Anna Laughlin

Anna Laughlin (October 11, 1883 – April 5, 1937) was an American actress born in Sacramento, California, who built her career across Broadway, vaudeville, and silent film. She began performing as a child elocutionist before moving into vaudeville and touring companies, eventually making her way to New York as a young teenager.

Laughlin's Broadway career spanned from 1900 to 1914, with her first credited appearance in the musical The Belle of Bohemia in 1900. In 1902, at age 19, she became the first actress to portray Dorothy Gale, taking on the role in a musical production of The Wizard of Oz that originated in Chicago and continued on Broadway through 1904. Her subsequent stage credits included His Majesty's Car, The Top o' th' World, and Mama's Baby Boy, as well as the revue The New Yorkers. She also presented a solo variety show in 1909. In 1914, she appeared in When Claudia Smiles, and following the death of her husband she returned to Broadway in 1925 in The Fall Guy.

In 1904, Laughlin married Dwight "Van" Monroe, a jeweler born in 1874, who died in 1921. The couple had a daughter, Lucy Monroe, who went on to become a noted singer.

Between 1913 and 1915, Laughlin appeared in more than a dozen silent films, among them The Rebellious Pupil (1913), Northern Lights (1914), The Greyhound (1914), The Amazing Mr. Fellman (1915), What Happened to Father (1915), Crooky Scruggs (1915), and The Crown Prince's Double (1916). She died on April 5, 1937, in New York, by suicide from gas poisoning, at the age of 53. In 2011, her personal copy of The Wizard of Oz was auctioned on eBay.