured and identified in 1915 trade publications as a "Los Angeles product" and "the youngest member of the Selig Polyscope Company of players". In its April 23 issue that year, The Photoplayers' Weekly describes "Baby Norma Maxam" on the set:
Also in April 1915, the Chicago-based trade journal Motography reviewed another Tom Mix Western, The Conversion of Smiling Tom. In its assessment of the short, the publication recognizes Maxam's contributions to the growing quality of the cowboy star's films. "Mix", states Motography, "is ably supported by Louella Maxam" as Smiling Tom's love interest. The journal then adds, "These two players and the others appearing in supporting roles make the film a convincing one by their acting." In addition to the media's recognition of her acting talent, The Photoplayers' Weekly credited her professional success, especially in Westerns, to additional attributes she possessed, namely "her absolute lack of fear" in performing stunts and her excellent "horsewomanship".
Maxam's association with Tom Mix continued to increase her popularity with moviegoers. Photoplayers' Weekly once again highlights Maxam in its July 8, 1915 issue, featuring a portrait of the actress on its front cover, an image that carries the tagline "Star of Western Dramas and Comedies". Yet, despite her screen success with Mix, she declined the offer in the summer of 1915 to relocate from California to work at new studio in Las Vegas, New Mexico, one being constructed specifically for the production of the cowboy star's lucrative films. "Miss Louella Maxam", Photoplayers' Weekly reported, "one of the best known leading women in screen dramas of western life, refuses to sacrifice her home in Glendale, which is the reason she did not accompany Thomas Mix." The Los Angeles publication then added, "the talented young women is considering other offers".

Universal and Keystone

Later in 1915, after declining the move to New Mexico and leaving Selig, Maxam began working for Universal, performing there in Her Prey, Manna, The Phantom Fortune, The Measure of Leon Du Bray, and The Fair God of Sun Island, which was filmed on location at Laguna Beach. In late November, Louella spent two weeks on location again with other "Universalites" in the snowy "Bear Lake regions" of Southern California filming and co-starring with Sydney Ayres in John o' the Mountains, a three-reel "Canadian Northwest" drama written by F. McGrew Willis.
as "Diamond Dan" in the Keystone two-reel short His Bitter Pill, 1916In January 1916, after completing John o' the Mountains and The Sting of Conscience for Universal, Maxam signed a contract with Keystone Studios to be in a series of shorts. One of those releases is His Bitter Pill, a parody of Western films in which she co-stars with Mack Swain. In May 1916, Keystone "loaned" Maxam to Signal Film Corporation so she could accompany her husband, fellow actor William Burton, to Honolulu and Hilo, Hawaii to film the five-reeler The Diamond Runners. Maxam resumed her work at Keystone by late July and was cast in His Lying Heart, Vampire Ambrose, and Ambrose's Rapid Rise. While filming Ambrose's Rapid Rise, in a scene of a burning schoolhouse, the hair of actor Tom Kennedy caught fire. It is reported that when Maxam noticed "the cruel flames were licking up locks from his noble brow, she made a dash at him with a bucket of water and put him out." After that short's release in September 1916, Motion Picture News published an extensive "Motion Picture Studio Directory" in which Maxam's entry includes information about her life, some of her films, leisure activities, physical traits, and even her home address: Maxam's contract with Keystone was a relatively brief one. In early November 1916, shortly after Motion Picture News published the noted directory, Motography announced she had left Keystone "to join her husband , who is one of the Signal players." The widely read fan magazine Photoplay subsequently offered a less discreet explanation for Maxam's separation from Keystone, reporting that she was "axed" as part of cost-cutting measures and widespread restructuring within the motion picture industry:

