Blanche Friderici

Blanche L. Friderici (January 21, 1878 – December 23, 1933) was an American stage and film actress born in Brooklyn, New York, to William E. Friderici and Rosetta Elizabeth Freeman Friderici. She is sometimes credited in film and stage records under the alternate spelling Blanche Frederici.

Friderici's path to performance was unconventional. Her original ambition was to teach acting and elocution rather than to perform herself, but deteriorating eyesight eventually made reading impossible and redirected her toward the stage. An admirer of her recitals brought her to the attention of impresario David Belasco, who cast her in The Darling of the Gods, marking the beginning of her professional acting career.

Between 1914 and 1927, Friderici appeared in nine Broadway productions. Her credits include the musical The Canary, the plays Julie, Rain, Processional, and The Green Beetle, as well as a production of 39 East in 1919. In Rain she played the role of Mrs. Davidson.

Friderici also built a substantial screen career, appearing in sixty films between 1920 and 1934. Her film debut came in the 1920 adaptation of 39 East, in which she played Miss McMasters. She appeared in the 1931 Barbara Stanwyck and Clark Gable film Night Nurse, portraying a housekeeper too frightened to intervene while two children faced a murder attempt. In 1933 she played a chaperone in Flying Down to Rio, and her final screen role was as a motel owner's wife in It Happened One Night (1934).

In 1925, Friderici married Donald Campbell, a stage manager. She died on December 23, 1933, in Visalia, California, at the age of 55, from a heart attack suffered while traveling to a Christmas service at General Grant National Park.