Betty Bronson (November 17, 1906 – October 19, 1971) was an American television and film actress who began her career during the silent film era. She was a famous actress in silent and sound films.
She was born Elizabeth Ada Bronson in Trenton, New Jersey to Frank and Nellie Smith Bronson. She began her film career began at age of sixteen with a bit part in the film Anna Ascends. At seventeen, after she had pleaded with every friend she had at Paramount Pictures, she finally got an interview with J. M. Barrie, author of Peter Pan. Barrie personally chose her to play the lead in a film of his work Peter Pan which would be released in 1924. This film role had been sought by both Gloria Swanson and Mary Pickford, but Bronson won the role through her natural lightness and grace, probably refined through training with the Ballets Russes. Though she was with them for only a short time, perhaps a couple of weeks, it proved helpful in enhancing her portrayal of Peter Pan, especially… read more
Betty Bronson (November 17, 1906 – October 19, 1971) was an American television and film actress who began her career during the silent film era. She was a famous actress in silent and sound films.
She was born Elizabeth Ada Bronson in Trenton, New Jersey to Frank and Nellie Smith Bronson. She began her film career began at age of sixteen with a bit part in the film Anna Ascends. At seventeen, after she had pleaded with every friend she had at Paramount Pictures, she finally got an interview with J. M. Barrie, author of Peter Pan. Barrie personally chose her to play the lead in a film of his work Peter Pan which would be released in 1924. This film role had been sought by both Gloria Swanson and Mary Pickford, but Bronson won the role through her natural lightness and grace, probably refined through training with the Ballets Russes. Though she was with them for only a short time, perhaps a couple of weeks, it proved helpful in enhancing her portrayal of Peter Pan, especially in the flight sequences.
She starred with Mary Brian (Wendy Darling) and Esther Ralston (Mrs Darling), and the three of them became very close friends for the rest of their lives.
Bronson became an instant success in the year following the release of Peter Pan. She had a major role in the 1925 silent film adaptation of Ben-Hur. In 1926, she starred in another Barrie story A Kiss for Cinderella, an artfully-made film that failed at the boxoffice. She had moderate success for the rest of her career. She made a very successful transition into sound films. Her first sound film was in The Singing Fool (1928) with Al Jolson, and she also starred in the follow-up film Sonny Boy (1929) with Davey Lee. She was the leading lady opposite Jack Benny in the romantic drama The Medicine Man (1930).
Bronson continued film roles until 1933 when she married Ludwig Lauerhass, with whom she had one child, Ludwig Lauerhass, Jr. She did not appear in films again until Yodelin’ Kid from Pine Ridge (1937), starring Gene Autry. She resumed acting in the 1960s appearing in episode television roles and feature films. Her last film role was an uncredited part in the television biopic Evel Knievel (1971).
Bronson was always rather reclusive with the press, but she did get some attention after being seen with Douglas Fairbanks, Jr.. He had his first childish crush on her, and as he remembered in his autobiography The Salad Days, he stated:
“Another important picture had just started. It was Peter Pan, directed by a clever caricature of a wildly temperamental movie director, Herbert Brenon. After exhaustive tests, Betty Bronson, a pretty and gifted girl in her middle teens, was given this famous role… I fell for Betty! It was my first intensely juvenile, deep-sighs-and-bad-sonnets love. It was not fully requited. She only flirted with me. My rival was a fellow in his twenties, a newspaperman who was to become one of New York’s most respected theater critics, Richard Watts, Jr. …In any event, I was so smitten with Betty, I could think of little else, except when I could call on her, even though her overprotective mother was always just in the next room.”
In any case, it is known that Bronson kept all of his letters, bad sonnets and all, and she spoke of him fondly until her dying day.
On October 19, 1971, Bronson died after a protracted illness in Pasadena, California and was interred in the Forest Lawn Memorial Park, Glendale. —Wikipedia
