Lottie Briscoe

Lottie Briscoe (April 19, 1883 – March 21, 1950) was an American actress whose career spanned the legitimate stage, vaudeville, and silent film. Born in St. Louis, Missouri to Mr. and Mrs. T. D. Briscoe, she came from a theatrically connected family; her father may have had involvement in theatre work, her mother was known within the theatre community as a stage mother, and her sister, Olive Helen Briscoe, maintained a lengthy career in vaudeville as a singer and comedian.

Briscoe's stage career began at the age of four, and by nine she was touring in the role of Editha in Gus Thomas' adaptation of Frances Burnett's children's story Editha's Burglar. In June 1895, at twelve years old, she was engaged at the Fifth Avenue Theatre in New York to play Julian Esmond in the Russ Whytal melodrama For Fair Virginia, but was removed from the production after two performances when the mayor's office ruled the summer heat unsuitable for a child under sixteen to be working in. She later returned to the role of Julian Esmond for a road tour of For Fair Virginia that continued into the spring of 1897. That October, Briscoe appeared on Broadway at the Fifth Avenue Theatre as Essie in the American debut of George Bernard Shaw's The Devil's Disciple, performed with Richard Mansfield's company. In 1899 she toured with Walter E. Perkins in Henry A. Du Souchet's farce-comedy My Friend from India, playing the role of Gertie.

During the 1900–1901 season, Briscoe took on the role of Claude, a sickly boy, in a national tour of Two Little Vagrants, Charles Klein's adaptation of the Pierre Decourcelle melodrama Les Deux Gosses. The following season she began an extended tour opposite Paul Gilmore in Joseph Arthur's pastoral melodrama Lost River, playing the role of Asa. In 1905 she appeared in the Harry McRae Webster military drama Lieutenant Dick, U.S.A., playing Machita to Webster's Sergeant Jones. By that point, Briscoe and Webster had been married for two years.

Around 1909, Briscoe and Harry McRae Webster joined Essanay Studios in Chicago, marking her entry into motion pictures. At least two of her films from this period survive: the one-reelers The Sophomore's Romance and A Sin Unpardonable, both from January 1911. In June of that year she appeared in Essanay's His Friend's Wife, playing Zenia in a production notable for marking Francis X. Bushman's film debut. Her most prominent film work came during her years at Lubin Studios, where she frequently appeared alongside actor-director Arthur V. Johnson. Their most ambitious collaboration was The Belovéd Adventurer (1914), a fifteen-episode serial written by Emmett Campbell Hall. Following Johnson's death in January 1916, shortly after the release of their film The Lost Rose, based on a story by Maie B. Hovey, Briscoe stepped away from film. She returned briefly in 1918 to play Gertie Farish in The House of Mirth, then did not continue in film. In total, Briscoe appeared in over 94 motion pictures.

In 1919 Briscoe transitioned to vaudeville, taking on the title role in George Kelly's domestic comedy Mrs. Wellington's Surprise for an extended run. That October she was among the performers who appeared at the Manhattan Opera House at a benefit for the Chelsea Memorial Association, which was raising funds for the Chelsea Park Memorial honoring local residents who died during the First World War. In February 1922 she signed to appear in a leading role alongside William Faversham in The Squaw Man. At some subsequent point, serious health issues left Briscoe homebound for the rest of her life.

Her first husband, Harry McRae Webster, became a motion picture director before being sued in the early 1920s by a film studio over the unauthorized use of nude models in one of his productions. Her second husband, Harry Mountford, served for many years as executive secretary of the White Rats actors union. Briscoe died on March 21, 1950, in New York. Mountford died on June 5, 1950. Their papers, spanning 1871 to 1950, are held by the Billy Rose Theatre Division of the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts.