Pearl Sindelar

Pearl Evelyn Sindelar, born Pearl Evelyn Tinker on February 5, 1881, in Virginia City, Nevada, was an American actress whose career spanned vaudeville, silent film, and Broadway. She died on July 9, 1958, in Glendale, California.

Sindelar was the daughter of William Wallace Tinker, a miner, and Mollie McCarty Tinker, a performer who worked under the stage name "Mae Evelynne." Her maternal grandfather was John Templeton McCarty, a lawyer and adventurer. Following her parents' divorce in 1885, Sindelar was raised by her mother. She attended Snell Seminary in Oakland, California for a brief period before joining her mother in vaudeville, performing in child roles under the name "Pearl Evelynne." She married actor and artist Charles Sindelar in 1902.

Sindelar's stage career included a leading role in the musical The Girl in the Taxi in 1910. She appeared in the stage production Potash and Perlmutter in 1914 and was active in union organizing within the New York theatre community, participating in the Actors' Equity strike of 1919. She also composed an unpublished memoir documenting that strike. Her Broadway appearances ran from 1922 to 1925 and included Family Failing, the play The Wild Duck, and the play Hospitality.

Concurrent with her stage work, Sindelar built a substantial silent film career. Her screen credits include Cleopatra (1912), numerous short films produced in 1913 and 1914, Detective Craig's Coup (1914), The Glimpses of the Moon (1923), Pied Piper Malone (1923), Peter Stuyvesant (1924), A Made-to-Order Hero (1927), and The Four-Footed Ranger (1928).

Following the conclusion of her performing career, Sindelar became involved in the "I AM" movement, a spiritual organization led by Guy Ballard and his wife Edna Anne Wheeler Ballard. She and her husband joined Ballard's congregation in Los Angeles, where they taught classes on subjects including "divine ascension." Sindelar also delivered the eulogy at the funeral of film director Lois Weber. She and Charles Sindelar were subsequently charged with mail fraud in connection with the church's activities, along with other church leaders, but were acquitted in January 1941 and resigned their church positions shortly thereafter. Charles Sindelar died in 1947, leaving Pearl a widow. She died in Glendale, California in 1958.