Edna Luby

Edna Luby (October 12, 1884 – October 1, 1928) was an American actress, comedian, and vaudeville performer who appeared on Broadway between 1902 and 1907 and later worked in silent film. Born in New York City to Louis and Emma Luby, she was the niece of Sigmund Lubin, a pioneer film producer. Her father worked as an optician. The family relocated to London, England, when Luby was young, and it was there that she first drew notice by mimicking her classmates. Her mother encouraged her developing interest in the theatre, arranging elocution instruction from Geneviève Ward, an American-born British actress, beginning when Luby was ten years old.

By 1900 Luby had returned to New York, where she made her professional stage debut at the Garden Theatre, stepping in as a stand-in for actress May Buckley in Hearts Are Trumps during its February-to-May run. The production was a four-act melodrama written by Cecil Raleigh, produced by Charles Frohman, and also featured a young Cecil B. De Mille in an early Broadway appearance. In late 1902 Luby succeeded Jessie Busley in the role of Estelle in The Two Schools at the Madison Square Theatre, where she was well received. In December 1903 she played Greta opposite Fritzi Scheff in Babette at the Broadway Theatre, a credit that was followed by a road tour of the same production.

In May 1907 Luby joined the cast of A Parisian Model, the Anna Held musical comedy then running at the Broadway Theatre. Later that year she appeared in the original Ziegfeld Follies of 1907, taking on the roles of Miss Mimique and Miss Edna Might. Alongside her stage work, Luby performed regularly in vaudeville as a celebrity impersonator at venues associated with Tony Pastor, Keith and Proctor, and Percy G. Williams.

Between 1910 and 1916 Luby appeared in at least four silent films. Her final screen credit was The Immortal Flame, a five-reel melodrama written and produced by Ivan Abramson that starred Maude Fealy. After marrying Samuel Thor, a pharmacist, Luby left the stage and settled in Great Neck, Long Island. She died following an extended illness at Montefiore Hospital in the Bronx, New York, less than two weeks before her forty-fourth birthday, and is buried at Mount Zion Cemetery in New York City.