Allene Ray — Biographical Sketch (1927) 🇺🇸
Allene Ray is one motion picture star whom it required an abundance of eloquence and persuasion to induce into pictures. Out in her home town of San Antonio, Tex., when she was a high school girl, they considered her very beautiful, a splendid horse rider, and talented in many directions. They tried to induce her to take part in amateur theatricals, but she would have none of them. She cared neither for the theatre nor pictures.
Without ever having had a day’s experience, either in pictures or on the stage, she sprang overnight into a leading lady on the screen. Harry Myers, well known as a star and director, went to San Antonio to make a series of two-reel westerns. He decided to find a leading lady there, and inquiry turned him toward the Ray home. The young Miss wanted nothing to do with pictures, and it took the better part of the afternoon of Myers’ most persuasive eloquence to convince her she was wrong.
That was in 1919, and her first two-reeler was titled “The High Card,” by “Tex” O’Reilly. Miss Ray’s success was assured from that moment, and since then she has probably executed more daring stunts and participated in more hair-raising rescues than any star who ever appeared on the screen.
There followed an engagement with the Sawyer-Lubin Company, her first picture being “Partners of the Sunset.” She was then loaned for a picture titled “Your Friend and Mine,” in which Willard Mack and Enid Bennett were the stars.
George Seitz [George B. Seitz], producing serials for Pathé signed Miss Ray to a contract for that company, and she has been making serials ever since. She has made ten of them, and has successfully executed every stunt planned for her. She is always willing to take a chance at doing anything that will help her pictures.
Among Miss Ray’s successful serials for Pathé are “The Green Archer,” “Snowed In,” “The House Without a Key,” “Melting Millions,” “Hawk of the Hills, “The Man Without a Face,” “The Terrible People” and “The Yellow Cameo.”
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Collection: Motion Picture News, October 1927 (Booking Guide and Studio Directory)