Elise Bartlett

Elise Bartlett, born Elise Bartlett Porter on October 5, 1897, in Union City, Tennessee, was an American stage and film actress whose Broadway career spanned from 1919 to 1932. She died on May 23, 1947, in Daytona Beach, Florida, from alcoholism.

Bartlett grew up in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in the household of her parents, M. Madison Russell Porter and Ella B. Porter, alongside an African-American house servant named Sarah Garnell. Her father was a phosphate manufacturer and member of the East India Company who traveled extensively. Her maternal grandmother was Ella S. Bartlett. Bartlett was the only daughter of her parents and was born into a wealthy, aristocratic family. She received her education at a convent in Paris and returned to the United States in May 1914. For her stage career, she dropped her surname of Porter and used only the first two parts of her full name. Outside of performing, she became proficient in German, French, and Spanish in addition to English, and devoted considerable time to studying, as well as training in singing, fencing, and dancing.

Among her earliest reported stage credits were productions of Here Comes The Bride and The Gipsy Trail in May 1918. She appeared alongside Leo Carrillo in a production of The Bad Man. Her Broadway credits included The Adding Machine, Peer Gynt, Houses of Sand, First is Last, and Scrambled Wives, among other productions. She also appeared in stage productions including So To Bed, Lilliom, Children of the Moon, and Pagan Lady. In May 1930, she presided over a meeting of notable stage performers organized to increase support for the Civic Repertory Theater. Prior to establishing herself in New York, Bartlett lived in California for six years and appeared in 13 plays during that period.

In addition to her stage work, Bartlett appeared in several feature films. Her film credits include The Con in Economy (1919), The Angel of Broadway (1927), A Harp in Hock (1927), Show Boat (1929), Oh Sailor Behave (1930), and The Hot Heiress (1931). Between approximately 1934 and 1936, she took a hiatus of around two years from the stage, during which she became engaged with the cultivation of tung trees while visiting the family's summer residence in Florida. She stated in 1936 that she planned to return for an engagement in Chicago and intended to continue acting for another five years.

Bartlett's first marriage was to actor Joseph Schildkraut. The two met when Bartlett approached Schildkraut in his dressing room to audition for the role of Solveig in one of his productions. They married on April 2, 1922, at Philadelphia City Hall in the presence of their parents, following Schildkraut's engagement in Liliom, after which the couple traveled to Europe. Upon marrying, Bartlett lost her American citizenship, which was restored by Federal Court in 1926. Reports of a pending divorce surfaced in 1926, with Bartlett alleging that Schildkraut had been critical of her acting abilities after their marriage and had subjected her to physical mistreatment. She filed for divorce in Chicago in 1925 and was ultimately awarded a divorce on June 9, 1930, through an out-of-court agreement in which Schildkraut was required to pay $250 in weekly alimony and divide $20,000 worth of community property.

In December 1931, Bartlett announced her engagement to producer and publisher Horace Liveright, who had been managing her career and whom she had known for eight years. The marriage lasted only four months before the couple filed for divorce. Her final marriage was to Michel Picard, manager of the Longshore Beach and Country Club, in a ceremony performed by Justice of the Peace John Carpenter with a single witness. Picard had previously been married to Leona Lane, from whom he was divorced in 1930. Bartlett stated that she had known Picard for ten years prior to their marriage.