Louise Owen

Louise Alva Owen McConville (February 1, 1895 – November 17, 1973) was an American actress who worked on Broadway and in silent films during the 1910s. She was born in New York City to Alva Owen, a physician, and Dorothy Bessenger Owen, who was born in Canada. Her father died in 1897 after being kicked by a horse, leaving her mother a widow. By 1910, Owen was already working as an actress at age 15, at which time she and her widowed mother were living with her maternal grandparents, who had been born in Germany.

Owen's Broadway career spanned from 1911 to 1917 and included four productions. She appeared in the musical The Wife Hunters in 1911, followed by Hokey-Pokey/Bunty, Bulls, and Strings in 1912 and The Honeymoon Express in 1913. Her final Broadway credit was Cheer Up, which ran from 1917 into 1918.

Alongside her stage work, Owen appeared in dozens of silent short films between 1914 and 1916, the majority of which were comedies produced for Vogue Films. Her film credits from that period include The Boob and the Baker (1915) and several 1916 titles: The Skating Rink, She Wasn't That Kind of a Girl, Igorrotes, Crocodiles and a Hat Box, Heaven Will Protect a Woiking Goil, The Lion Hearted Chief, Bungling Bill, Detective, Bungling Bill's Dream, and A Fool and His Dream. In 1916, the trade publication Motography described her as an athletic type who preferred long walks in the foothills to domestic pastimes.

Owen was also known as a visual artist. In the 1930s she wrote lyrics for songs featured in a radio musical drama titled The Song of Araby. During World War II, she served on the Eagle Rock gasoline rationing board.

In 1917, Owen married writer Bernard McConville. The couple had three children: Patricia, Sheila, and Lee Bernard Jr. Her daughter Sheila died in 1950, and her husband died in 1961. Owen died on November 17, 1973, in Los Angeles at the age of 78.