From Wikipedia
Pearl Fay White (March 4, 1889 – August 4, 1938) was an
American stage and film actress. White began her career on the stage at the age
of six, and later moved on to silent films appearing in a number of popular
serials.
Dubbed the "Queen of the serials", White was noted
for doing the majority of her own stunts in several film serials, most notably
in The Perils of Pauline.
In 1910, White was offered a role by Pathé Frères in The
Girl From Arizona, the French company's first American film produced at their
new studio in Bound Brook, New Jersey. She then worked at Lubin Studios in 1911
and several other of the independents, until the Crystal Film Company in
Manhattan gave her top billing in a number of slapstick comedy shorts from 1912
to 1914. White then took a vacation in Europe. Upon her return, she signed with
Eclectic Film Company, a subsidiary of Pathé in 1914.
Pathé director Louis J. Gasnier offered her the starring
role in film serial The Perils of Pauline.
By 1919, White had grown tired of film serials and signed
with Fox Film Corporation with the ambition to appear in dramatic roles. Over
the next two years, White appeared in ten drama films for Fox but her
popularity had begun to wane.
Pearl White's place in film history is important in both the
evolution of cinema genres and the role of women. Like many silent film actors,
many of White's films are now considered lost. The Perils of Pauline is only
known to exist in a reduced nine-reel version released in Europe in 1916, but
The Exploits of Elaine survives and was selected for preservation in the United
States National Film Registry. All of her films were made at East Coast studios
as White reportedly never visited Hollywood.
For her contribution to the motion picture industry, Pearl
White has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6838 Hollywood Blvd.
The 1947 Paramount Pictures film The Perils of Pauline,
starring Betty Hutton, is a fictionalized biography of Pearl White.
