Marguerite Snow

Marguerite Snow (September 9, 1889 – February 17, 1958) was an American actress who worked in both stage and silent film. Born in Salt Lake City, Utah, she was the daughter of Billy Snow, a comedian and minstrel performer. The family resided in Savannah, Georgia, before her father's death prompted her mother, whose maiden name was Lutz, to relocate the household to Denver, Colorado. There Snow attended Loretta Heights Academy, participated in local summer stock productions, and pursued formal acting training.

Snow began performing at a young age, taking on various roles as a child, though her professional stage career started in earnest at sixteen. Her first significant engagement came on February 11, 1907, when she appeared with James O'Neill in a revival of The Count of Monte Cristo at the Crawford Theatre in Wichita, Kansas. She subsequently performed in The College Widow and Mrs. Temple's Telegram, portrayed Elsa in The Devil, and served as leading lady of the stock company at the Bijou Theater in Wheeling, where she took on ten distinct roles. Her Broadway career spanned 1908 to 1910 and included appearances in The Devil and The Other Fellow.

Beginning in 1911, Snow transitioned into silent films, working with the Kinemacolor Company, the Thanhouser Film Company in New Rochelle, New York, and Metro Pictures before that studio became MGM. Early screen credits from 1911 include The Moth, The Buddhist Priestess, and Baseball and Bloomers. Her subsequent filmography encompassed A Niagara Honeymoon (1912), The Caged Bird (1913), The Silent Voice (1915), A Corner in Cotton (1916), Broadway Jones (1917), The Veiled Woman (1922), and Kit Carson Over the Great Divide (1925). In Broadway Jones, the first Artcraft photoplay produced by George M. Cohan, Snow played the leading role of a stenographer at the Jones gun factory. She did not appear in any films after the introduction of sound to the medium. In her earliest film work she was billed as Margaret Snow.

Snow married twice. In January 1913 she wed Jens Bosen, a director who worked under the professional name James Cruze and was affiliated with Famous Players–Lasky. The couple had one daughter, Julie Jane. During divorce proceedings in October 1923, Snow testified that Cruze had beaten her on multiple occasions, including a 1921 incident at a party in which a dispute over driving a friend home ended with Cruze striking Snow about the face and body, knocking her to the floor and dislodging a tooth. Cruze subsequently married silent film actress Betty Compson. On December 25, 1925, Snow married film comedian Neely Edwards, who later became master of ceremonies for a local production of The Drunkard, a play that ran continuously in Hollywood, California, from 1933 through the late 1950s.

In 1933, Snow's daughter Julie Jane received nine pieces of property from her father, James Cruze, at a time when he feared he might die of a heart ailment. The properties were located in Flintridge and La Cañada, California, and generated approximately $150,000 in income. Julie Jane shared a portion of those proceeds with her mother, who was destitute and living in a trailer at the time. In October 1938, Julie Jane filed a cross complaint to block a suit by Cruze seeking to reclaim the property, stating that he had originally transferred it to avoid losing it to creditors.

Snow underwent a kidney operation in 1957, and complications from that procedure led to her death on February 17, 1958, at the Motion Picture Country Home in Los Angeles, California. She was 68 years old. Funeral arrangements were handled by Forest Lawn Memorial Park.