Mabel Frenyear | |
---|---|
Born | August 25, 1880 Brooklyn, New York City, New York, U.S. |
Died | unknown |
Occupation(s) | Actress, chorus girl |
Spouses | Edward F. Dunn
(m. 1900; div. 1904)
|
Mabel Frenyear was an American actress and chorus girl.
Mabel Frenyear was born on August 25, 1880, the daughter of Edward L. Frenyear and Eva Tollman.[1][unreliable source?]
She began her career in Broadway theatre, appearing in plays such as The Girl in the Barracks (1899),[2] The Stronger Sex (1908–1909), The Only Law (1909),[3][4][5] Where There's a Will (1910), You Can Never Tell (1915), The Importance of Being Earnest (1921),[6] and Montmartre (1922).[7] She also appeared in productions of The Wizard of Oz,[8] Babes in Toyland, Father and the Boys (1910),[9] The 'Mind-the-Paint' Girl (1912),[10][11] Nothing But the Truth (1916),[12] and Kissing Time (1921).[13]
Frenyear took chorus roles to prepare for her role as a chorus girl in The Only Law.[14] A Minnesota reviewer in 1921 noted that Frenyear was "really pretty and plays her part with spirit."[15] Her stage work was not always so admired; "If Miss Frenyear would not shriek her lines unintelligibly," commented one reviewer in 1915, "the worst defect of the production would be removed."[16]
In addition to being a stage actress, Frenyear appeared in three silent films; A Fool There Was (1915), a Theda Bara vehicle,[17] Tit for Tat (1915), a comedy,[18] and Social Quicksands (1918),[19] written by Katharine Kavanaugh. On her first trip to make films in Los Angeles in 1914, she made headlines for criticizing local women's fashion. "Southern California is a wonderland to me, but the women in Los Angeles; oh, they dress so terribly," she declared.[20]
Frenyear married three times. On February 17, 1900, she married Edward F. Dunn.[21] She only lived with Dunn for eight weeks, when he sold all her jewelry and gambled the proceeds; they divorced in 1904.[8] On December 22, 1904, she married Thomas R. Finucane in Chicago, Illinois.[22][unreliable source?] Their marriage was almost immediately annulled because both parties admitted they were "married while intoxicated".[11] In 1911, she was rumored to have married her co-star, Ralph Kellard, but both "laughed at the mere idea".[23] And on April 27, 1940, she married her third husband, Harry Young, in Chicago. Her date of death is unknown.