Alice Belcher — Alice, Thy Name Is Versatility (1928) 🇺🇸

When Alice Belcher first started on a career, she hoped to become a singer. A few trips to Europe had led her to believe that the operatic field was her goal in life. Instead, musical comedies and plays fell to her lot. So opera was abandoned and never thought of again.

Leaving the stage in New York to enter pictures, Miss Belcher played opposite John Barrymore in “Here Comes the Bride,” one of his early pictures, a comedy. As if one celebrity were not enough, she was chosen to play with Caruso [Enrico Caruso] in his picture, “My Cousin.” This was thrilling! She thought that her old desire for operatic glory was now to be fulfilled — not in reality, but by bringing her in contact with great singers in the movies. The ill-fated result of Caruso’s screen venture dulled such ideas.

Opera now became a thorn in Miss Belcher’s artistic side, for she was sent to appear in Mary Garden’s still more ill-fated Thaïs.

“All opera singers, except Geraldine Farrar, should appear only with an orchestra,” Miss Belcher avers. When John Barrymore made “When a Man Loves” he had Alice in the cast, wearing a massive wig which had to be propped up to rest her neck between scenes.

“Did you wish this thing on me?” she asked John after a hard day’s work.

“Yes. But, my dear, see how beautiful it makes you,” he replied.

One of her pronounced successes was as the eccentric heiress in “Pals First,” one of Dolores del Río’s first pictures. She has lately appeared with Claire Windsor, in Blondes by Choice.

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Collection: Picture Play Magazine, June 1928