Louise Lester — Real Tales About Reel Folk (1914) 🇺🇸

Recently, on a trip to Los Angeles, several American stars were sitting in a restaurant when they noticed a small boy at the next table staring wildly at Louise Lester. “Oh, mother!” he cried, pointing excitedly, “There is Calamity Anne!”

Of course, everybody in the café turned and looked, and the mother hastened to apologize for her son. It seemed that Miss Lester’s famous character was the heroine of all his childish romances, and the actress-playwright, far from being disconcerted, frankly admitted that she had never felt so complimented by any ovation in her life. She has sent her little admirer a photograph of Calamity and her burro, Tommy.

Of all her roles, Miss Lester’s favorite is Calamity Anne. She would rather be known as the “quaint old woman of the West,” than in any of her brilliant society parts.

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Louise Lester still appears now and then in her Wild West regalia, which is just as becoming to her as ever. But of late she has been kept so busy mothering all the younger stars of the Flying A, that she hasn’t had a chance to go off on any of her whimsical Calamity Anne stunts.

Collection: Reel Life Magazine, September 1914

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For a while Sydney Ayres made her a very attractive son — until he outgrew all that and was promoted to a directorship.

Then Miss Lester tried to console herself with mothering, and even grandmothering, beautiful Vivian Rich. One of her most effective attempts of this sort was in the drama entitled, “The Lost Sermon,” when Miss Lester appeared as a typical aristocratic granddame of the South.

Her latest is in quite another vein. In “The Girl in the Question” she cleverly turns the tables on her son, who is infatuated with a girl of a rather fast society set — playing the up-to-date parent in a deliciously human, witty fashion.

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Louise Lester, of the “Flying A”

Collection: Reel Life Magazine, November 1914

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