Frances Raymond | |
---|---|
Born | May 24, 1869 Salem, Massachusetts, United States |
Died | June 18, 1961 (aged 92) Los Angeles, California, United States |
Occupation | Actress |
Years active | 1915–1947 (film) |
Frances Raymond (1869–1961) was an American stage and film actress.[1] An established character actress, she played in a number of supporting roles during the silent era. Later, during the sound era, she primarily played much smaller, uncredited parts.
Raymond was the daughter of Frederick Lapzieu of Brooklyn.[2]
Raymond's acting career ended in 1894.[3] She acted with the Frohman road companies[4] and had been performing in The Girl I Left Behind Me in Memphis when she and the management parted ways. Management of Charles Frohman's company said that she had been incompetent, while she said that she angered a company official by resisting his advances.[5]
Turning from acting to writing, Raymond spent almost three years working on a novel, Maylou, which the G. W. Dillingham Company published in 1897. Critics attacked the book's plot and style, compounding its lack of success while creating "a sort of ephemeral notoriety" for it.[5] That lack of success led to her becoming "melancholy and morose".[6]
In 1892, Raymond married businessman Franklin Raymond Wallace, Some time later "she discovered that Wallace was a married man with a daughter nearly as old as herself."[4] He settled a lawsuit that she had filed by promising to pay her $100 per month. By 1896, she said that he had stopped those payments. Therefore, she sued him for $50,000.[4] Later, Raymond felt deserted by a young doctor whom she had "loved deeply"[6] after he had paid "marked attention" to her for two years before telling her that he intended to marry someone else.[2]
On June 18, 1961, Raymond died of asphyxiation in her New York apartment.[6] She committed suicide by inhaling gas[7] in her New York City apartment after she had closed off the keyhole and the space under the door and removed three of the chandelier's four gas burners.[5]