Lillian Worth
Acting
Biography
Lillian Worth (stage name), born Lillian Burgher Murphy, (June 24, 1884 – February 23, 1952) was an American actress. She appeared in 58 films between 1913 and 1937. Lillian Murphy was born on June 24, 1884, in Brooklyn, New York, the daughter of Katherine Stahler and John B. Murphy. After she married in 1905, she began using her husband's surname as her stage name; and by 1909 she, as Lillian Wiggins, had gained public attention and favorable reviews for her performance in the theatrical production Beauty Spot By early 1913, she was a leading actress at Pathé's West Coast studio in Edendale, Los Angeles, where she starred in Western films. Pathé transferred Wiggins a few months later to its East Coast studio in Jersey City, New Jersey, and then in October 1913 to its new Southern studio in St. Augustine, Florida. In March 1914, Pathé once again relocated her, dispatching her to Europe, where she worked at the company's Paris studio before moving to London. There she made films first for British and Colonial Kinematography Company and then for Motograph Film Company. Wiggins returned to the United States in September 1914 and the next year started performing in films for Deer Film Company. Following the dissolution of her first marriage, she married again in 1918. She, however, elected not to use her second husband's surname professionally; instead, she adopted the new stage name Lillian Worth, which is how she continued to be credited until 1937. Lillian Worth was married twice. On May 3, 1905, she married Benjamin Platt Wiggins in Brooklyn, New York. The couple separated after a couple of years, and she filed for divorce in Reno, Nevada in 1911, although on that occasion she did not obtain the divorce. She filed again in Los Angeles, California, and was finally granted a divorce in 1914. She then married Erville Alderson, an American actor, on January 14, 1918, in Sydney, Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia. That marriage too ended in divorce in 1925. Worth died at age 67 in Los Angeles, California, on February 23, 1952. In death records from that time, she is identified as Lillian Alderson despite the fact that she had divorced Erville Alderson 27 years earlier. Her gravesite is located at Hollywood Forever Cemetery in Los Angeles.
Known For
A Traveler's Aid worker who delights in solving people's problems gets mixed up with gangsters.
Stranded
A blue-collar worker on New York's depressed waterfront finds his life changed after he saves a woman attempting suicide.
The Docks of New York
Ellen Neal, a young and inexperienced maid, becomes romantically involved with her employers son which causes various complications. The head butler also has an infatuation for the young girl but his intentions are not that good.
Private Number
Director William C. McGann's 1935 film stars Gloria Stuart and Ross Alexander as a young couple in love who face economic woes once they're wed.
Maybe It's Love
In Victorian England, Florence Nightingale's heroic measures slowly change the attitude towards nurses when it was considered a disreputable profession.
The White Angel
Lee Crush, an out-of-work cowhand, gets into a fight with Bull Dozier and knocks him through a railing. Thinking he has killed the man, Lee takes to his heels and finds work on the Shawn ranch. Lee prevents Clem Allen from swindling the Widow Shawn and falls in love with her daughter, Mary.
Rustlers' Ranch
The friendship of two working stiff railroad engineers is put to the test when one falls for the other’s wife.
Other Men's Women
"Chick" Thompson is a puppet-master in a traveling carnival whose wife dies in childbirth and leaves him with an infant son he names "Poochy." His father-in-law and the baby's grandfather sues him for custody of the baby and Chick takes his son and hides out for a couple of years. He joins his former assistants, Daisy and "Fingers", in a circus act only to find that the persistent grandfather is still on his trail.
Carnival
Leontine Maddern is a self-centered, unscrupulous actress, while her twin sister Leona is a serious and compassionate artist. Because of a scandal in which Leontine was involved, Leona uses her mother's maiden name of Rosalie Byrnes. Rosalie meets and falls in love with Lt. Gerald Cromwell and after they marry, Cromwell is sent overseas. His family, desiring that Gerald marry wealth, approaches Leontine and, mistaking her for Rosalie, offers to buy her off, and she accepts.
The Shadow of Rosalie Byrnes
After Tarzan's estate is destroyed by Arabs Jane is sold into slavery by a man posing as a friendly scientist. Tarzan develops amnesia after a blow to the head. When he recovers his memory (from a later blow) he defeats the villain, recovers the fabulous jewels of Opar, and rescues Jane.
Tarzan the Tiger
A silent comedy set in an actor's boardinghouse. Some plot points are seemingly inspired by the Barrymore dynasty.
Upstream
An outlaw with a Heart of Gold sacrificing his own life for the happiness of two young people in love.
Stairs of Sand
An aggressive agent turns a hotel porter into an overnight sensation.
Stars Over Broadway
Heyst, a hermit on his own tropical island, plays unwilling host to red-headed stowaway Alma. Danger looms...
Dangerous Paradise
A dying Jack makes Bob and Flash promise not to tell his sister that he was an outlaw. When Bob confronts Flash with his muffler found at the stage holdup, Flash tells Mary that Bob killed her brother. Believing he can now marry Mary, he plans one more robbery. But the jealous Tiana overhears and runs for the Sheriff.
The Fighting Sheriff
After graduating from college, rich girl Margery Carr decides to do some good in the world. Much to the chagrin of her father, she decides to open an office to help derelicts. For her secretary, she picks an ex-gangster named Bubbs out of the throng.
The Foolish Age
Tarzan spurns the love of La, Queen of Opar. When he isn't trying to keep the Bolshevik Rokoff and Clayton (pretender to the Greystoke estate) from reaching Opar, he is attacked simultaneously by two lions, dropped into a pit when a volcano splits the ground, nearly sacrificed by sun worshipers, and so on.
The Adventures of Tarzan
Georgiana Chadbourne is a young widow. Her dead husband was such a straight arrow that it bored her, and after a proper enough mourning period, she goes out in search of adventure. She gets in trouble for picking flowers in Central Park, but is rescued by Jack Garrison, who she mistakes for an artistic, bohemian type of character.
In Search of a Sinner
Owner of a fashionable gambling den John De Forrest seeks out wealthy people and lures them to his gambling den with the help of Lil, a beautiful but heartless blonde once there they trick the moneyed suckers into losing their fortunes. When the joint is raided and a policeman accidently killed the pair take it on the lam and head towards very different destinies.
Her Atonement
To escape a loathsome marriage to the king of a neighboring principality, Princess Isabel flees her kingdom for England, where she is rescued by Lord Anthony Conway. His friends are distressed by his gay escapades, and they rebel when he encourages them to entertain the princess, assuming her to be an actress whom she strongly resembles. Returning to her country with the Englishman, she realizes that she must marry the neighboring king to save her country.