Alma Francis

Alma Lenore Francis (October 15, 1890 – August 21, 1968) was an American dancer, singer, and stage actress born in Portland, Oregon, to William Francis, a mining engineer from Chicago who founded the St. Johns Lumber Company in Portland, and Alma Ray Francis (née Wilson). Both her maternal and paternal lines descended from Scottish pioneers. Francis received her education at St. Helens Hall in Portland, then pursued musical training in San Francisco, studying piano under Emlyn Lewys and operatic voice with Abbie Carrington.

Francis launched her theatrical career on Broadway in the chorus line of a Lulu Glaser production before securing her first substantial role as Serpolette Pochet in the original 1911 production of The Pink Lady. Later that same year, in December 1911, she performed the supporting role of Angele in a Washington, D.C., production of the same show. Her Broadway work continued with Glen MacDonough's 1912 musical Eva, produced by A. L. Erlanger, followed by the 1913 musical comedy The Little Cafe. A review of her performance in The Little Cafe, published in the Brooklyn Eagle, was critical, with the reviewer noting that the kindest interpretation was that Francis had been suffering from severe stage fright. She also appeared on Broadway in the play The Lady during this period.

In 1917, Francis inherited a substantial fortune from a distant relative in California and used the funds to invest in a fruit ranch in Santa Ana. She married film actor Robert Gordon in March 1919 in Los Angeles, a union reported in the Los Angeles Times the following April. Later that year, in December 1919, she was among the first stage actresses in the United States to gain the right to vote. In the spring of 1920, she performed as a dancer at the Waldorf–Astoria for the Metropolitan Opera Club. In June 1922, she appeared on radio in San Francisco, performing songs from the musical So Long Letty.

Francis subsequently pursued a brief career in Hollywood under contract with Fox Film Corporation, appearing in several silent films. Among them were the 1924 horror film The Wolf Man, in which she starred opposite John Gilbert and Norma Shearer, and Love Letters (1924), in which she co-starred with Shirley Mason. Following her role in Love Letters, Fox loaned her out to appear in a stage production of The Mission Play in Alhambra, California, where she performed for three years under directors John S. McGroarty and Tyrone Power Sr.

In the late 1920s through the early 1930s, Francis toured the opera circuit in Italy, performing as lead soprano in productions of La bohème, Faust, Madama Butterfly, and Pagliacci. She returned to the United States in 1934 and subsequently married Nelson Kenneth Fields, a United States Forest Service ranger. The couple resided on a berry farm west of Sandy, Oregon. Francis spent her later years teaching singing in Portland and in her private home studio, which some locals referred to as "The Little Milan." She was a member of several musical organizations, including the Oregon Music Teachers Association, Progressive Music Teachers, and the Mozart Club, and served as president of the Sandy Music Club for the Oregon Federation of Music Clubs.

Francis died on August 21, 1968, at the age of 77. Her funeral service was held on August 24, 1968, at Bateman Funeral Parlor in Gresham, Oregon, and she is interred at Lone Fir Cemetery.