Selig, American, and Triangle

After leaving Keystone, Maxam returned to Selig and was cast in Only a Rose, Out of the Shadows, Paradise for a Day, and in several other shorts through mid-1917, mostly in minor roles. One of the few co-starring credits she had at Selig during those months was in Won in the Stretch, a one-reeler. Possibly in a move to obtain work again in longer, more complex films, Maxam accepted roles in several five-reel productions with the American Film Company and Triangle Film Corporation during the latter half of 1917 and 1918. In one of those films, Because of a Woman, Maxam is one of three major supporting characters. Peter Milne, film critic for Motion Picture News, gives a rather vague assessment of the actors' performances in his September 22, 1917 review: "The principal roles are handled by Jack Livingston, Louella Maxam and George Chesebro|George Chesbro, a trio who distinguish themselves averagely."
For the American Film Company, Maxam performed with J. Gordon Russell in portraying a poor starving couple in The Mantle of Charity, a five-reeler initially released for preview in September 1918. In the Western Deuce Duncan, another five-reeler released in November 1918, she co-stars with William Desmond. The influential entertainment paper Variety gives that film a mixed review, as it does the performance of "Luella Maxim": "Miss Maxim...makes a pleasing appearance and acts with intelligence, although she could get more out of her part than she does."

Canyon Pictures

Louella, also billed as Lola Maxam, performed her final roles co-starring in a series of Westerns produced in 1919 and 1920 by Canyon Pictures Corporation, films that include The Two Doyles, The Desert Rat, and Brother Bill. The lead in those two-reelers was Franklyn Farnum, who in the decade after World War I became another cowboy star of Hollywood. In October 1920—after Maxam's co-starring role with Farnum in Vengeance and the Girl—trade publications advertised six more of Canyon's popular Westerns. Other actresses, however, were cast in those films, including Helene Chadwick and Mary Anderson. Maxam left the film industry by 1921, a departure date that is corroborated by her complete absence from the 1921 edition of the Motion Picture Studio Directory and Trade Annual. One 2019 online reference includes Maxam, without a cited source, as a cast member in the May 1921 Canyon release The Raiders, a lost film that starred Farnum and Claire Windsor. Yet, no review, cast listing, or news item alluding to Maxam's participation in The Raiders has been found in a 1921 film-industry publication. In fact, in its disparaging review of The Raiders in July that year, Variety refers to only "the lone woman of the cast".

Post-film career

Maxam remained in California after her work in motion pictures. During the 1920s and throughout the 1930s, she was employed by Los Angeles County as a welfare worker or "investigator". She continued in public service into the 1940s although she moved from a county position to a municipal job. In 1943 Maxam joined the police department in Burbank, becoming that city's first female employee in law enforcement.

Personal life and death

Maxam married three times. In 1910 in Los Angeles, she wed John Joseph Keller, a bookkeeper and a native of Chicago. The couple had a daughter, Norma Marguerite, born on April 23, 1911. After divorcing Keller prior to 1915, Maxam married actor William Brunton, a union that lasted until 1920. Information is scant about her third husband, whom she married sometime in the 1920s. His surname was Modie, and census records indicate he died before April 1930, when Louella is listed as a widow and living with her mother in a rental home at 2446 Hidalgo Avenue in Los Angeles. By then and for the remainder of her life, she identified herself as Louella Maxam Modie. She also continued to live with her mother until Sue's death in December 1957.
Louella died of undisclosed causes in September 1970 in a hospital in Burbank, California, and she was interred at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in nearby Hollywood Hills. When Maxam's only child, Merna M. Levack, died in 1996, her body was placed next to Louella's with a memorial plaque inscribed "Devoted Daughter". California death records document that Merna Marguerite Levack was born April 23, 1911 in Los Angeles—the same day, year, location, and of the same parents as cited on the birth certificate of Norma Maguerite Keller. That certificate also verifies Norma's delivery as a singular birth, not a twin. Those records and Louella's gravesite memorial therefore indicate that Merna and Norma were the same person. Why "Baby Norma" later altered her birth name to Merna is unknown.

Partial filmography

The following list is compiled from various sources, including news items and reviews in film-industry trade papers and journals published between 1913 and 1921, Larry Langman's A Guide to Silent Westerns, and Buck Rainey's Sweethearts of the Sage: Biographies and Filmographies of 258 Actresses Appearing in Western Movies :