Ellen Burford — Ellen From Tennessee (1920) 🇺🇸
It’s her real name and her stage name: Ellen Cassity. A name that from the press agent’s point of view needs no camouflage.
by Lillian Montanye
Surely the gods of luck must have taken a hand at her christening and in bestowing upon her many more true gifts: brown hair with threads of gold; slate-blue eyes with velvety, dark-fringed lashes; regular features; a perfect skin and a shapely, healthy body. And, if they had the gift of sight and knew that the wee lassie was destined for a career, they gave no sign, for, with the wisdom of their kind, they knew that gods of luck and gods of chance, also careers, must bide their time.
Ellen Cassity [Ellen Burford] was born in Jackson, Tenn., of good old Southern stock; a people proud, upright, uncompromisingly conservative. A family of gentlemen and gentlewomen, careers, for their womenfolk, artistic or otherwise, were not even considered.
When Ellen was five the family moved to Louisville. Shortly afterward it was discovered that the small daughter had a voice of unusual quality. She was given lessons, vocal and instrumental, and at the age of ten had developed into a child prodigy and was solo soprano in a church.
Not only was she soloist on Sundays, but she was also the star of her grade at school entertainments. An omnivorous reader, she spent many a rainy afternoon in grandmother’s attic and in Dickens, Scott, Stevenson, and finally a set of Shakespeare’s plays, she discovered a secret door to another world.
Unknown to her adoring family, little Ellen began to dream dreams. The old attic, with its low ceilings, its dusty rafters, saw strange sights. Before an ancient mirror with tarnished frame, with an old portiere, a lace curtain, a bit of gold pasteboard for a crown, she danced, sang and gestured — and created for herself a land of make-believe, a world that none of her family or ancestors, so far as any one knew, had ever dreamed of.
By the time Ellen was fifteen she knew quite definitely that she was going to be an actress. She was not abnormal, unusual in any way. In reality and habit she was like the girl friends with whom she walked arm-in-arm under the old elms of the quaint little city. But deep under every inherited habit there was something that would not be suppressed.
One evening at supper she announced herself: “Mother, grandmother, I have decided that I will not always sing in church; I am going to be an actress!” Had she announced her intention of being a plumber, a butcher, an anarchist, her family could have been no more astonished, more hopelessly bewildered.
Helplessly they searched the family tree to see if they could spy out the branch that had handed down this perverse inclination. For their Ellen to sing in church for a consideration had been bad enough, but she had the gift of song; rightly used, it might help others and was not unbecoming a gentlewoman! But a public career — the stage!
Quietly but persistently, Ellen, sought to overcome parental objections. She studied, she sang in church, in concerts, she took part in school entertainments, she attended the theater whenever possible and she bided her time. Finally a theatrical manager and friend of the family advised her to come to New York and her mother, still unreconciled and secretly hoping that the New York managers would have none of them, came with her.
But alas for maternal hopes! The very first day in New York, thru a lawyer friend whom Mrs. Cassity had known for years, Florenz Ziegfeld saw the beautiful young Southern girl, noted her grace, her charm, and signed her for The Follies of 1917. During her career with The Follies her face was the model for more than a dozen Clarence B. Underwood covers and a well-known photographer won several prizes with art studies of Miss Cassity. Finally she I left The Follies to sing in Words and Music with Raymond Hitchcock. Following this, she had the opportunity to understudy the leading role in Pals First, later going on tour as leading woman.
And then, unfortunately, Miss Cassity was obliged to undergo a severe operation on her throat that resulted in the weakening of her voice. So she decided to accept one of the many flattering offers for screen work.
“I could still dance,” she says, “and sing some, but I felt that it would be best to give my voice a rest and try pictures. I am so glad that I did and have no idea now of going back to the stage, but, of course, one never knows.
“While I found the stage interesting, I find the pictures even more so. The stage was, to me, a veritable land of make-believe. But the pictures are more than that. They are a series of wonderful adventures — every day is different from the one before. Not that it isn’t hard work, it is. One has to be on the alert every minute. One’s physical endurance is put to the test very often, and often there are real dangers to encounter — as, for instance, when we were making Checkers and a piece of glass flew into my eye, causing me to suffer tortures, even endangering my eyesight. All the same, I had a wonderful time making Checkers.
“Just now I am co-starring with Herbert Rawlinson in Passers-By, produced and directed by J. Stuart Blackton, and I want to say that it is a great opportunity to work with Mr. Blackton, who is a gentleman every minute of the day and is consideration itself.
“My favorite parts and hobbies and ambitions? I like drama best, with plenty of action — also light comedy. Am not crazy about ‘adventuresome’ parts, but can do whatever I’m given to do, as I have not as yet developed temperament. And my hobbies are horseback riding, of course — every Southern girl can ride; it’s a part of her education, but my principal hobby is my mother. She has been such a dear and came around so beautifully when she realized that I was desperately in earnest about wanting to succeed in my profession. She has stayed with me in New York and even Journeyed to the coast with me. She’s not just a mother — she’s a pal.
“And ambitions? Well, seriously, to make the very best of myself and, even tho I never become a great star, so-called, to do something that will stand out — to do a picture that people will remember because of some part I played, whether great or small.”
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Ellen Cassity, J. Stuart Blackton’s latest discovery, hails from Tennessee. She came to the screen via the Ziegfeld Follies, and is the latest beauty of that famous organization to grace the films
Photograph below by Lumière
Photograph by Pach, N. Y.
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Collection: Motion Picture Classic Magazine, April 1920