Mabel Taliaferro


Mabel "Nell" Taliaferro was an American stage and silent-screen actress, known as "the Sweetheart of American Movies."

Biography

She was born as Maybelle Evelyn Taliaferro in Manhattan, New York City and raised in Richmond, Virginia. Taliaferro was descended on her father's side from one of the early families who settled in Virginia in the 17th century, the Taliaferros, whose roots are from a northern Italian immigrant to England in the 16th century.
Mabel Taliaferro began her stage-career with Chauncey Olcott. Later she appeared with James A. Hearne and with Sol Smith Russell in A Poor Relation. In 1899, she achieved distinction in the role of little Esther in Israel Zangwill's play, Children of the Ghetto. A year later she played the witching elf-child in Yeats's Gaelic fantasy, The Land of Heart's Desire. In 1902-3 Mabel Taliaferro appeared in An American Invasion with John E. Dodson and Miss Annie Irish. The following year she was seen in the support of Louis Mann in The Consul. Her greatest opportunity came when she was cast for Lovey Mary in Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch, a part she played continuously for two and one-half years. In 1905 she supported Arnold Daly in You Never Can Tell and later went on tour in The Bishop's Carriage. After a brief season in vaudeville she joined William Collier's company in a tour of Australia. In 1906 Mabel Taliaferro married Frederic Thompson, creator of the Luna Park on Coney Island and the New York Hippodrome, under whose management she starred in the Broadway play Polly of the Circus.
In 1907 she was injured in a car crash.
In 1912 her movie career began with the Selig Studios film version of Cinderella co-starring her then-husband Thomas Carrigan. She continued performing in films through her retirement in 1921. In 1940, she appeared in her final picture, My Love Came Back. Taliaferro was a sister of film and stage actress Edith Taliaferro and the cousin of actress Bessie Barriscale.
She died on January 24, 1979.

Filmography