Kathryn Osterman

Kathryn Osterman (May 5, 1883 – August 29, 1956) was an American actress who worked across vaudeville, stage touring productions, and silent film. Born in Toledo, Ohio, she was one of six daughters of M. D. Osterman and Margarete O'Connor Osterman. The family had a strong theatrical presence; her sisters Lillian Osterman and Anna Belmont were also actresses.

Osterman's stage career spanned several decades and consisted largely of touring company appearances. Her credits included What Happened to Jones (1897), Miss Petticoats (1903), Piff, Paff, Pouf (1905), The Girl Who Looks Like Me (1907), The Night of the Play (1908–1909), and The Girl in the Taxi. In 1912 she appeared on Broadway in Modest Suzanne. She also performed in vaudeville throughout her career. In a 1915 piece she wrote for Green Book magazine, Osterman reflected on the cumulative nature of her stage experience, noting that each season had revealed how much she had yet to learn.

Her screen work ran parallel to her stage career. She appeared in at least fourteen short silent films for the American Mutoscope and Biograph Co., among them The Art of Making Up (1900), Strictly Fresh Eggs (1901), A Search for Evidence (1903), The Unfaithful Wife (1903), Making a Welsh Rabbit (1903), The Widow (1903), The Rose (1903), The Girl at the Window (1903), Lucky Kitten (1903), Chicks to Order (1903), In My Lady's Boudoir (1903), He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not (1903), Sweets for the Sweet (1903), and The Lost Child (1904). In 1915 she joined the World Comedy Stars Film Corporation, where she made silent comedy shorts including Housekeeping Under Cover and The Bludgeon.

Osterman was involved in two notable legal matters. In 1901 she sued a tobacco company for using her likeness in a print advertisement without her permission. Two years later, actress Josephine Victor brought a lawsuit against Osterman and her husband stemming from a casting dispute.

In 1898 Osterman married theatrical manager Jacob J. Rosenthal. Their son, actor Jack Osterman (1902–1939), was her only child, and she also helped raise her granddaughter, Kathryn Jacqueline Osterman. Rosenthal died in 1923, and Jack Osterman died of pneumonia in 1939. Kathryn Osterman died on August 29, 1956, in New York City, at the age of 73.