Fiona Hale — Succeeding to the Social Throne (1925) 🇺🇸

For the first time, an actress has chosen her own successor.

From the grave, practically, comes the dictum which has given to Fiona Hale the dais occupied with such gracious and dignified charm by the late Kate Lester.

Mrs. Hale is of Miss Lester’s type, regal, white-haired, patrician. Robes of velvet, ropes of pearls, diamond tiaras — these accompany the cool scorn with which she rules the screen drawing-room.

For years she and Miss Lester had been very close friends, and many pointers on the art of acting their particular type of characterization had been passed on to the lesser-known actress by the one without a peer in playing grande dames. Often they appeared together, usually with Mrs. Hale cast as a friend of the queenly matron.

Two weeks before her death Miss Lester made a prophetic remark, though at the time it was tinged with humor. Arranging an ornament for Mrs. Hale, she said laughingly to the group about the studio set, “Isn’t she a dead ringer for me? If anything ever happens to me, you make them give her my place.”

And after the tragedy that snuffed out Kate Lester’s life, people remembered Fiona Hale, these words were recalled and she was given several of Miss Lester’s rôles.

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Photo by Howlett

Collection: Picture Play Magazine, October 1925